I’ve done most of my jobs. Stuff taken to tip, wood piled up “neatly” at bottom of garden, Kid 4’s bag emptied after skiing holiday (that one was worth a few brownie points I’ll tell you), roast beef prep done with veg peeled etc, broken light bulbs replaced. I’m sure there was more. It felt like it (cue violins – I’m not proud). I only have the bit of wood to glue back on the towel hooks in the bathroom to do (again – different bit this time) which will wait for me to finish the cup of tea I am about to consume as a reward for getting most of the jobs done.

When I came in from the garden the news about Jenny Jones’ bronze medal was on the radio. Thing is that happened hours ago. I’ve even written a blog post about it. Very topical, me.

I suppose there must still be people who don’t pick things up as they happen, online. This situation is only going to be around for a limited period of time. That generation will soon die off and there will be nobody left who isn’t aware of every noteworthy (and otherwise) bit of news as it happens.

We will be watching the casualties as they come in to the temporary field hospitals in besieged cities in conflicts around the world, seeing waters rise and emptying into fields that have been floodplains since before humans were around, following the totally inane Twitter banter of people we don’t even know as it happens, catching the last few minutes of the really “exciting” football/netball/tiddly winks matches covered by one of a thousand free online TV channels that we have subscribed to whether we liked to or not.

And so on. And so forth. etc.

Where’s it all going? I’ve just about finished reading the History of the English Reformation. Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, Good Queen Bess and so on. A letter from England to Rome would take weeks to get there. One wonders what they did in the meantime whilst waiting for a reply.

Got on with burning people at the stake and stuff like that. “I’m bored dad!” “Chuck another heretic on the fire son”.

It’s taken me quite a few weeks to read the book because I never have lengthy periods of time where I’m doing nothing. You have to force yourself to stay away from tinternet these days.

Perhaps we all need to have windows where the router stops you from accessing anything other than mission critical applications – cctv, banking websites.

I’ve just thought of another job. I’m going to clear the grate out and light a fire. Tonight I will start a new book and site in front of the fire reading it.

Do stuff.

Ciao.

PS Of course one problem with being able to access news as it happens is that you quickly need to be fed with new news. Not the old stuff you have already heard. It’s going to mean we watch/listen to/read even more crap than we do already.