In fear of Facebook

Having spent most of my career* in marketing I was fascinated when I first joined facebook, about 12 months ago now. I was simply blown away by the amount of marketing information the owners of facebook held. It's pretty difficult to know how many people are now registered, but with howies now producing t-shirts which say "NO I AM NOT ON F*!#ing FACEBOOK" we can guess the numbers are pretty high.

Get me straight, I am not worried about facebook in the way a number of other luddites have been, I don't particularly worry about

a. the demise of blogging

b. the time I might/might not waste on facebook

c. oppression of non-members

What concerns me more (and is an ongoing concern in many areas of public life) is when too much power is held in one place.

Let me explain... when I worked in Marketing, the idea that I could so easily find the date of birth, gender, relationship status, personal tastes, educational achievements, workplace, political and religious views of my customers, was just a dream come true, then to know the same details of their friends, was just too incredible to be real.

Of course I'm not suggesting this information is given away at the individual level, but at a macro level this kind of information would enable me to create products, offers and propositions and develop new markets. Again, I am not particularly averse to this... ... but what I am struggling with is some of the bedfellows of facebook, may not have such pedestrian intentions.

Perhaps the bigger irony is that Facebook is opensource. Opensource was once hailed as one answer to dispersing power and the reducing the ability to extort.

*This makes it sound intentionally planned and meticulously managed... which is really quite comic.

ADDITION: See this interesting article by Tom Hodgkinson Editor of The Idler - this is much better stuff than my rather vacant ramblings... makes you want to pull out of Facebook altogther.. in fact I might start a group!

Rhubarb

Thanks to Mrs Body's generosity, and her skill in driving a spade through through a healthy crown, I have now planted two Rhubarb patches. This is supposed to be done in the early autumn, but being pretty hardy plants they're doing quite well.

Along with asparagus and properly ripe pears, in my view, rhubarb is one of the three British delicacies (I used to have quails eggs on this list until I went to Cambodia, where they are sold as road side snacks, Fortnum and Mason take note).

Alongside getting the Garden cleared, we were also able to regenerate the compost heap... interestingly Bette Midler had a few interesting things to say about Composting...

"My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap."

Fallow year...

After a 'fallow' 2007, I was determined that 2008 was going to be a more productive year for the garden.

So with the help of two exceptionally generous friends we managed to clear my garden, it only took 5 hours.

Now the hardwork of planting out and maintenance. If you live in the Oxford area, expect a summer and early autumn of unwanted corgettes and marrows.

Winter in Salcombe...

Two weekends ago we spent the most amazing winter weekend in Salcome. I am still staggered that we were able to have a picnic on the beach on February 12th...

Thank the good Lord for SUV's and patio heaters...

Typepad exile...

After many, many months of blogging silence, I have resigned my typepad account, and transferred my blog onto blogger. In the end of the day I really don't have enough to say to justify the extravagance and complexity of a typepad account.