Flickr and Making Friends Worldwide

PLEASE NOTE that this is not a diary but an attempt to leave writings intended for future social historians in 2525 and beyond. The 2525 is taken from the song by Zager and Evans,,,,

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find…..

　
I am supposed to be recording what life is like in 2011 well mine the last couple of days has been quite international. No I have not been travelling except by e-mail but have been in touch with places truly across the world and time zones. This has been through my interaction on the photo and picture site called Flickr.
At first I just was putting up my artwork with no particular thought in mind that anybody would look at it, rather like this blog. I met somebody in a local town who owned a café and we got talking computer digital art. She mentioned she was on Flickr too and I went to check her out. I saw she was on Groups which I hadn’t realised were there, I’m a bit slow in catching on with Internet sites sometimes. Still trying to understand Twitter and don’t have young people around to help me so have to work it out on my own.

I joined one group and suddenly somebody emailed me and ask me to put up my work on the group they ran. Wow! Somebody looked at my pictures. Now nothing is so good for an artist, amateur or professional, as somebody expressing interest in your work. I joined the group and looked for others that had a similar outlook or interest. Two or three others came in and again asked me to put up on their group. Wow again! One is called The Gallery of Fine Photos. Fine photos, Moi?

Now I started to get people making comments and sometimes I sent back e-mails of thanks. The upshot of this isI seem to have made several new e-mail friends right round the world, New Zealand, USA, Canada and some at home in the UK. When I started talking to them, by e-mail, I had to think, goodness he is just going to bed and she is in the middle of her night and here I am in the middle of my day. I know, millions and millions of people have done this before me but this is what I am doing now. I have had contact world wide before but this is all connected with a subject dear to me, digital art.


World News.
The scandal of the moment is the News of the World newspaper phone hacking scandal. Now the News of the World was, in my younger day, considered a scurrilous scandal rag. My parents would not have been seen dead with it. So when this scandal broke I was not really very surprised. Today the CE of the group, Rebecca Brooks, resigned and I can only hope she was nice to the people on the way up as she might meet or need them on the way down. The paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, is being shot at from every direction, I understand they are looking into his papers in the USA now. That should be interesting. I think with him it could be ‘How the mighty have fallen’. Who knows, he is a very rich.

Obesity Problem Everwhere

PLEASE NOTE that this is not a diary but an attempt to leave writings intended for future social historians in 2525 and beyond. The 2525 is taken from the song by Zager and Evans,,,,

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find…..

I have to address this obesity problem in Britain and in many other parts of the world such as the USA. You may know from previous blogs I fight fat all the time or it goes back on at an alarmingly fast rate. I have lost about 4 stone in the past. Today my husband and I walked into Teignmouth with the dog and stopped to have a cool drink, Yes it's sunny now my holiday is over. Sitting outside a café I looked at the people walking by and had to say there was never a moment when there wasn’t a fat person passing by. What is more many were obese. They strolled by eating ice creams, sat in cafes eating high calorie foods and drinking canned sweet drinks. Don’t get me wrong I am not innocent in all this over eating. I am just as bad as the next although I think I have addressed it a bit more than most of them.

Today there is a news item that 500,000 children are at risk of liver disease due to being overweight. Many will die young from this and things like stroke and diabetes. But also they could get cirrhosis of the liver without alcohol being implicated. Wrong food, no exercise and sitting around with computers and sedentary games is the cause. There does not seem to be any answer to it. The poorer people are the more they eat cheap bad food and the less they exercise.

I wish I could help more but if people are not willing or even interested to listen then there is nothing one can do, only look after self and close loved ones as well as possible.
                                                                      ***
Going to have another go at learning my new graphics tablet later but a rest first. Well… I am 76 and I have walked to Teignmouth (about 3 miles).

Radio in my Pillow, Graphics Tablet

PLEASE NOTE that this is not a diary but an attempt to leave writings intended for future social historians in 2525 and beyond. The 2525 is taken from the song by Zager and Evans,,,,

In the year 2525

If man is still alive

If woman can survive

They may find….. 

Most nights, or even every night, I listen to my radio via ear phones under my pillow. You can buy a pillow already set up with loud speakers in it but I started to make my own some years ago. Mostly I listen to BBC Five Live, radio Four, Radio Four Extra and World Service. I learn so much from the last one on that list, it makes me realise how lucky we – I – am in this country. On Radio Four Extra they have a lot of programs from the past, comedies, plays and so on. Listening to a 1980s show a character said something like ‘Dogs used to be man’s best friend, now it seems to be computers’. I laughed, I had been watching my husband sitting in his armchair with his new tablet computer on his lap and a very disconsolate dog eyeing him with a baleful look as if to say ‘that lap is where I should be!’. Best friend be blowed!

Another month of the year gone, it’s the 1st of July today. I woke up to a beautiful bright morning at 6.00 am but soon went back to sleep again. The rest of the day has been a bit more cloudy. I walked to Dawlish again so that’s four times this week. Dog went swimming in the brook in the grounds of the Manor but was frightened by a large German Shepherd dog which was actually a big softy.

Last night I splashed out and have bought a Wacom Graphics pad for my art work on computer. It is an A4 size and something I have wanted for a long time. It is coming in the morning and all I have to do now is learn how to use it.

The pound and a half I put on over my holiday week has gone again. It has been hard to eat very small portions for a while. I need to lose at least half a stone by September ready to wear something nice for my Ruby anniversary.

Yesterday the public workers went on strike and a lot of schools closed. It is a row over pensions. They should be so lucky. My husband is going to have to go on working past retirement age and I have less that half a pension.