Life faker

Please click :)

It is a side chain to my social media issue at the moment.

http://lifefaker.com

Latest Vogue Paris

I need to get a new iPad but this is the reason why I can't reorganise the pics.

This was the French interpretation of Princess Di.

Every person in the Commonwealth knows she didn't ride.

I do wish this editorial wasn't so literal.

It would have been nice to have a French version of Di.

This just seems a bad version of the truth.

We all remember the sad Di - but it is almost as if the French are saying that they are happy they had a revolution.

Good hair, small earrings, gentle cream turtleneck with a beige/camel coat.

So classic.

This is where French Vogue goes all fetish.

Necrophilia much?

What a waste of skinny models to make them lie down.

I don't like excessive photoshopping.

And yet I feel guilty because I am in magazine mode and not used to shadows of any kind so paused at this photo.

The rest of the magazine was rather dull.

But nice excuse to say Hi! x

Mercury Retrograde and Social Media

I have cancelled and deleted my Facebook account with the recent news.

I think we all know that the findings are going to be a lot worse than we thought.

My first inkling something was off was during Brexit when I blocked certain political parties who were bombarding me and even after blocking them, they were allowed to feature on my feed and even direct message me to change my vote.  

I am on WhatsApp however and know that it is linked to Facebook but I had to at least make a stand and a gesture. But I am toying with getting rid of that possibly.

It seems that due to the closures that Instagram might actually listen to the users and bring back chronological feeds so perhaps these account closures are having a small effect.

But today I had another incident.

I liked a comment on twitter on an american politician's feed about a fast food that originated in Italy and now is common place in the world which is linked to a controversial matter that was on wikileaks before the US election. ( I am not going to get into that with any commenters just so you know.) 

I don't want to write it because it will only come up on some algorithm. This was a sparsely active twitter account that I have had since the beginning of twitter and never had any problems until a few hours after I liked this comment.

Twitter said I had 'suspicious twitter activity' and they wanted my phone number to reactivate my twitter account.

I have declined and they can have the handle back. 

I refuse to to give up the beauty of the internet and treat a social media outlet like a bank KYC ( know your customer ) protocol.

Then today I tried to log on to Hayu - this is a UK online version of all the trashy Bravo TV shows.

However, I couldn't log on as it was linked to the now defunct twitter account.  So I tweeted on my husband's twitter account asking for help in this specific situation.

They said that I had to follow them for instructions.

I asked them again and got them to confirm that if as a paying customer I still had to "follow" them to get help.

They confirmed.

I then tweeted the UK Ombudsman tagging Hayu explaining that they were forcing me to do something on top of paying them which is all that is needed to get commensurate service.

Only then did I get help.

I unsubscribed of course so any help was redundant. 

Plus this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is so dull thankfully.

But it makes you think.

I thought it was ridiculous to chase followers but apparently now it is such a commodity that you may not get due service unless you 'follow'.

It is tainting rather a lot and making me a social media Debbie downer.

I wish I didn't care and to be honest I feel we are already at the sand pit of the slippery slope so why should I bother fighting.

I might go google 'off grid living on an island' now.

It really is strange times we live in.

Total Geeking out session about Japanese braided cords

Like most, I have a wide array of things I watch on TV.

Real housewives of any metropolitan city, 

1/5 of Netflix, 

RuPaul's Drag Race (we need another season though my gay friends think this show is for suburban straight people), 

and so many more.

I watch way too much but rarely regret it so now all I have to do is figure out a way of monetising watch all these shows.

I think I mentioned one of my TV shows I view as televised meditation was the NHK Japanese World channel that features the show - At Home with Venetia in Kyoto.

She is the daughter of an English aristocrat who turned into a hippie in the 60's and 70's and went to live in Asia and has become an earthier version of Carolyn Roehm / Martha Stewart in Japan. That sounds too simplistic but she also won a gardening award which is no mean feat in Japan of all places.

I wrote about this years ago here ( click for link ) 

But there is one show that is super duper culture geek and captures the essence of the best of Japanese culture called Core Kyto.

Kyoto is the former capital of Japan and still is the cultural epicentre.  Tokyo is just the capital and a commercial centre but for the Japanese lacks the refinement of Kyoto. 

The shows explore one old craft for each episode.

I just saw an old episode I must have missed from 2017 about braided cords.

I told you it was a geek out.

But as an antidote to A.I. of super efficiency and "productivity",  I enjoy the longhand of craftsmanship. 

If you can't be bothered to watch, here is the synopsis.

Knots and cords were an elaborate messaging system as in Asia there would be fabric parcels wrapped and secure in various types of rope.

They could signal a confession of love, a threat, and contrition.

For the aristocracy and royalty, 

there were special knots that were the ancient form of proving 

that items were not tampered with as they were so intricate that 

it was rare to recreate the knot.

Here is the link for those who might be interested that want just the beta amount of stimulus to learn and perhaps go into a google archaeological mining session to learn more about this or related arts. 

People who are Japanologists will particularly enjoy this series.

LINK FOR CORE KYOTO

Have a great weekend!

I want a typist I can dictate to

Hi guys,

I swear I wanted to publish but the editing is a nightmare and I really don't have the Apple hand language and fluency - still.

I am surely weaning myself off social media - so nice.

I thought I would miss it but there is less noise in my head and I am feeling so much more productive.

But there is one instagram account I will go every few days to scroll through and it is Gary Janetti.


SO much snark - I loves it!

But I do think Meghan is sweet but let us see how that evolution goes but in the meanwhile check out his account!

https://www.instagram.com/garyjanetti/?hl=en