Armchair anger is not enough

One evening last week, I was on Twitter making small talk with some friends, having a laugh, trying to wind down after a hard day at work.

Then someone I follow decided to spend the evening inviting people to share experiences of poverty, and retweeting them. This appeared to find approval among a lot of people, who made comments such as 'This is what Twitter is for'.

I unfollowed him.

My year on Twitter, and a thank-you letter to my invisible friends

When you get to a certain age it can be hard to make new friends. Or the ones you have aren't always around when you need them. (Three of my best friends are now at the other end of the country, the other side of the world, or have gone mad.)

So where do you turn to for friendship? The internet, obviously.

A definition of vintage. And a happy Christmas.

A few weeks ago I was browsing Christmas stuff in Oxfam and saw they were selling 'vintage' cards.

Great, I thought, I like vintage things. Picked one up, turned it over and it said on the back that it dated back to 1987. Ouch.

After going through them all I finally found one that was originally designed in 1957. My definition of vintage: a year older than me.

Happy Christmas.

Sometimes only country music will do

Last week, after a difficult period of uncertainty and insomnia, I got confirmation that I am being made redundant. I have mixed feelings: relief, bereavement, trepidation... In fact, it feels very like divorce.

There's only one thing for it. Time to get out the country music.

Identity II. All people are different, but some are more different than others.

Do you remember being a teenager and suddenly realising that you are a different person when you're with different people? It's one of those things you take for granted years later but at the time comes as a shock.

It's not one of those things that goes away. It's the reason I write this blog anonymously, and the reason I have more than one Twitter account. As a middle-aged person, I suppose ought to be working towards some kind of integrity, where I can merge all those people into one. (Maybe one day I'll just have the one Twitter account, a bit like Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook.) But I can't see it happening soon.