Blocks, Bans, Beer and Departures

It’s been a bit of a week. Quite apart from visiting the pub three times in three days (with friends, co-workers, and family), my brother blocked me on Facebook, the old-school incarnation of my blog got banned (temporarily) by Blogger, and we are of course in the thick of packing to go away for a month.

I won’t get too far into why my brother blocked me on Facebook – suffice to say that if you post made up right wing drivel that can easily be proven entirely false, and I’ve had a bad enough day, I’ll ask Gemini if what you’ve posted is true or not, and paste the answer into the comments box. Some people don’t like their soap-box tirades being fact-checked, it turns out.

On Wednesday night my other half had planned to go out for something to eat with a wonderful friend that lives across the way. While in the middle of thinking “yippee – that frees me up to record some content for the internet”, she popped her head back around the door. The friend’s boyfriend was also going, so would I like to go too? I dropped everything, pulled shoes on, and ran from the house.

I had something of a headache the next morning. I guess the nice thing was everybody taking an interest in where the accidental content creator escapade might take me next – and in the middle of everybody telling me what I should be doing, the wonderful mentioned friend realised and stopped everybody in their tracks. It’s not the first time she’s done it – she’s one of the most insightful, empathetic people I’ve ever met. It’s probably why we get on so well.

The very next day I had agreed to meet up with co-workers – both present and past – for a catch up. I woke up with a headache the next morning again. Everybody joked that it was preparation of the holiday – training my liver to deal with alcohol after months of rarely drinking.

I wouldn’t say I don’t drink any more – I just see it as wasting time if I can’t think clearly enough to get on with whatever I want to be getting on with – and learning to fly aeroplane after aeroplane for the YouTube channel requires a ridiculous level of concentration. It’s painfully obvious to me that I should slow down. Yesterday I worked all day – wrapping up projects in preparation for the impending holiday – and then immediately switched to learning how to operate a business jet from the late 1980s.

By midnight I had live-streamed flying it, and published the first draft of the procedure to prepare the aircraft for flight. It never ends.

Before that all happened last night we *all* went to the pub – the entire household – myself, my other half, three daughters, and one granddaughter. Leaving the house took an HOUR. I sat in the pub as something of a passenger, drank a pint of orange, made conversation, and then came home again. I carried my granddaughter to the car – through the middle of town – her eyes were agog at the night lights, the cars, and the people passing us on nights-out. By the time we got home she was fast asleep.

So… winding back to earlier in the week – you may remember I have resurrected the Blogger incarnation of this blog (you may be reading it now – given that I cross-post between Blogger and Substack). You might understand my shock and confusion then when a robot at Google emailed me, telling me that my blog had been banned for breaking several of their community rules.

After a bit of reading, I figured out that being able to import old posts runs contrary to a rule about automating content creation. I guess they never saw somebody with six thousand posts before though…

I appealed. Within 12 hours the blog was alive once more. I will admit to taking another look at WordPress, Ghost, and Squarespace while being furious with Blogger – and even considering self-hosting via Jekyll. The blog re-appeared though, and I’m not sure I can be bothered with moving everything *again*. We’ll see how it goes.

Maybe Substack isn’t that bad after all.

So. Today (Saturday) you find me enjoying the first day of a MONTH off work. While my other half went grocery shopping with the kids this morning, I went shopping for wash-bag contents, and started folding clothes into shiny new suitcases. My packing is largely done already.

It’s funny – I’m one of those people that rarely buys clothes – I’ll happily keep on wearing the same things until they have holes in them – then throw everything away, and start again. This holiday has triggered one of those refreshes. New suit. New jeans. New shirts. New shoes. New trainers.

I spent an hour this morning with a hand-held steamer, getting the creases out of dress shirts – fresh from their packets. OH MY WORD I should have bought a hand-held steamer YEARS ago. Granted, I rarely wear dress shirts, but it’s SO much quicker and easier than ironing. Don’t get me wrong – I’m good at ironing – I’ve always done my own – since I was a teenager.

Oh. One more thing. A mysterious package arrived yesterday from the US – containing a huge metal model of an Airbus A320 with illuminated windows (and I mean huge – the sort of thing you see in a travel agent). It was from a company I have worked with on the internet, along with a wonderful letter thanking me for using their products. Now I just need to find somewhere to put it! My other half is joking about building a studio to record YouTube content – or at least re-vamping the junk room at some point.

I wonder what you need to make a “studio”? Egg boxes on the walls? An illuminated “ON AIR” sign? Every good studio needs a huge metal aeroplane with illuminated windows, right?