When I say below "lovely biscuit" I mean stuff like this.

Twittering on and on

Twitter has a rival



But I don't have enough time to investigate it...I am wasting all my time on twitter.



That's a lie.  Had the last big away trip of the season yesterday down in Folkestone yesterday.



I guess the point of Twitter and other "personal presence" websites is that those who cared to find out that fact could have done it more easily than accessing a full-blown blog.



I maintain that  one of the main roles of blogs is a simple public notice saying "I am alive." 



The problem is just about everyone either loses your address or thinks you've stopped or moved your blog.  What they mean is they can't be bothered to visit your webpage.  They'd rather do something more interesting or useful.



 I also maintain RSS is an essential component of blog checking half bearable.  However for some reason people can't face up sorting out an RSS solution.  Even they way I have just described it would put people off.  It sounds simply too technical.



Much easier to sign up for a twitter account or myspace where the same concepts used without any jargon and with only a moderate expenditure of effort.



Why navigate to Verbal Diary to establish I'm alive via a long-winded post like this when my name flashing up announcing "Just had a lovely biscuit" can do the same trick?

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Thank you!

Thank you!
Originally uploaded by Nakken18.

This amused me ..... guess you don't see this sign much in the Celtic countries.

Who needs all this waffle - the world of the one line blog has arrived.

I found myself signing up for this a few months back not entirely sure if it had any legs. I then I saw it mashed up with Google maps and a new addiction has been born. Check it out Twittervision

---
1y 2d 01:04 smoke-free, 9,176 cigs not smoked, £1,064.42 saved, 1m 1d 20:40 life saved


Yeah - One year and two days. Speeding towards the two year point. Go boy go boy.

(This post is for the purposes of self support only)

Hmmm....I must have misunderstood something because today it says

---
1y 13:32 smoke-free,
9,145 cigs not smoked,
£1,060.82 saved,
1m 1d 18:05 life saved

Which is correct...the one year bit at least is correct.

When I looked at it yesterday it looked like it was missing a few days. But calenders are weird things as Easter constantly (inconstantly) reminds us.

One Year Today

Well, well done to me. Today its my First Anniversary of packing in smoking. So yippee.

The quit-o-meter disagrees with me about this for some reason and I will post what it has to say about it in a few minutes when I boot back into Windows.

I can't read what I wrote in my last post about the effect of the forthcoming English smoking ban.

Of course I haven't the foggiest what will happen to the "pubs I like". They could very well prosper.

I do know the one thing that really nearly stopped me following up my decision to give up smoking on the 9 April 2006 was the sight of Patricia Hewitt leaning over the dispatch box licking her lips with glee as she announced the full-on ban (even though it was a reversal of the government's earlier policy of a partial ban).

I have never much liked the direct action route to advance your causes but perhaps a "letter-tray" campaign might stir things up - you send stubbed out cigarettes in envelopes to members of the ghoulish anti-smoker politburo and see them have kittens on Question Time and the like..

The downside is that some people think even fag ends emit death rays so you could still end up being lynched.

Thanks for the flickr picture to sluggo



smoking ban smoking terrorism

smoking ban in action

smoking ban in action
Originally uploaded by tigerweet.

"I don't smell and I'm not going to die horribly, but you know, it'd be nice if smokers at least took turns going outside for a ciggy rather than leaving me alone for most of the night." says in the text accompanying the photo - my mind flashes back guiltily to the days when the non-smokers would be dragged over to the smoking section.

Its also interesting that these memories of non-smoking sections in pubs are fairly numerous and go back a long way - combined with good air conditioning there was plenty of opportunity to get all the supposed benefits that the progandists say have snowed down on the Irish and Scottish since their bans were imposed.

I think the ban will kill off certain pubs - they happen to be the pubs I really like with or without a fag in my hand.