Yes, Friends, do YOU wish you were appreciated a bit more by those around you - perhaps the people in your house or town, or perhaps more generally, in the world at large?
It's a common feeling, isn't it, and nowadays they call it a desire for "validation", the desire to get a bit of admiration and praise once in a while, if that's not too much to ask (!). And if, like me, through your blog perhaps or other stuff, you're a bit of an online "influencer", who "sets trends", it's particularly vital to get that "validation" from your online "fans", isn't it.
With me, as an older blogger, that validation is measured in the number of postcards I get, the postcards I get from what-I-call my "community", my "fans" in other words. Such postcards "plop" almost monthly through mine and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois's letterbox, much to the dismay of our local "postie" (!).
a typical older "social media influencer" showcasing his "bumper bundle"
of postcards, after writing a particularly persuasive "piece" on social media
- this one was about which stylish t-shirts to wear in your "study" (!)
Older "influencers", such as Yours Truly, tend to set out our fashion suggestions and details of meals we've eaten (or cooked!) on some of the older social media platforms or "apps", such as Chitchat.com, and, just between you and me, I actually believed that this "old faithful" was "the only social media app on the block".
Yes, it was only recently that I discovered that a lot of the younger people long ago stopped using Chitchat and are using something called Tiktok. Yes, "Tiktok", would you believe - what a crazy name!!!!
Typical me !!!! Did you see this story on Onion News today about our local East Hampshire social media influencer Tatiana Evans (no relation!) ?
And when it comes to pimples I know exactly how Tatiana feels - as a social influencer myself, I try to keep my skin flawless, simply because of all the selfies I put in my blog and in my "Colincasts". Any signs of pimples suddenly forming is very much an "Oh no!!!" situation for me - it's a "big deal", to put it mildly!
a "still" from one of my recent social media "Colincasts"
- note my flawless skin, as I demonstrate to my "fan base"
the best way to iron a difficult shirt
Yes, spots and pimples - they get everywhere, especially when you've got an important message to put across in your blog, I find!
And they even make their way into Venn diagrams these days (!). Monday, to Lois and me, is very much "Venn Day", because Steve, our American brother-in-law sends us the three most amusing Venn diagrams that he's managed to find on the web this last week.
11:00 Lois and I discuss Steve's "pick of the Venns" this week over our morning coffee, and they give us a smile, which is nice.
A laugh is more than usually welcome, because we've had a very frustrating morning so far today, trying to order things for our new home: we only moved into this house in Liphook, Hampshire on January 3rd this year, and we've got a long list of things we need to buy, a list as long as your arm, believe you me.
flashback to January 3rd: Lois and I move into our new home
in Liphook, Hampshire, ably assisted by our daughter Alison (49)
Item number one on our "shopping list" is a bathroom medicine cabinet for the downstairs loo. After several hours spent comparing different products, we finally settle on this one on Ebay, already "In eleven baskets", according to the ad:
Damn! I've changed our address on, like, a billion websites, more than a billion probably (!), but I must have forgotten to change it on Ebay - damn (again) !!!!!!!
It seems that top restaurants are getting fed up with social media influencers coming into some swanky London restaurant, and "ordering just one dish, and sharing a glass of wine", just to generate a flash social media post for their online fans, their "influencees", if you will, to use the technical term (!).
Within seconds of ordering I try to cancel the order, thinking to reorder it after updating our address, but I get the message that "it's too early to cancel this order, please try again later".
So I do try again later to cancel - only about 5 minutes later, and I get the message that the seller has refused to cancel the order, because it's "already been posted".
What a crazy world we live in !!!!! And can the seller really have posted it already, within 5 minutes of my ordering it? It's a bathroom wall cabinet for heaven's sake!!!
It would take Lois and me at least 8 hours to "post" something heavy like a bathroom wall cabinet, finding the brown paper packaging and 'sellotaping' it up and addressing it, weighing it, putting the stamps on it, lugging it outside and putting it in the car boot, taking it to the Post Office on Headley Road etc etc. What madness !!!!
Now, it seems, our shiny new bathroom wall cabinet is going to be sent to Malvern, 100 miles away, only to languish on the pavement outside our (empty) old house there, getting rained on etc etc.
flashback to November 2022: me showcasing our
previous home in Malvern with our daughter Alison
and one of our 5 grandchildren - Rosalind (then 14).
This is the house where our shiny new Ebay bathroom cabinet
is soon going to be languishing on the doorstep
getting rained on etc etc - what madness !!!!
What a crazy world we live in !!!! As a prominent social media "influencer" I obviously need a decent medicine cabinet in our downstairs loo, so that I can organise my 'meds' and make recommendations in my popular "Your Meds Today" column - usually on page 94 on my blog, if you're now desperately trying to find it (!).
14:00 Lois and I get into bed for "nap-time", but unfortunately, when Lois starts reading me bits out of her "The Week" magazine, I find out that there's even more bad news on the way for us "social media influencers".
Oh dear!
Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, which gives a digest of all the big news stories from home and abroad, actually "plopped" through our letterbox last Friday, but Lois has only just "thumbed through" to some of the later pages, due to pressure of other work, ordering bathroom wall cabinets and other things (!).
flashback to last Friday: I showcase Lois's copy of
"The Week" magazine, which has just "plopped"
through our letterbox - many thanks to our local "postie" btw (!)
Some restaurants are asking customers to pay a deposit by credit card over the phone when they call to reserve a table. Some have gone further, by imposing on diners a minimum spend of £100, again payable when booking the table.
Honestly, it's enough to make us social media influencers give up our whole careers, and do something else instead, isn't it!
[I wish you would, Colin! - Ed]
Do you remember one of my most popular "foodie" posts back on Valentine's Day 2020, with me sampling the popular, but expensive, choice of poached-egg-on-a-cushion-of-fishcake at Prestbury, Cheltenham's "swanky" top drinking-hole, the King's Arms?
flashback to my 2020 Valentine's Day lunch with Lois in Cheltenham,
when I order the star dish of the day, a delicious-looking
poached-egg-on-a-cushion-of-fishcake, at Prestbury's
prestigious, and 'buzzing', "King's Arms" watering hole
The sad truth, which my readers and I will both soon have to face is that, with a minimum spend of £100 on the horizon, these kinds of sublime "eating experiences" will simply become "uneconomic".
A pity, but there it is.
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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