I was reading a thing in a freebie newspaper on the train tonight. It was talking about that new-ish thing that people are doing now – on the lines of myspace but it’s called ‘face-ache’ or something – I must be honest, it’s of so little importance to me that I failed to take in the name properly. I expect now to have pressed loads of ‘anger buttons’ for people – some will be shirty and say there is a BIG difference between myspace and face-ache, you moron – pah, don’t you know ANYTHING? Others will go face-ache? Who are you to criticise ‘facejoy’ or ‘facelife’ or whatever the real name of it is.

I had a long conversation with Shazbop while we sat mutually surfing on Wednesday night (her on her desk top and me on my lap top) who is a member of both myspace and faceache but she’s ‘picky’ about her ‘friends’ – she’s using the forum as a way of keeping in touch with her friends who are flesh and blood but just scattered around the world – she’s not interested in making cyber-friends so she just rejects the strangers who find their way into her space. She uses the technology for a purpose that suits her – and to me that’s a good use.

Anyway, the point is that the journalist who was talking about faceache pressed one of my buttons and that is people from your past who pop up out of the blue who you’ve no desire to hear, see or speak to ever again. Dead people – to her at least. Fortunately here on pbase, the people who’ve jumped out of my past have largely been welcome and to be honest, as most of them have found their way here by googleing their own name, I'd have to be pretty dim not to think that if I 'name names' they won't pop up so I tend to only name names when it's someone I'm happy to 'find' again.

Myspace’s charms elude me entirely. I have an account but only because I’d been tipped off that someone had knicked some of my photos from pbase and was using them there. I couldn’t get beyond the profile pages to look at the photos without registering so I did. I found out it was true – my photos had been used without my consent and ever since I have been in a real quandary about what to do about it. Normally I’d just jump all over the b*stard who’d knicked my pics but on this occasion, the circumstances were complex so I’ve been prevaricating ever since the discovery. DM says I should still kick up because I have to protect my copyright and although he’s right, there are extenuating circumstances that mean I feel bad doing that.

The other one that I have a great deal of difficulty understanding is friendsreunited. I really, honestly, can’t see a single reason for getting in touch with the people I went to school with. I can sincerely say I have no desire whatsoever to see any of them again (there are possibly one or two exceptions but let's face it, I've lived without communicating with those people for thirty odd years so I'm sure I'll manage without), as long as I live. I have always avoided school reunions like the plague.

Again, I dare say I’ll push a few more anger buttons now but to me the whole premise of friendsreunited is sad. It’s either a ‘boast forum’ where people’s profile pic is a shot of themselves outside a fantastic house, a huge red penis-extension car or on some exotic holiday – for them, it’s an exercise in ‘look at me, didn’t I do well for myself……..suckers’ or at the other end of the spectrum, it’s for those people who are unhappily married and thinking about their ex from when they were fourteen in the hope that life would have turned out better if that relationship hadn’t failed.

You see ‘friendreunited’ weddings in the papers from time-to-time and my immediate response is ‘oh dear – I wonder if they realise that the grass is rarely greener on the other side?’

Don’t get me wrong – I do love it when fate means my path crosses with someone I care about who I’ve lost touch with. I am spending this coming weekend with someone who I met up with accidentally after a number of years apart and am thrilled at the prospect. Equally, yesterday, I got back in touch with an old friend from twenty years ago, whose name popped into Ginny’s in-box at the office while I was talking to her. I asked Ginny for her email address and now we’ve fixed up a date for a drink – and she’s also put me back in touch with another dear friend who I’ve not seen for a while.

BUT on the whole, I reckon the past is best left as just that – the past.

Every time I have a rant on pbase about politicians I get a raft of people saying ‘why don’t you go for it’. I couldn’t get my head around why anyone would do that if they’ve lived a normal life – imagine all the slimeballs that you’d hate to find crawling out from under stones from further back on your path – friendsreunited, myspace, faceache all demonstrate that there would be over-egged stories about you appearing all over the News of the World’s pages before you know it. No thanks, you can keep the past, it’s dead, I’m looking forward.

Last year, we were at Siblyback!