Wednesday 22 February 2012

A brit of a blur...

Sorry for the title...in fact, I'm not sorry, it is true.  The Brit Awards this year have done it to me once again.  As a pathetic lover of all music related shows (not musicals er thank you very much) the Brits (as mentioned is previous post last Feb) is a February highlight of mine.  Imagine my excitement when this year it fell on Shrove Tuesday, or to those out there who are more fond of the title 'Pancake Day'.

So, feeling all snotty, headachy and generally sorry for myself I made a batch of pancakes and set myself up for two hours of glorified music telly.  I have to be honest, I was rather disappointed.  The Brits for me has become synonymous with crazy outfits, stupid antics and outlandish collaborations...Dizzee and Florence, Pet Shop Boys, Gaga and Brandon Flowers, Tom Jones and Stereophonics, you know the score.  So where was our collaboration last night? OK so we had Chris Martin tinkling on the old piano for Noel Gallagher but was that it? Are you kidding me?

It was a fab night for the gingers...Ed and Adele winning what they deserve.  All we needed was a little Florence and her fabulous machine in the mix and it really would have been a ginger takes all evening! I thought the performances were a little dull...the stage antics were a snore and the presenting from James Cordon just a little, well, stiff.

Is this the precedent now? The biggest hype was James cutting off Adele's acceptance speech and it sent Twitter mad...really? Come on.  You lot want more for sure? Granted it was rude and I am sure Damon and his handsome chums would have waited a few more seconds, but I feel it was worth it just to see Adele exercise her best 'bitch-face' and flip the producers the bird!

Award winners, were as always, predictable.  The usual PJ Harvey announcement, Ed and Adele clearing the Brit Award shelves and the rest in the music industry worth everything being left in the background whilst Facebook and Twitter lit up with 'who the hell is that' and 'am I getting old cos I have never heard of Laura Marling/Fleet Foxes/Bon Iver/Lana Del Ray...come on guys.

As for the final performance...well Blur you have still got it (I know this from personal experience, watching them headline Glasto in 2009, it was an epic point in my life), but it was a real shame that you chose not to exercise it last night.

I wonder whether I will tune in next year...chances are I will.  After all, 2012s will remain a Brit of a Blur by then anyways!

Friday 17 February 2012

For the love of Facebook...

As I log onto Facebook for my, more than, daily dose I notice something I have felt for a while...I don't like my friends...well that is not entirely true, my close friends I love, very much in fact.  It is the people that I am not in constant contact with but who, by a sheer click of a button, have ended up as my Facebook friends.

These are people who I once shared a table with at lunch, a classroom with at school or even a secret or two whilst at uni, but on the whole these people are not my friends.  They are however people that have come to irritate me on a daily basis.

On a daily basis there are one or two people who love to shout about how wonderful their lives are.  You know, the Facebook status updates that go a little like 'Pat myself on the back for raising 12 kids, cleaning my house and moving it slightly to the right whilst I married the man of my dreams, wrote a book and became a millionaire, I am sooooo blessed.'. They make me hate my own life, and I don't even really hate it (that much). In fact, I can often enter a post-Facebook lull where certain peoples lives sound so fabulous, exciting and as if they are really getting on with their lives that I sit there staring into space, questioning my life choices.

Or the incessant whining about their ex-boyfriends or husbands, such as 'HE didn't even bother to pick up the kids, their own father, he needs to sort his *&@* out or he won't be seeing em again.' Now don't get me wrong, I am one of those people in life who cares, I mean really cares, but I don't need to know about your marital problems whilst eating my lunch, I mean we haven't even said hello to each other in as much as 12 years, I certainly don't need a regular status update on your latest relationship spat.

Or then there are the people who feel the need to update you on their every movement.  'On the way home from work. Gonna get home, shower, eat, watch TV, bed and sleep'.  Yeah, we get it, but quite frankly, we don't care.

Oh and how could I forget the errors, the social faux pas that are caused by my Facebook friends who clearly never learnt how to spell.  As a writer I do aim for good grammar but, I do fall short...however there are some people who actually manage to create sentences using such bad English that they mean something else entirely.

As a copywriter and social media manager it is part of my job to write, tweet, share, on behalf of many of my clients. So I thought a few condescending tips might go a long way:

1. Share the love (but not too much)
2. Don't get political (no one likes a know-it-all)
3. Tag pictures, but no one wants to see 1300 pictures of you posing in a bathroom mirror taking a snapshot of yourself whilst someone is puking in the loo behind you
4. No one likes a whiner...call a mate, pour a glass or wine, but leave it off Facebook
5. Stop incessant attention seeking...it is not becoming for a woman!

It begs the question, what must MY friends think of my Facebook and Twitter etiquette. As a writer I proof my status updates (as well as my text messages and I most certainly do not adopt abbreviated language such as 'lol', 'OMG' or 'ROFL'), aim for politeness and refrain from obscenities, so I am sure that I must paint a rather dull and nondescript view of myself.

So, there you have it, the reason why I don't like my friends, or at least, my Facebook friends. I know, you could argue that I should stop hanging out on Facebook altogether, but then that would just be dull, what would I have to moan about then?  What would I do with all my spare time?