FULL STEAM AHEAD
JOURNAL
FULL STEAM AHEAD
8 March 2025
I wrote the original article on 26 October 2024. There was a sense of hope that the present catastrophe that many of us knew might well happen, could be averted.
The Trump—Vance—Musk Emporium is now well underway.
I’m relieved I ditched X.
Facebook is neither here nor there. So it remains in situ.
We saw mayhem in a tiny office on Friday 28 February.
We learned to differentiate between statesmanship and diplomacy on the one hand and preplanned thuggish ambush on the other.
As J D Vance so accurately summed the 45th Presidency up.
There’s a new sheriff in town.
That so beautifully summed up America’s very short history post 1776.
Americans loved it. They would. It’s their world view. God! Only 45-50 percent of Americans hold valid passports to travel beyond their borders!
On this side of the wide, ever wider, Atlantic Ocean, the Capitals of Europe are working together in a way that the American administration cannot quite fathom in just the same way that they can never fathom how the Commonwealth of Nations is also working with Europe.
You could almost hear that Mara Laga whine last Sunday at the London Summit in Lancaster House coming across the wires…
Wad uzz Canada myyy fifty furst state doing dher in Lannndan?
Mind your own business.
Diplomats and heads of state and prime ministers giggled very politely out of camera shot.
Showing you how diplomacy and world leadership is conducted.
Leader of the Free World. Really?
I suspect not. The 45th put paid to that before he had even been formally sworn in.
***
26 October 2024
SOCIAL MEDIA has many things for it and against it. Attempts to keep it as an enjoyable and informed platform mean that Social Media is driven by algorithms ~ in other words, artificial intelligence.
About six weeks ago, it seems I crossed the Rubicon when I posted six articles on my own Facebook timeline. They were for my interest only, and no one was tagged. I also regularly visited my Facebook timeline and would remove items that I judged were past their sell-by date.
I thought I was acting responsibly.
I was blocked “for posting too fast.”
But then the problems started. Any attempt to sign in was rejected, along with the most helpful message from FB that they had sent a code to my email. That email no longer exists. FB had been informed of this back in the summer, and it dawned on me that at no time had I been dealing with a human being.
Hence, the removal of the FB button on my websites, along with the X button. The thought of somehow being tied in with that character Musk does indeed leave musky stench.
Both websites are functioning well. And the more that I write, the more I find those two pesky visitors Russia and China snooping around.
What a world we live in!
I have written to FB using their designated email address that, I was informed would be answered within 48 hours. That is now two weeks ago. I’ve not chased it up because I asked an open question via Google as to likely response times from FB. Google replied:
“As of September 2024, Facebook has 3.065 billion monthly active users (MAUs) and 2.11 billion daily active users (DAUs). This means that over a third of the world’s population is active on Facebook daily”
I now have a whole new perspective on that old saying “like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
26 October 2024
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb © 2024 Ian Bradley Marshall
Digital Artwork by © KTW © IBM unless otherwise credited
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
