You can say what you like about Facebook, but you don't realise just what a valuable source of advice and information it is. For example, how would we know what the weather was like without Facebook? If it wasn't for helpful people posting that it was raining or snowing then we would leave the house in the wrong clothing. I once tried to design a kind of hole that you make in the side of your house and cover with glass (to stop the cold getting in) that enabled you to look and see what the weather is like, but Mark Zuckerberg threatened legal action as he wanted to be the only source of weather knowledge. You would think that television and radio might mention the weather but no, Facebook it is. I am also thankful for the fact that you can find out that it is Friday and the working week is over, just as I like being told that it is Monday morning otherwise I would stay in bed.
The social media prefects were tapping furiously at their keyboards today to remind everyone to vote. If I hadn't seen one of these reminders I would have forgotten so off I went to the polling station. Unfortunately nobody on Facebook posted a reminder to get dressed so I ended up causing all kinds of commotion turning up naked to vote. If Facebook is going to work properly then please be consistent with your reminders of things.
Something that did piss me off today was the huge amount of pious postings on Facebook declaring who that person is voting for. In some cases they surprised me with their choices, (a large amount of my Nottingham contacts all shop at P.C. World and are against everything) but the main support was for Labour (?) followed by the Green Party which is to be expected. The difficult thing is when each party has at least one policy that you really agree with and makes perfect sense yet you still can't bring yourself to vote in their favour. To a degree I kept pondering whether or not to change tact right until I was in the booth but didn't.
A person's voting preference used to be a secret that didn't leave the polling booth, husbands and wives didn't know each others allegiances so why is it now okay to trumpet very loudly about it? Why even bother with the pissing about lining up for a piece of paper before entering a private booth? In the modern age we could just stick our heads round the door and yell the party of your choice as loud as you can. Following my sartorial faux-pas this morning I could have just written my vote on my bare arse and wiggled it at the old ladies who were taking our names.
At the time of writing this I don't know the outcome but I do hope that the Facebook prefects don't miss a reminder to remind them to stop reminding people to vote and actually go and vote themselves. If Facebook posts and tweets were monitored by the Electoral Reform Society then the results would be very different.
I've voted without posting sanctimoniously about it on social media.
— Steve Oliver (@SteveOliver76) May 7, 2015
By the way, please don't forget to vote!
No podcast this week.
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May housekeeping
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