Saturday 5 November 2011

Too late to teach an old dog new tweecks…..


I maybe old enough to remember when a Sony cassette Walkman (or in my case a £15 knock off version from Charlotte Street market) was the must have gadget (ah the happy time spent rewinding the tape by hand using a pen to save on the battery to listen to Whitesnake’s ‘Still of the night’ one more time….”oh baby, neeeeed you closer…”) and was the height of technological advancement, but I have not let the technological grass grow under my feet. As many of my flesh and blood friends will tell you, I’m kinda in love with my iPhone (if only that earphone socket were bigger) and it is rarely out of my sight, or out of my hand, and I am a big user of Facebook, taking the micky out of my virtual friends, or indeed those that are actually sat next to me in the pub.

However, for a long, long time I have resisted the lure of Twitter, until now…..

I finally gave in after Facebook changed it’s format for what seemed the tenth time in a month, and the grumpy 40 year old man in me (that’s me by the way, there isn’t an actual 40 year old man in me, not that I’m judging) screamed, enough, and I decided to give Twitter a go.

At first I didn’t get it, lot’s of people commenting on their own lives, rather than actually living them, and I also didn’t understand how it worked. However, thanks to a friend, I shall call her Twoda “tweet you must” I got to grips with the software, and slowly began ‘following’ people, and being ‘followed’ myself (legalised stalking really, which isn’t as much fun as the illegal kind).

People that know me, will tell you I am a very cynical, and often grumpy, piss taking bastard, and I can easily take the piss out of myself for using this narcissistic medium, and see the foolishness of using Twitter, but I have to confess, I’m enjoying it (which speaks volumes). There’s a lot of would be writers that use Twitter, with great tips on writing, and I get up to the minute news updates, sport gossip, and most cool of all Mr Barlow sends me pictures of himself before he goes on stage for X-Factor…..really he does. Also as a non-medic working in public health (reckon I would have made a great doctor, maybe with gynaecology as my specialty, you know, something I’d really enjoy getting into) there are a lot of public health doctors out there that I admire, discussing (albeit in summarised form) really important issues that concern my work.

But if I’m honest, Twitter is also another way of me having fun and making an arse of myself, especially on the train home, after an ale or two. Twelve years ago, there was only the drunken text to get me into trouble “I really do love you, leave your husband” or “I’m so horny for you now my nipples hurt” (you know who you are) but now I have Facebook and Twitter to add to the list of ways I can make myself sound like a complete numpty, ain’t technology great?