Facebook is a load of old rubbish so WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT ?

DAY FORTY-THREE: Friday 12^th February  2021:

Facebook is a load of old rubbish is it not ?  Today I am going to suggest a way its users can change that but first let me direct your attention to TWITTER.

Twitter is for twits !  Politicians use Twitter don’t they and you will not find a bigger TWIT in society than a politician. Could you imagine Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher using Twitter ? Could you imagine Winston Churchill using Twitter ?  I am sure if it had been around in his day Tony Blair would have excreted his verbal diarrhoea via this silly social media giant. Just look how democracy in the United States of America used it. TWITTER IS FOR TWITS and only a TWIT would disagree.

So what about Facebook ?  It does not work properly from a technical point of view, when Mark Zukertwit and his fellow geeks downgraded it with the recent upgrade they destroyed what was there. Not that what was there was much good anyway.

As a platform it should be a vital tool to lift spirits and make people SMILE, particularly in these mad and crazy times but sadly it is not.

Repeated spam adverts which are of little interest but Mark Zukertwit has to be kept in the manner of which he is accustomed, we wouldn’t want to see him having to use the food bank would we. OK the social media network has to make money but I object strongly to adverts for the like of gambling being added given that anyone of any age can use the site. I object to adverts being targeted at me which appear to have been fished from my internet searching. NEVER, EVER click on a site to accept cookies – all this does is use your surfing date for sites like this.

Postings !  I am sick tired and utterly fed up with pseudo-sexual posts. I am sick tired and utterly fed up with posts about alcohol ! 

Facebook is a negative place, go there feeling positive is dangerous. I am going to suggest how WE can change this but first let’s have SMILE OF THE DAY.

No matter how good or bad your life is, wake up each morning and be grateful you still have one.

I get frustrated that while people each day look at SMILE of the day, some will LIKE it on facebook but few share it. How can I, we, you encourage people to make others SMILE and be positive ?  Is this against the rules on Facebook ?

I am still working on draft pages for AN ALMANAC OF SMILES to be published in November with a page for every day of the year 2022. Within this there is the ON THIS DAY feature which I put here in Dave’s Diary.  There is the Top Ten chart of the day using a rotating system from 1955 to 1990. There is WIKI MOMENT and there is a QUIZ. I am going to start putting these onto facebook each day, not all at once but at odd times during the day.

So I guess that leads nicely into ON THIS DAY.

12^th February 1965: Malcolm X visits Smethwick in Birmingham following the racially charged 1964 general election.

12^th February 1974: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature is exiled from the Soviet Union.

12^th February 1993: Two year old James Bulger is abducted by two ten year old boys who torture and murder him.

12^th February 1999: United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

12^th February 2002: The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion.

As per usual nobody on Wikipedia’s list of those born on this day that I recognise.

12^th February 2019: Gordon Banks, born 1937, died.

Thank you Wikipedia for your help with today’s feature. You are EVERYTHING that facebook and twitter are not.

So writing. Yesterday I wrote 5,923 words which brings my 2021 record challenge to 320,341. I finished writing my discussion and debate book BEHIND THE NOOSE OR NOT. Today I am going to begin work on A STAIRCASE OF WORDS. This is the introduction:

If I were a top-selling author this text could become a sensation. But I am NOT a best selling author and in all honesty I have no ambition in that direction. I do, however, have an ambition to become the world’s most prolific writer.

This text is part of my ambition across the year of 2021 to write a minimum of one million words, two million would be better and cool, then to publish everything in at least twenty-four e-books on Amazon. Guinness Book of Records watch out for I am coming your way.

I firmly believe that a write writes for himself, he/she writes purely for his own enjoyment and not for any other primary reason. If at any time during my record breaking challenge I stop enjoying what I am doing then I will give up.

If somebody reads what a writer has written then that is a bonus. If that reader enjoys what is read then that is a double bonus. If a writer becomes a best selling author then fame and fortune pose a risk of him becoming a production line write and the primary enjoyment will be destroyed.

So what is this staircase ?  Beyond all of what I have here  said in the above paragraphs I have another reason to write, I want to inspire others to write for their enjoyment. As I share my ambitions to write be it one or be it two million words I want to invite you to follow this staircase in which I explain how over almost seventy years I read the works of others and used their books to build a staircase taking me to a place where I decided I wanted to be a writer.

289 words there toward my total, I will start today to put the steps of the staircase into order.

I will also spend some time on THE SECRET DIARY OF AN OLD MAN AGED THIRTEEN AND THREE QUARTERS.  Amazon Home Delivery brought me a DVD of George Orwell’s 1984 which I will today watch to help me with the next part of my story. This book I am taking my time with, originally I wanted to publish it by the end of the month but I am not going to rush it.

Facebook Twitter, social media. What about traditional media ?  Does anyone buy newspapers any more ?  Have you ever tried to use an on-line newspaper ?  You would have to be half way insane to try to navigate its totally insane on-line format.

BBC !  I honestly feel that the BBC should be closed down. It is obscene that it is against the law to watch any television station if you have not paid for the BBC’s rip off license fee.

However, yesterday china said it was banning BBC World News. Why ? Does it matter why ? China has a long history of evil which it has inflicted on the world. I honestly believe that the world should build an iron curtain around China and totally break off all relations with this terrible nation. Does China allow Twitter and facebook to operate in its country ?  Much as I may joke about closing down social media I believe in what Voltaire said: I may not believe in all you say but I will defend your fight to say it.

China you gave the world this pandemic and you are trying to blame it on imported frozen fish. China you are threatening mankind itself.

Sadly yesterday another 13,509 more new cases. 678 more deaths. Every day I record these figures as I try to honour the dead, to send love and SMILES to their loved ones and those in our NHS who cared for them. Every day for as long as this evil pandemic continues I will continue to do so. To the families who are today grieving, to all in our beautiful NHS who cared for each person I bring you my love and I hope the love of every single person who reads this page, be that today or when the time capsule is opened in January 2121.

For those like me who have not suffered with the pandemic I bring you again today’s SMILE:

No matter how good or bad your life is, wake up each morning and be grateful you still have one.

Speak again tomorrow:

Dave