Having written an article for Comment is Free back in April about internet footprints and the danger inherent in leaving personal data all around the internet for future employers/parents-in-law to see, what have I gone and done? Enlarged my trail from its previously modest sparrow-like proportions into an elephant-sized paw print of worrying dimensions, that’s what. A week of enforced inactivity in a Yorkshire village was all it took to unleash my inner 2.0 monster.
The eagle-eyed among you have already noticed the petite myspace link in the sidebar, to your right, along with my facebook profile and associated non-official “fan” site, with its own cafepress merchandise store (I shan’t link to these as they are not my own creations). I’ve been scrobbling away in LastFM and joining groups with names that made me snort my Yorkshire tea down my nose. The only thing I have so far managed to resist – and I must, because it is the internet version of crack cocaine – is twitter. But I fear it is only a matter of time.
Where will it all end? Will I find myself unable to engage in any form of communication which does not involve a keyboard? Will my MacBook become welded to my satin pyjama clad thighs?
I fear for the future.
beer curry Top Shop naughty new bag
satin pyjamas Clarks shoes Borders fish & chips
oolite lastFM Yorkshire tea Tesco guinness
bacon sandwiches custard tart Charlie and Lola
Do you blog? Are you in Paris on Saturday 9 June? Do we look like the sort of people you would like to spend quality time with?
Details here, including email for signing yourselves up…
So, um, petite in jimjams? Anyone?
Cast your votes here.
And don’t forget my dear friends anna boat (personal) – eek, and Lucy Pepper too in same category, how is one supposed to choose? – jonnyb (UK), Le Blagueur à Paris (expat, writing) and nardac (underappreciated) …
update: results are available for viewing here.
If you have been following this blog for a while, you will be aware of the fact that I am rather irrationally fond of very scientific-sounding French words used to denote common things.
My love of the word podotactile, which can be translated into English with the slightly less elegant “strip along the side of a métro platform that has bumps on that you can feel if you are wearing thin-soled shoes” has already been widely documented.
Peeling the transparent film off a microwave dinner the other day (and yes, I know it’s bad, but believe me, that was one of my better moments, nutritionally, in recent weeks) I was overjoyed to notice that said transparent cover is called an l’opercule, a term which comes from Latin and is also used in neuroscience and botany. Imagine, if you will, that the instructions on your microwave meal asked you to “pull back the operculus”. Would you have any appetite left?
But my favourite new phrase by far is the one used to designate the place where water must be poured into my new steam iron (after old iron was accidentally melted in a freak hob-top incident at the weekend when I tried to cook pasta with a hangover). I give you: l’orifice de remplissage.
I’m looking at it warily right now and I just don’t know if I can.
“Look mummy,” says Tadpole. “I did draw a picture!”
I study the picture dutifully. “Is it a witch?” I say. “Like Meg from Meg and Mog?”
Tadpole shakes her head. “No. It is mummy when she is very fâchée. With cross arms like this.” She demonstrates by putting her hands on her hips.
I try not to show how horrified I am to see myself in this new and disturbing light.
Next week: mummy with a terminal hangover. Which is worse than this.
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