Capital Networking

I read an article the other day about Social Capital and social networking. I'd reproduce it here if only I could remember where I'd got it from, but I can't, and so I won't. To some extent, the whole thing made me shudder a little, reminding me of windowless, basement classrooms and monotonal lecturers droning on about social capital, in spurious connection with some tedious passage of Edith Wharton or some other cheerless tract. On the other, it set my mind wandering to my own increasingly and persistently paranoid use of the internet. You see, in between occasional references to De Tocqueville (a sort of gently firm reminder that the author knew what she was talking about) she asserted that social networks are basically jolly good, because they allow us to connect in lots of ways with lots more people, which in turn leads to lots of nice reciprocal behaviour (chatting, "liking", commenting, sharing pictures et cetera) whilst we all bond over shared interests and ideals. She also reckons we're all more confident online, can create online personas etc and present the people we would like to be to the outside world. She's probably right.

I'm not going to talk about social capital. For one thing, this is a blog and not an academic essay; I shall probably get it wrong, and there are people who read this blog who will take pleasure in mocking me for my idiocy. And that is the crux of what I AM going to write about: social media and increased online presence may well have all the positive benefits and happy outcomes beloved of the (slightly smug) columnist, but they in turn come with downsides. Aside from the ever-present danger of being sued (remember this?) there is an ever-present chance/fear of being humiliated, ridiculed, rejected, and simply ignored. In short, the likes of Facebook and Twitter expose one constantly to the threat of public failure.

One good example is the relative ease to humilate people in front of an audience. Social networking sites and even emails are informal yet safely distant. There's no chance the person you're mocking will burst into tears in front of you, or give you the good slap you might well deserve. Even if they retaliate, it's erasable at the touch of a button. In this sense we all have more power than perhaps we can really handle. In turn, it's so instant that it's easy to tap in something without really thinking it over first. Last term a colleague of mine sent a "reply all" email to the whole of our team putting me well and truly in my place (I won't go into the reasons why, which are relatively dull, not to say innocuous). Everyone I know seems to have an example of this happening in a work context: in another instance, a relatively senior staff member sent an email to a friend of mine telling her she had done her job incorrectly. Among the host of people she had copied into this correspondance (and to whom, for the most part, the matter was wholly irrelevant) was my friend's boss. When it turned out that actually the person who'd sent the email was wrong, and not my friend, she sent a terse yet private email to my friend which basically said "You were right after all". She did not, as I believe she should have done, send an email to the various senior people involved the first time around apologising. Ultimately, she could have been accused of trying to destroy my friend's reputation. In fact, Unison now lists copying people into emails in this way as a form of bullying. In my case, I went home, fretted, and sobbed a little on my long-suffering husband. My colleague was probably oblivious to this, and probably didn't intend this to be the outcome, her email most likely being no more than a little strop at the end of a busy day.

And so to Facebook. My husband thinks I am becoming obsessed with the internet, in fact, I am rather constantly afraid of my presence on it backfiring on me. I will readily admit I'm a sensitive person, and take things to heart that should really be shrugged off, and yet I was hurt when a friend mocked me the other day for misunderstanding a joke someone had made, the implication being that I was a bit slow on the uptake. Another friend replied, himself laughing at my stupdity. When I finally rejoined the fray and wrote "aw not fair, you're all teasing me now *goes and hides under rock and cries*" both "Liked" the comment, presumably assuming I too was laughing at myself, and not slowly tearing myself to pieces.

I am, more worryingly, increasingly agonising about how I come across, convincing myself in my more anxious moments that many people simply humour me, and secretly think I'm a complete idiot, bordering on a nuisance that they'd like to shake off if only they could. I worry about why someone likes all the posts everyone else puts on their wall, but not mine; I feel almost offended when I comment on a thread and people reply to all the other posts but seem to be tactfully ignoring mine; I feel pretty peeved when I message someone and they never reply, particularly if I've gone out of my way to say or send something nice or personal to them; I live in terror that someone will expose something I've said or done somewhere public, even though I can't honestly think of anything worth exposing.

In short, social networking and accompanying media have probably not had much of an impact on me in terms of social capital (unless joining a Dean Windass support page and setting up a new Bradford City page which hardly anyone has joined counts) but it has served to emphasise some of the worst and most niggling aspects of self-obsession, introspection and even paranoia.

And now, of course, I'm going to post this and, in doing so, throw myself to the proverbial lions, rendering all I've said above somewhat ironic. So while I go and wring my hands and fret myself into oblivion over yet another Facebook chat which clearly has far more significance for me than for the person with whom I'm chatting I shall leave you with this last intellectual thought: Social Capital my arse.

The Midlife Crisis begins

My other half looks unimpressed with our latest foray into retro gaming.

There's nothing quite like the unadulterated joy of holding a joystick in your hand and figuring out how to make it do exactly what you want - and that isn't even some kind of euphemism. As a kid I dreamed of owning a "proper" games console, like some of my friends had - a C64 or an Atari - complete with proper games rather than games with unconvincing names like "Let's Play Maths!", complete with redundant exclamation marks in an attempt to make them sound enjoyable, that you could play in school for ten minutes every other week. Instead, I made do with a borrowed BBC micro every holiday (plus side: better graphics, relatively speaking, and short loading times, but no joystick) then, a few years later, a borrowed Acorn (plus side: Lemmings!) Now, more than two decades on, as I approach my mid-life crisis, I finally have my Atari.

The Atari flashback comes with 2 joysticks and 60 pre-loaded games which, according to one of the websites "defined a generation". This seems needlessly hyperbolic: I don't think anyone would claim that the likes of Human Canonball and Nightdriver defined a generation. Pacman or, say, Space Invaders possibly did, but they're not on there. Instead you get an eclectic collection of games that range from the gloriously addictive to the comedically unfathomable. The result of this combination is hours of pure pleasure.

The Atari flashback had mixed reviews. Some criticise it for its "basic" graphics and clunky gameplay, which begs the question: "what did you expect?" Others wax lyrical about the simplicity of the games, which strikes me as missplaced nostalgia, because some of the games are positively crap, even by early 80s standards. The reality is somewhere in between: some of the games are genuinely fun, and don't require the ostentatiously high-tech spangliness of their modern counterparts. Others look laughably amateurish and are, by today's standards, just plain dull: "adventure" games where your pixellated alter ego totters from "room" to "room", symbolised by different coloured squares with gaps for doors, just don't cut it if you've ever played on anything developed since.

As ever, the guide which comes with it is at times as enjoyable as the product t accompanies. It doesn't actually perform any useful function, like tell you what the heck you're meant to be doing when confronted with an unidentifiable shape on the screen which doesn't seem to actually move anywhere but seems to be being shot at (we also gave up on "Miniature Golf", which consists of several squares of various sizes which don't appear to do anything). Instead, its contents are a colletion of factual descriptions interspersed with statements of the blindingly obvious with a smattering of wistful geekery. "Now this is an interesting concept for a game", says the writer at one point, raising our expectations until we discover that it isn't. "The aim of this game is to score as many points as you can", he says at superfluously at another (really?) "Collect as many dots as possible to win points", begins a third. Dots? Really? Surely they symbolise something - coins, perhaps? Treasure? Some life-saving elixir or weapon you can use later on to destroy your enemy? Apparently not: they are just dots. The description of "Wizard" is delightfully baffling: "Get hit by an imp's magical bolt or touched by an imp and your damage goes up by 2 points. Hit an imp with your own magical bolt and their damage goes up by 2. However the Flame seems to have a mind of its own and goes deeper into the catacombs with each confrontation." Good. Glad we cleared that up. As for "Fun With Numbers", someone should report the name to advertising standards: the aforementioned "fun" is simply a series of sums, but at least you get to "choose" from addition, subtraction, division AND multiplication. Get in! I bet that was well worth your hard-saved twenty quid back in 1981.

As usual I've rambled on for far too long, but I will at least pick a couple of games that I and my trusty gaming sidekick have singled out for special praise.

Frog Pond: This. Is. Brilliant. A two-player game, you are a frog (inexplicably pink or luminous green) and you get points by catching flies on your tongue. The flies look uncannily like birds, but hey. Detail.

Bowling: Who needs the Wii when you can bowl on an Atari? AND you get to see your character perform a nice little dance to the accompaniment of some marvellous sound effects and epilepsy-inducing flashing lights when you get a strike.

Circus Atari: I have no idea what the significance of the dots at the top of the screen are, except that you get points for hitting them. You basically have to catapult a stick man on and off a deceptively difficult-to-move see-saw, but there's something sadistically pleasing about the underwhelming splat when you miss.

Soccer: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Table football on a screen, with a square ball and no concept of the offside rule and no ability to move the goalkeeper on his own. Great stuff.

You probably have better things to do and far superior technology with which to do them, but if you fancy a bit of untainted enjoyment do pop round some time.

The Best Cake in the World...Ever!

Of all the cakes you will see throughout your lifetime, I'm pretty confident I can guarantee you will never see one as fine as this. The friend who made it for me wanted to combine the two things I love, namely Space Invaders and Bradford City FC. I'm not sure what this says about me, though looking back at recent blog posts I can't deny that she got it spot on. I'm particularly impressed that she managed to get the shades of claret and amber so perfect.