Category: Internet

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

Earlier this week, I sprinted through the half a million barrier for pansy hits. When I say sprinted, it’s been more of a gentle stroll, and it’s taken nearly fourteen years to get there. Back in October 2010 when I published In the Beginning, my first ramble, the whole social media-verse was pre-big bang. Faceache and the Tweety Pie were only just taking off, and Instapout and Tik-Tac-Toe-Tok were still forming in the ether.

But things move on as they must – technology has become faster, smarter and more accessible. As a result, we now live in a world of information overload where separating the wheat from the chaff is too much of a faff. For the time-poor in a constant rush, it’s just easier to watch and listen rather than read and think. For many, vlogs and podcasts have become must ‘go-tos’ making instant cyber-celebrities of random nobodies. The fifteen minutes of fame we were all promised have been cropped to fifteen seconds to fit. And for the really attention-deficient, there’s a thin diet of cutesy pet pictures and short videos. And who doesn’t love a thirty second TikTok clip of a couple of hunky plumbers lip-syncing to Kylie while waving their heavy tools about?

So what that traditional blogging is old hat. Half a million hits in fourteen years may be small change to the new cyber-kids on the block, but I shall keep on scribbling my old nonsense, regardless – until I don’t, that is. ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ as they said in the War. Victory will be ours.

Jack on OnlyFans

Only kidding. I doubt anyone would hand over their hard-earned cash to watch me waving my wrinkly old willy about. Though, way back in my pretty-boy days, I was occasionally offered a few farthings for a facial. But that’s another story. So I do wonder why certain internet search terms bring furtive fumblers to pansyland seeking cheap titillation. And what search words might they be? Well – jail bait, rent boys and scally workmen get top billing. Poor sods, I do hope they’re not too deflated by my humdrum random ramblings. Nothing to see here. Move on.  

Spoof and Spam

I remember the days when spoof meant imitate for a laugh and spam was cheap tinned meat of dubious nutritional value popular with students. Now I’m plagued with spoof and spam telling me my PayPal and Amazon accounts have been suspended and warnings of dire consequences. The latest wheeze comes from fake couriers with their ‘pay up or else’ mantra. It’s easy to be taken in. Many of the emails look genuine enough, professionally written and with all the right branding. But some fraudsters are just a little bit thick and couldn’t pull the wool over a trained monkey. Take this one (allegedly) from the Royal Mail, a UK company.

Here’s a clue: on this side of the pond ‘center’ is spelt ‘centre’. Likewise it’s theatre and metre (unless it’s a device for measuring usage). I know some non-Brits don’t get it but there it is. So listen up ‘Royal Mail’ – supposedly of Tucson Arizona of all unlikely places – 0 out of 10 for effort. Must try harder (as my final school report said).

Top of the Pansy Pops 2021

It’s been a queer year all told – locked and unlocked, masks on, masks off, masks on again, thrice jabbed, and a foreign foray thwarted. Unsurprisingly, 2021 pansy posts were a mixed harvest. I kept the memory of a treasured friend alive and ranted on about the unwelcome return of a nasty little word I thought had long been consigned to the dustbin of history. Then there were the lockdown tales keeping the home fires burning, sparkling art from rural Asia Minor and the interviews and reviews that came out of the blue.

2021 was also the year I acquired my very own looney toon stalker, Marsha the Troll, who regularly sends me rambling rants from the other side of the Pond – always incomprehensible, often threatening and sometimes with porn attached. I feel like a celebrity.

Here’s the cream of the crop for 2021 together with two evergreen posts from 2020 and 2014 bringing up the rear.

A Tale of Two Villages

We queued up at the checkout with two bottles of Majestik and a tub of Cadbury’s Celebrations, attracting the curiosity of the shopper ahead of us. She was loading her groceries into a large tartan shopping trolley, her eyes darting quickly between me and Liam as if she had suddenly recognised long lost friends. I…

Forever Young

Last month saw us in London for a very special commemoration. An old friend died suddenly in early 2020 and it would have been his sixtieth birthday on 25th August. We couldn’t let the day go unmarked so we threw him a boozy late lunch in Soho attended by twenty of his nearest and dearest.…

Get the Bloody Jab

We just can’t wait to get back into the theatre – we’ve a glittering chorus of touring musicals queued up – from the modern: Six, Waitress, The Book of Mormon to the classics: Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Sound of Music. Few trades have suffered from COVID more than the performing arts. The only sure…

Queer as Folk

I was bullied from the moment I first flounced through the school gates. Nothing physical, you understand. That would be unseemly at a traditional grammar school with a 400-year-old charter granted by the Virgin Queen. Besides, beatings were reserved for the teachers to dish out. I suppose I hardly helped my cause by being a…

Nothing Beats a Good Story

I don’t get interviewed much these days. Back in my pansies heyday everyone wanted a piece of me; queuing up, they were. But now we’ve settled into county life, I’ve become old dog, old tricks, descending into idyllic rural obscurity. But then up popped a request from Nicola MacCameron, a voiceover artist at Mic And…

A Final Farewell

We can’t complain. Village life is calm and cuddly. But when the easing of lockdown let us travel further afield for the first time in around seven months, we packed our bags and were off like a shot. The bright lights of London beckoned and not even lousy weather could dampen our spirits. Travelling across…

Bring Out Your Dead

Before the miracle of modern medicine and universal healthcare, life for most was plagued by illness or the fear of it. People croaked in their beds from mundane diseases that today we pop a pill for. Many a cottage stairwell was too narrow for a coffin so some featured a trap door between floors called…

And For My Next Trick

We’re currently living next to a building site. A local developer is chucking up a few more bungalows, like the world really needs a few more bungalows – affordable housing for the cash-strapped, yes, more well-appointed dwellings with double garages for the well-heeled, no. It’s a lost cause and we’re resigned to it. While a…

Jack in the Bottle

That flicker of light at the end of the lockdown tunnel is getting brighter. Our days in the sun (or beer garden) will soon return. Meanwhile, we continue to do what we can to stay safe and sane. I hear sales of jigsaws have gone off like a rocket. It’s not the sport for us.…

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

A light dusting of the fluffy white stuff generally brings the entire nation to a shuddering halt and a lot of huffing and puffing over the airwaves. But, as we’re already under house arrest, this year’s avalanche has made little difference to our daily lives – except for one thing. Our Sainsbury’s supermarket delivery was…

RIP, Lindsay de Feliz, the Saucepans Lady

I was badly shaken and much stirred to hear of the murder of fellow author, Lindsay de Feliz in December. Among her many qualities, Lindsay was very social media savvy and developed an impressive following. Her evergreen blog chronicled the many ups and considerable downs of her fascinating life in the Dominican Republic with her…

Oi Speak Narrfuk Oi Do

Anyone living on these damp little islands and anyone who visits them knows that Britain is a nation of a thousand and one accents and dialects. Homespun and imported lingo twists and turns through town and county. We may live in a global village and in a mass media world where ‘Globalish’ (the cut-down version…

Wishing everyone a healthier, safer 2022 and a new normal more like the old.

Tweety Porn

As we all know, Twitter is the social media platform of choice for ranters of every persuasion – from Tango’d ex-presidents to assorted nerds, nutters, non-entities and ne’er-do-wells. We now live in a society where public discourse is reduced to 240 characters or less and everyone’s opinion, no matter how stupid, is of equal value. Let the Twitter storm commence.

Twitter is also awash with explicit porn, from cheeky tweets from sex workers flogging their assets on OnlyFans – though maybe not for much longer – to swingers and show-offs looking for hook-ups or titillation. It’s paradise for voyeurs and exhibitionists alike and must have been quite handy during lockdown. I only tweet for business, but hardly a week goes by when I’m not followed by someone from God knows where waving his willy at me like it’s a calling card. Obviously, I try hard not to look.

In Need of Good Sex?

On top of the almost daily spam calls and emails supposedly from Amazon Prime, the taxman (or woman), my internet provider, various banks, blah, blah, yawn, yawn, I also get pestered by Faceache friend requests from scantily clad, pouting ladies offering me a really sexy time. Here’s one…

join the Snapchat group that I have founded. in the Snapchat group There are many lonely women who need a date … so if you want to join the group, it’s FREE without spending any money. click here

And here’s another enticement…

Hello. Hello. I started a WhatsApp group for sex. Here’s to many single girls who need good sex. You can participate here without spending money. Can you love a girl like you here, looking for a partner? Are you interested?? Join a group and find your date??…

Barking up the wrong tree springs to mind. Can this old dog learn new tricks? Not a chance. I know the theory but I’m a bit short on the practicals. In any case, the second invitation – badly machine-translated from Russian or whatever – suggests I’m a girl looking for some girl-on-girl action. So not just the wrong tree but the wrong forest too.

There won’t be a lovely lady at the end of the line, just some sweaty mafioso ripping off the sad and the lonely. And what are the ‘names’ of my sexy new friends? Brünhilde Schultze Schierokauer and McCrackeno Khava. You couldn’t make it up, except, of course, it was.

Image courtesy of Consumer Affairs.

Scammers, Spammers, Tricksters and Trolls

Hardly a week goes by when we don’t get a call telling us we’re about to get done for tax fraud or threatening to cut off our internet if we don’t pay up. Then there’s the tirade of texts and emails about dodgy activity on accounts we don’t hold or failed transactions on accounts we do – pay here, pay now. If we didn’t know any better, we’d have sleepless nights fretting the bailiffs might come a-knocking.

Then I started receiving abuse from some loony toon in the States about an image I used in a couple of posts here in Pansyland. The woman claimed the picture was of her, posted without her consent. Except, of course, it isn’t of her. It’s a picture of someone I once knew who died in tragic circumstances. My abuser also alleged that posting her picture made me complicit in a campaign of hate and revenge porn by a former squeeze. Except, of course, the image isn’t remotely saucy. It’s just an old picture from happier times.

It’s hard to unpick my very own little troll’s backstory as her written English is so poor. It’s just a rambling, incoherent rant, really. Anyway, apparently she’s reported me to the ‘sheriff’ (what, of Nottingham?) and threatened to have me arrested by the CIA. I’ll do ‘jail time’ as the Americans call it, if I don’t take the image down. She’s used several channels to have a pop – email, here on the blog, Facebook. At first it was quite menacing but after a few days it just became an irritant. She clearly needs help. Listen up Marsha, it ain’t you. Go see a shrink.

Report, block, delete.

And For My Next Trick

We’re currently living next to a building site. A local developer is chucking up a few more bungalows, like the world really needs a few more bungalows – affordable housing for the cash-strapped, yes, more well-appointed dwellings with double garages for the well-heeled, no. It’s a lost cause and we’re resigned to it.

While a big, butch workman swinging an even butcher mechanical digger was busy excavating a trench for a new drain, he ripped out an underground communications cable, cutting phone and broadband lines to every house in the street.

Oops!

This is during a pandemic with people trying to earn an honest crust working from home, doing their bit to keep themselves and the economy afloat. Head-scratching all round by shuffling workers in hard hats and a ‘wasn’t me, gov’ vacant look on their red faces.

Engineers from Openreach* armed with tools and sensors rode to the rescue, plugging us back in the very next day. I call that a result. It’s a temporary fix, though. The cable can’t be re-buried until the new drain is finished. So the builders have protected it from further damage with a tatty old upturned wheelbarrow. Very hi-tech. What are the chances?

And for my next trick – no water and no electricity?

* For the uninitiated, Openreach is the company that manages much of the UK’s fixed-line telecoms infrastructure.

Spamalot

I’ve been plagued with spam comments ever since I started this blogging malarkey – nearly 370,000 so far. Just like Domestos and germs, my spam filter kills off 99.9% of ’em so I don’t have to. I used to get an eclectic mix of spam – the collective weaknesses, desires, vices and foibles of humanity laid bare, blended with endless machine-generated auto-babble. These days the slut and smut stuff is mostly absent, and I generally just get pseudo-clinical gibberish, all targeted at a single post from way back in 2012. Here’s an example:

Decrease of a stage of hemoglobin at males up to 120g/l, at girls up to 110g/l is possible. This can imply dependence on male breadwinners, abandoned opportunities for paid work, and exhaustion that extracts a physical and psychological toll. The former is shown, for example, in exams for cutaneous sensitization, whereas the latter is proven in impairment of the power to resist infection erectile dysfunction for women Correlation of preoperative depression and somatic percepRecommendation : tion scales with postoperative incapacity and quality of life afer Collecting data concerning the preoperative characteristics and lumbar discectomy. In the course of therapy, the following duties are solved in every particular affected person: fi reduction of exacerbation; fi selection of adequate primary remedy; fi reduction of the danger of development of complications; fi decreasing the danger of side effects in the course of the course.

The post in question is Goodbye to the Turkish Living Forum. It caused quite a stir at the time, I’m pleased to say. Has the post been deliberately targeted? Who would do such a thing? Who knows. But anyone searching online for the forum will often find my ancient post on the first page of Google – the sweet spot for any website – just below the entry for the forum itself. Perhaps all these spam attacks are keeping it there? Happy days!

Cops and Robbers

The deluge of GDPR emails has finally dried up, thank the Lord. For the uninitiated, GDPR stands for the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. It’s the latest wheeze from the European Union intended to strengthen the law about the collection, privacy, security and retention of personal data. The new rules are fairly straightforward, if a little OTT – like so much that comes out of Brussels. I’m all for protecting the little person from the exploitation of corporate bigwigs but I can’t help thinking the reputable will comply, the disreputable won’t bother and those squeezed in the middle will be bewildered – think brown owl trying to chivvy up the girl guides or some poor sod juggling the mailing list of a local am-dram society. I doubt it will stop nuisance calls from India or spam emails from God knows where. A case in point was the mailshot that recently dropped into my inbox from a US company. They were trying to flog me such must-have products as a concealed ankle holster perfect for a sneaky armed robbery, a decorative bracelet knife because Saturday night’s alright for fighting and a magnetised holder for the loaded pistol I keep under the sink next to the Fairy Liquid (that’s a joke, obviously). Every trailer should have one. Did I subscribe to this crap? Nope. Did I unsubscribe straightaway? Yep. Will it make the slightest bit of difference? Not a chance.

If you like to see my own half-cocked GDPR kinda-compliant privacy thingy, you can see it here. Happy reading.