Humphrey Ker vs The Robo-Nazis

Well, the launch of my blog has been a thumping success, with viewers drawn to it from as far afield as Russia, Australia and Malta. So Strazdvooitye to Russia, G'day to Australia and Malta? SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND.

It is odd and exciting to be experiencing the gradual increase in people taking an interest in me and my work online. My twitter feed steadily increases in followers in spite of the fact that it seems mainly to consist of observations on the fortunes of Liverpool Football Club and plugs for gigs. People have read and disseminated the wisdom of this blog. Already my creed is being codified, debated and used as an excuse for ethnic cleansing the world over.

What is particularly jolly and exciting about all these new friends is the weird modern phenomenon of familiarity stripped of actual acquaintance. In days of yore, (1996), one could feel close to a writer or a presenter or actor or somesuch by reading or watching, or wanking to their output, but that was as far as the interaction went. Now one can feel close by actually talking to them on the interwebs. Lucas Leiva, Liverpool's "Brazilian in a million" talks to me on Twitter. "Hello Everybody" he says. "On my way to the training ground" he roars. "Olá pessoal !!! Estou no aeroporto voltando pra Liverpool . Resultado de ontem não era o que esperávamos mas temos que seguir acreditando" He gibbers in Portuguese. I know he is talking to all his followers but it is nice to read something that he has tapped out with his own hands, it makes me feel special like a grown up big-boy. I sent him a message once offering to hang out with him when he was in London but he didn't respond.

Why would he? We know that Lucas is to me as man is to the beasts that perish. His intellect vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarding this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drawing his plans against us. He has nearly a hundred and one thousand followers. I have about eleven hundred, but each one of them is an exciting little gem of a person, and an awful lot of them are complete strangers. I love it. In my own little pool there are all sorts of wonders to be found. A bit like a rock pool. There are plenty of exciting crevices to find exotic looking shrimps under and what-have-you.

I love looking at the tiny snapshot bio that people I don't know put under their twitter picture. The great drawback of the internet and indeed of any written word, is the difficulty of establishing tone. Some people's bios unintentionally paint the bleakest picture of an existence ill-spent, "43-year-old mum. Kids have flown the nest. Finally it's my time to start the Jazz career! :(" *

Yikes. Or indeed, Yay. It's often hard to tell.

The inspiration for this post is this man. He is clearly, from his tweets, a Regular Joe. Who runs a massive multi-national company. Nothing wrong with that. Read the wrong way though, his Bio smacks real hard of a dystopian future run by Robo-nazis: "CEO of Grass Roots Americas. Improving people performance and aligning behavior". IT SOUNDS TERRIFYING.

DESIRED EFFECT: UN-ACHIEVED.

Anyway, thanks for joining in the adventure gang. As I get better at this blogging business, incredible things are going to occur here. Things that will strip back the layers of sanity that protect your inner primal animal mind and send you into the street howling and rutting.

* I made this one up. It is not, I repeat not, about you.