fisharepeopletoo

My street? No, My Street!

in Salford.

For 36 pence a click.

If you live in London, go on Facebook and are a writer...

look out for our Battersea Poems ad, it's aimed at you, for 36p a click.

The Two Kinds of Twitter User: Seneca the Younger and Samuel Pepys

Twitter users, and even one "tweet" and the next, are at different places on the private-broadcast scale of social media.

The twitter user Samuel Pepys, for example, is down near the private end - he's chatty and everyday, describing everything from what he had for his tea to frolics that involve dressing up in wigs and leaping around.

He's also indiscreet and naive, and hasn't yet realised that when he tweets about an evening with his mistress, he's telling the whole world.

Seneca the Younger, based in Rome, is at the other end of the scale.

His every message is a carefully crafted nugget perfectly designed to be tweeted and retweeted for ever.

And he never links or retweets because he is, in fact, the source of all wisdom.

[square brackets]
["tweet" and "twitter" -- those words still say so so much.]

Comedy Buzzwordology or A Shred of Something Meaningful by Accident?

I used "hyperlocal poetry" as a joke at first.

But when I look at the Battersea Poems page on Thumbprint, I wonder if even though it sounds crap, it does describe something real.

What the Battersea Poems writers are doing, collectively but anonymously, is making a shared meaning for Battersea as they understand it.

A process that anyone can contribute to who has a mobile phone.

Despite the marvellous technology behind it, this is and should be a folk process.

Naming the subject and archive of this process after Battersea adds a real and graspable layer of meaning.

Tweets Are Pointless - Haven't We Been Here Before?

Tweets are pointless.

Haven't we been here before?

It's not the content of the message it's the act of messaging that contains the meaning.

What's different, or still being worked out, about twitter is where it sits on the private-broadcast scale of social media spaces.

The closer it is to the broadcast end, the less acceptable the "I'm having my tea now." messages will be.

But it may turn out that different twitter users will position themselves at different points on that scale.

If your only followers are your mates, then "I'm having my tea now" is perfectly acceptable and valuable.

Not because they give a sh*t about you having your tea, but because you and they are still being mates.

[Six Spaces of Social Media ]

Dear Invisible Group

This is a poem by a member of a readers and writers group that has sprung up round Kirklees Council's INtouch digital TV service.

It's nicely written and quite moving in its self awareness and honesty about loneliness, isolation and ageing.

And the more so for being, as I imagine it, keyed into a TV set by the writer.

And read on a TV screen by the invisible group, which almost feels old fashioned - like huddling round the wireless.

It's a poem about communication technology, but from a voice we don't usually hear.

Which is what makes the last line heartbreaking.

Dear Invisible Group
by Mary Mortimer

Are we a gaggle of geriatrics
Singing more sweetly as does the caged bird?
Crying out to call attention to our plight?

The cricket has no voice but the world hears
His nightly strumming and sleeps better,
Knowing that dawn and darkness still return.

Our names betray a fading generation.
People with time to rest and time to read.
Gnarled fingers writing comments painfully.

"Do you remember?" is our favourite game
And as our roads wound uphill all the way
So had the view become spectacular.

Keep on reading, old comrades, keep in touch.

Two of these men is Andrew Wilson

Me with Andrew Wilson, in a queue for the bar at a conference. 

Andrew is the second of us I've met in real life.

We are many. Andrew is also the rugby league correspondent of the Guardian, for example.

There are almost as many of us as our mortal enemies, the John Smiths. A curse on him.

Blot Out the Artists!

I had a smashing time at the Hide and Seek Weekender.

The Magical Monstervision Machine Mk2 and Spotter's Guide got a very positive response from families and children, and there were some unexpected insights.

The Fluffy Orange Pencil Case brought many monsters to life.

But most of all, having lots of children running around made the always unselfconscious and enthusiastic Sandpit atmosphere into one of the warmest and most enjoyable events I've been involved in.

Big thanks yous to the Cell of Inventors for the Monstervision Machine, Holly, Alex and Rosie for the invitation to such a fantastic event and Aoife for helping out on the day so ably.