The First Deadly Sin of the Internet

It has not, it is fair to say, been my most prolific time for posting on the Internet. I've just been so busy. There's the day job, the White Horse, the creating amazing worship aids for the Community - it's all go. When you get the chance finally to go online, what little bandwidth Eileen is prepared to allow the rest of the Beaker People from the wi-fi is always occupied by Burton Dasset, uploading transcriptions of ancient railway timetables. For instance, I'm currently downloading that old electro dance classic, New Order's Blue Monday. It enjoys its thirtieth anniversary next year, which makes Eileen feel very old. However me starting the download enters its tenth anniversary next week, and it's starting to make me feel old as well.

It is my suspicion that Eileen's hogging of the electron flow is all down to vanity. Social Media is a terribly addictive drug, and I reckon that she's been trying to see how her ratings, on the hundreds of different platforms that measure how popular you are with your fellow-sad-ones. And so I thought, vanity being a sin, that I would test out a gadget on the community network to help her resist.

Basically, it's a Chrome or Firefox add-on that just sits in the background. Every time you check to see if one of your tweets has been re-tweeted; or go to Google Analytics; or jump to the Feedjit real-time view; or check your links on Wikio; or put your own name into Google to see if you've been mentioned, it puts a subliminal image of a budgie up on your screen. Budgies being the most vain of animals - constantly looking in those little mirrors - the idea is that your subconscious realises that you're getting just that little bit too budgie-like, and you check your self-centred ways. I didn't bother producing a version for iPad or Mac, cos let's face it -some people are beyond help.

So anyway, I popped in to see Eileen to find out whether the app has worked, but I didn't really get any sense out of her. She just rang a little bell for ten minutes, and then went off to get her supper. I wonder why she's got so keen on millet all of a sudden?