Couple of things on my mind. Like everyone, I was shocked by the death of Charlotte Dawson. But I am in two minds about joining an online petition to outlaw cyber-bullying. Oh, don't get me wrong. I detest bullying in any form: virtual, face to face, or passive-aggressive. What I'm wondering is will it actually do any good? Can you actually legislate against arseholery? I suspect such legislation might flout the principles of free-speech. Of course, free-speech is the bedfellow of RESPONSIBILITY. I'm wondering too would it be better to expend resources and energy into helping people develop strategies to cope with online abuse, eg, staying away from social media if it is a trigger for you. In principle, I find it offensive that someone should HAVE to stay away from social media when they have as much right to use the public domain as anyone else, but might it be the lesser of the two evils in the long run? Perhaps there should be campaigns to point out that if you have to hide in the shadow of a fake account firing off vicious abuse anonymously, then you're really not worth the scrapings on the toilet paper used by a syphilitic rat. I do know that when someone gives you an abusive comment, in shocks you. I have had it happen to me on a community Facebook page. I was a little upset at first because his abuse was unwarranted, but I remembered that a rapier sharp wit will always shit copious amounts on pig-ignorant vitriol, and responded accordingly. Now, let me state I am so not a fan of James Blunt's music. I think it is reminiscent of a cat on a bandsaw. However, I do think he is a rather funny guy, and he has it down pat when it comes to dealing with Twitter trolls. Somebody commented, 'James Blunt has a whiny voice and an annoying face', and he responded with, 'And no mortgage'. Without having psychologically assessed Blunt personally, I daresay he is emotionally better equipped to deal with online crap than poor Charlotte Dawson was. Should people who are fragile and insist upon having social media accounts try to learn strategies to cope when something online upsets them?
Now, I have noticed in my travails online over the past few days that Christian Democrat leader Rev Fred Nile has commented that in the obituaries for Ms Dawson these past few days, her 1999 abortion (referred to in her autobiography) is not mentioned. Ms Dawson did note it distressed her, but to use this to promote your own self-righteous agenda, Nile? I don't know whether what I am about to type can be classed as cyber-bullying, but here goes: seriously, man, Fuck You.
But on an exciting note (for me, anyway), last night I went on line and bought tickets to The Sweet's concert in Newcastle! I haven't seen them since 1993, and they were my all time favourite band when I was a kid. My first ever crush was Andy, their lead guitarist. He is in this line-up, and the only one of the 'originals'. I have put inverted commas around that word because I don't think Andy was in their original-original line-up. I saw some You Tube footage of them performing live in their current incarnation. The singer sounds good, although I don't think he has the hip-swaying of Brian Connolly down-pat, but who could replicate those movies, anyway? Andy is not the lithe, leather-jumpsuited spunk I remember. In fact, maybe that's not Andy; it's an imposter who has done something with the real one (eaten him, from the looks of it).
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