I've not seen Social Networking...I hear it's a good film; I see it's up for an Oscar or two. It may even beat The King's Speech, which would be a shame, as I know, I just know, that Colin Firth is better. And I don't even like Royalty. In fact I'd have happily been in Piccadilly shouting off with their heads.
I remember a very, very long time ago being introduced to Facebook. A client mentioned it and saw the potential for marketing purposes. He's clearly a cleverer man than me, because when I went and had a look I thought it was a dating website. After all, it asked my relationship status, and was I interested in boys or girls. I felt obliged to sign up, but then for several years didn't look at it from one month to the next, occasionally gathering friends until I had about 15 of them. That's Johnny no mates level.
In the meantime, the world moved on, and The Boy and his generation realised it was a brilliant way of keeping in touch. If only Aunts and Grandmas would use it, they could even avoid writing thank you notes after Christmas. They haven't yet spotted that the bacchanalian photos will blight their careers for life.
A couple of years ago, I realised that I was in danger of being left behind, so started Facebooking properly, and building up a bank of REAL friends on Facebook. It even identified someone I'd not been in touch with for nigh on twenty years, and as far as I could work out there was no obvious link or common friends. I was pleased to have been put back in touch.
With access on my mobile, I began to actually enjoy it. Annoyingly though, it kept popping up with a little notification about my friends who had found more friends using friend finder. I ignored it, but the drip, drip, drip of repetition finally got to me, so yesterday I clicked on the button. And a peculiar thing happened, it revealed the names of people who have left a comment on Don't Panic. I clicked away, so you may well have a friendship request from me. I'm pleased to have got acceptances back...from people who I already regarded as friends...but for anyone who has got a strange request from some middle aged bloke they don't know...that'll be me! I won't be offended to be ignored or declined.
My mistake was then to get carried away, and I've ended up with a client who is now a Facebook friend, and I've spent many a pub hour telling people to keep Facebook for personal stuff. I've been hoisted.
There were a thousand or more other suggestions for friends from Mark Zuckerberg, many of them The Boy's school chums, but I'm not sure befriending sixteen year old girls is a good thing.
