My apologies for the brevity of this episode, but there are very good reasons for it.  I am currently struggling with “the new”.  Specifically, the new Google that has imposed itself on the website I use.  It has been sending little messages for several months now about “sun setting” some elements.  I should move to the new platform as soon as possible.  Google did offer to set up a basic blog site automatically when their timer ran down.  Good, I thought. Go ahead, please. 

So I opened the page today to find a huge digital countdown across it.  Six weeks to go, ticking down in seconds.  That’s enough to spike your blood pressure!  I clicked on it, hoping it would go away but – no.  I stared at it for a few minutes as the seconds rolled over.  I swear it was mocking me.  Finally, reluctantly, I clicked on the “easy set-up” button.  That was definitely mocking me – it lied.

I spent nearly four hours opening multiple web pages, reading strange and barely comprehensible sentences and instructions that directed me to previous pages, new forms and then demands for my bank details.  These, by the way, were just in case I ran over the “generous free space offered”.  No chance of that as I couldn’t enter a single word before hacking through the thicket of acronyms, URLs and hot links.  I’m not an IT idiot – I began on the net in 1986 and have repaired and upgraded machines for years.  This, however, is deeply confusing and really rather horrible, not to sat f#*%ing hostile.

After managing to complete four of the ten stages, including installing new plug-ins (why??) and extra links (leaving out 90% as I don’t do most social media) I finally got something like a recognisable blog screen.  So here I am, writing a short update and hoping it will post.  I will use the next two weeks to crack this infernal system and give a proper update then, I hope.

In the meantime I find myself muttering, as I do when my programs offer an update.  In my 37 years of experience I have rarely found an update improves anything.  It just makes everything slower, more complex and less biddable. In many cases “update” actually means “bloatware”.  So I leave you to lapse into full Luddite mode : Not everything new is a good thing!

Thank you and I hope to be back soon.