Friday 15 March 2024

Well. It took 2 days for this project to collapse.

I described on Tuesday I was going to attempt a social media experiment ‘again.’ I was referring to this clusterfuck of a project, from just over a year ago: using a directory of porn stars’ Twitter, uh, X accounts to attempt to boost my blog readership. Using Fame Registry, I found hundreds of accounts from porn actresses - people in a field in which I've received blog retweets before and hence many blog hits. 

I sent these two tweets each time: 

Hi, I’m a blogger conducting an experiment with social media. My blog is Power is a State of Mind. https://powerisastateofmind.blogspot.com/ 

I have a small favour to ask, (INSERT NAME): could you repost my blog please? It will be a huge help and I’ll give you a good mention. 

This time, I made sure I included the @ handle in the second tweet, meaning the recipient sees both tweets and may do what I ask. Otherwise, I'd have been tweeting back to myself, which is an infuriating glitch that Musk seems to have created. I investigated nearly 80 accounts, tweeting to those that had been active in the last month, of which there weren’t many. People - porn stars at least - have largely given up on X. 

One person, Kathia Nobili, reshared (Elon Musk won’t let us call it a retweet any more) to her 57.7K followers. I managed to do this for 2 days, before X slapped me with this: 

How long is this for? I have no idea. To be fair, I did get a little boost.  I'm now at 1,112,001 page views. 3K hits today.

 

So yeah, that’s another thing from my Before 42 bucket list ticked off, fail as it was. Scandinavia is booked. I guess I do what I want now!

Tuesday 12 March 2024

Time for a Social Media Experiment… Again

Just after my last birthday I wrote out this list of tasks to complete before I turned 42. 

Most of these I’ve now had a go at. Scandinavia I have booked. The last of these is this social media experiment. 

The plan is to try to boost the readership of this blog using X (formerly Twitter) and a third website. It may take several months. 

In the meantime, I need to find things to cover on the blog to keep it updated. Events in Manchester. Launches. Meetups. Protests. Arrests. Fights. Celebrity encounters. Psychology information. Book reviews. Conventions. Other stuff. 

This may take 2 months.

Wednesday 6 March 2024

That ‘Chaotic Month’ turned out to be 2 months.

Namman Muay Thai Oil

 

Right at the start of 2023 I explained I was going to attempt 4 tasks simultaneously: Improve flexibility using traditional Namman Muay Thai oil, beat my outdoor running record, beat my indoor running record, and fit back into my suit trousers. 

I’ve been working on these for the last couple of months, focussing on diet, including the kind of foods that help with stretching: oily fish, meat, lots of veg, grapes and watermelon. I’d cut out junk food, bread and bananas. I let the porridge run out. It took 2 full months to use up the freezer food. 

Let’s go through these one at a time. 

Did I improve flexibility? To a degree. I sat down with my feet in front of me and pushed my heels against the skirting board, edging them apart as far as I safely could. My record from 2014 doing this was 163cm. In January, I managed 140cm. Within a week, however, I’d got to 157cm. After that, I couldn’t get anywhere near for ages. It took a further month until I got to 158cm. For the last 3 weeks or so, I haven’t managed that far. 

Did I beat my outdoor running record? I do a 5.4km running route around my local area that I’ve had a go at here and there since I was 17. My record was 38:06 from October ‘22. Just a few days ago I managed 37:54. A 12 second improvement. I was putting Namman Muay on my legs before the run. Maybe it helped. 

Did I beat my indoor running record? I had been training my 10-minute run by trying to run at the speed of my PB, 14.1km/ph, for as long as I could. I was managing a couple of minutes at best for many years, and gassing each time. In more recent years, through coming off antidepressants and plundering my body with veg, I’ve ran the full 10 minutes at 14km/ph in January, then 14.1 just before the end of that month, then on the last day of that month I hit 14.2. I’d done it. I’d beaten my oldest PB from the summer of 2013. In early February I pushed it up to 14.3. 

Did I fit into my suits? I was 85.1kg at the start of the year. Yesterday I was 75.3. Then I tried out Shish Cafe, and got a pizza and cheesy chips. I’m now 76.1, some way off my 72.2 target to fit into my suit trousers. Oh well. 

I did, however, finish The Nature of Social Work, one of the books I planned to read while flexing. I also finished crime novel Condemned

Interesting project. Some successes, some failures. Just a couple more remaining from this year’s bucket list.

Tuesday 5 March 2024

Condemned

A deserted Yorkshire manor house sits atop a windswept hill, awaiting demolition. After an arson attack, DI Charley Mann receives a call-out to investigate. It becomes a bigger job when 2 bodies are unearthed, and more complex still when forensics reveals the bodies were killed decades apart. 

So begins Condemned, a crime novel by RC Bridgestock, the name under which husband and wife Robert and Carol Bridgestock write. 

Listen, I really wanted to like this book. I did. I even have family down the road from Marsden, where the story is set. The main problem I had is the dialogue was so, so bad. Whether it’s hardened criminals (of which the authors clearly have no real life experience) or world-weary Yorkshire coppers (I’m not convinced they know much of these either) you find yourself thinking, people don’t really talk like that. There are entire passages where a character becomes a mouthpiece for the research the authors have done, seemingly for the sake of it, speaking of history like they’re reading a page of Wikipedia. Even the grammar is terrible: why hyphenate ‘ballache’ but not headache? Just because your word processor (like mine) doesn’t recognise it doesn’t mean the slang word hasn’t entered the lexicon. The Bridgestocks (and their editors, seemingly) confuse regular words too, like moral/morale. And how the fuck can a dog be wagging it’s tail ‘ferociously?’ tail-wagging is a sign of canine happiness, FFS. Why tell us that someone’s signature hadn’t changed? Why would it? Another thing the authors are naive to: clearly neither has ever been in a fight. How could you hold someone in a headlock AND point a gun at them? Unless you’re Goro from Mortal Kombat

A very frustrating, confusing and not very interesting book. Not one of subscription service Teatime Bookshop’s best selections.

Monday 4 March 2024

Stone, Ngannou, Joshua, Devour

Last week my Joss Stone gossip got into celeb gossip email Popbitch

On the blog this week: a murder mystery novel review, probably a psychology book review and a review of these four fitness tasks I tried to do simultaneously. 

Also this week: former British heavyweight boxing champ Anthony Joshua takes on former UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou. Where to watch on Friday night? I’m yet to establish. Undercard starts 7pm.

Monday 26 February 2024

Joss Stone's Baboon Badger Conundrum

Using a bit of TOIL up this week. Will be polishing off this absurd flexibility project. Expect a write-up. There’ll also be a couple of book reviews. 

Also, singer Joss Stone went live on IG on Saturday. I asked her Popbitch’s conundrum: Who would win in a fight between a baboon and a badger? “Badgers are hardcore. I feel like baboons have dexterity. They have more of a chance." So, there you have it.