12 June - Nearing the end of the road?
With hay fever proving to be an unwelcome visitor for the past few days, the plan to do a spot of gardening
was soon abandoned and in an idle moment I went to
Hugh Neal’s Sunday blog to see if he had published early, and he had. Not only that
but he had referred to my rant about my
non-functioning Smart Meter. It worked
for 41 days out of about 120 to date and cannot be fixed.
This goes some way to confirm my view expressed in a response to Tony of Sidcup who suggested I run some sort of
poll on Bonkers to see what residents think about the ugly buildings which Bexley
Council seems to be happy to see blight the borough.
Hugh refers to me as “fellow local blogger” but I do seriously wonder how long
that activity can continue. Hugh carved out a niche based on local history, a
bit of technology and only the occasional comment on local affairs.
Murky Depths covers planning in depth and minor news items culled from
Twitter and the like. Bonkers on
the other hand started off by exposing industrial scale lying by Bexley Council
and their occasional forays into criminality and the associated covering up.
But whilst not exactly perfect the Councillors have made an effort to clean up
their act. When web hits would sometimes reach 50,000 a month and I’d be
recognised in the street there was probably a job to be done but I am inclined
to think there no longer is. It is a good month when unique readers tip over the
5,000 mark. (Page reads are quite a bit higher.)
Frustratingly, the ‘service’ of reporting on Council meetings which takes up so
much time, only appeals to a few diehards, most of them I suspect are
politicians; rants really do provoke more interest. Maybe I should try another.
In the whole of this year I have not patronised even one of the local markets.
First Saturday of the month in Wilton Road, Abbey Wood and second Sunday at
Lesnes Abbey. Sometimes I have been away on the day but the main reason
is that I stopped looking at Facebook in January and that is where the markets are advertised.
I never did like Facebook and when I was particularly busy at the beginning of
the year, spare time largely disappeared and I simply drifted away from it. And
I still don’t like it. For a start it seems to breed little dictators who start
their Group or somehow manage to take it over.
I’ve never been a big FaceBook contributor but have nevertheless run into several problems. When the
local traders’ association was more active and I knew a little of what it was
doing I offered an explanation for what was being seen as inadequate customer care. I
was in a minority of one but not for long. The supportive comment was deleted.
When I joined a history group serving the town in which I grew up I found a
large number of photos there which were mine but with the copyright attributed
to the Group’s founder. I made no comment but one of them had been taken at my
school and there was comment to the effect that the teacher appeared to be
smoking in class. I dug out my original negative and scanned the relevant
segment at the highest possible resolution and added it to the Facebook thread
to show that the smoking was an illusion and making it pretty obvious that the Group founder’s claim to own the photo was spurious.
I was immediately banned.
In Bexley someone suggested a site for a tree. It seemed to be a
good idea but It was right on top of a water main and power cables. I posted a
photo as evidence. That didn’t last long either and the tree suggestions were
allowed to continue unfettered until the thread died as they always do.
I was an early contributor to an electric car group and was credited there as a
founder member. That was not really true as I took no part in setting it up but
I was one of the first half dozen to participate. Then I happened to mention
(long before my own travails) that my son had a mixed experience with Octopus Energy, some good, some not so good.
The Group was using my photos in its banners and profile pictures but I was told
that I was not welcome there any more. The reason was that the Group Founder
earns a small fortune from Octopus referrals even though referrals are
specifically banned on that Group. One rule for the Founder, a different one for
everyone else. And petty dictators will be petty FaceBook dictators.
The thing that will definitely cause the demise of Bonkers is if my ISP
disappears. I use a small one which was set up in the late 1990s and I got to
know the people there pretty well. They provide all the facilities that supports
Bonkers free of charge. I know that small ISPs have had a very hard time because
of Covid and now the financial squeeze. Ominously they have begun to not answer emails and
I fear the worst.
If they go Bonkers goes.