I always check my junk email folder in case I have won a £10 million lottery prize and unaccountably forgotten to claim it. Today, I found something there which was even more unlikely. ‘Pinetastic Furniture wants to be your friend on Facebook!’ shrilled the email.
Well, no it doesn’t. Pinetastic Furniture does not want to be my friend, on Facebook or anywhere else. Pinetastic Furniture does not care whether I live or die. Though if I did die, from sheer excitement at the prospect of such a promising and mutually fulfilling relationship, I’ll wager Pinetastic Furniture would quite like me to be buried in a Pinetastic coffin.
On the radio news this morning, I heard that 60-something per cent of burglars now check on Facebook and Twitter to see what swag their victims have accumulated and when they are away on holiday. I don’t think I’ve ever tweeted, ‘staggering home with my vast plasma telly, must pack before my hols’, but I take the point that it’s easy enough to check if you are that way inclined.
Added to that, I’ve heard a lot of grumbles in the last couple of weeks about various changes to Facebook. Most of these complaints came from Child One and Child Two, who sounded like a couple of grannies the other day as they said everything had been moved around, they didn’t know why it had been necessary, they couldn’t find their usual bits and bobs and they just didn’t know what the world was coming to….
Sometimes it seems to me that I write blog posts, stick them on Facebook, then tweet about them, all so that 278 spammers can leave comments with links to their penis extension websites, looming large in cyberspace.
Yet every now and then I’ll shamelessly nick a couple of good lines from old friends for a blog post, they’ll get in touch, and Facebook once again seems like a place where genuine chums pop in occasionally for a virtual cup of tea.
But Pinetastic Furniture – don’t hold your breath.