The last few days seem to have revolved around a reliance on social media. I had a very cultured week, with visits to the Royal Albert Hall and National Gallery. Well, Albert Hall maybe not quite so cultured – The Human League concert, but it was such fun!! We found out about it through a Facebook social media paid ad. I must admit that I usually ignore them, but this one caught my eye, and it obviously worked for them: we bought tickets! Gill always manages to get us seats where there’s loads of room to dance and we came home with sore throats, amazingly having remembered all the words.
Those two girls – Joanne and Susan – talk about being in the right place at the right time! They definitely weren’t the most talented singers or dancers, just lucky enough to meet Phil Oakey in the Crazy Daisy Nightclub one school night… and the rest is history. Recruited to add glamour to the band as it prepared to tour Europe after Martyn Ware broke away to create Heaven 17, their voices are now credited as a reason for the group’s mainstream appeal and commercial success. So if Phil had been in the Ilford Palais that wet October evening instead of in a club in Sheffield, that could have been us. Couldn’t it? We can’t sing either but I did have a Burberry trench coat (pink) and would happily have had an asymmetric haircut. Dreams. Well, electric dreams anyway.
My afternoon at the gallery was also fun – one of my new clients had never been there, so I did my teacher bit, pointing out trivia about the paintings I like. My favourite was missing – I was surprised how disappointed I was! I’d told him about it, built it up into a big thing, and in its place was some other artwork. My painting – An experiment on a bird in the air pump, by Joseph Wright of Derby – is on loan somewhere in Europe; no one seemed sure exactly where… Had quite a response when I posted about it on Twitter – how great it is that we can share irrelevant information during the work day and engage in conversations that go on until bedtime.

Thursday morning saw a bit more chaos than usual. I’ve created a website for a local organisation and John came over for a lesson in WordPress and social media so that he can update it himself. First of all, I have to say that I never usually display my email account in public, but he’d sent me an email the day before that I wanted to talk through. Logged on to Hotmail… up popped an email from Ann Summers!! Full colour and pics! That was the first disaster so already I was in panic mode. Then he said something that shocked me and I spilled a whole glass of water over my laptop! Thankfully it dried out with the help of my hairdryer and the bathroom radiator. Luckily I do back-up everything now, since that other disaster, but please take my advice here – never let people see your email, and keep your drinks well away from your keyboard.
And so the conversation turned, until the sun went down. And many fantasies were learned, on that day… You can learn it all on LinkedIn, my favourite social media site this week – we can connect there, or – as always, follow me: @WeekendWitch.
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