Update on the concert & dating sites & other stuff

Well while in the mood I just thought I would give a quick update on the concert, which is that a date has now been confirmed apart from when I contacted the venue to tell them today, they were to busy to put it as confirmed in the book, so will try again tomorrow

I thought I had my lineup all sorted out, but sadly Pams People cannot appear they have other commitments, but instaed Affetside Choir are possibly willing to perform again with a different selection of music, plus we may be able to ask some other local talent to join in.

Jean the beatiful singer from last year is offerring to perform again, so we must be doing something right. Plus at the moment we have a talented young man willing to play the piano for us, his mother is willing to supply a group of young dancers, including some really young ones to give us the aah factor. Plus I have asked one of our volunteers if he will do a couple of sketches to cover up any of my mistakes during the performance & the lovely Jackie has offerred to compere again.

Now all I have to do is get some photos & info on the acts, get someone to sort out the design of the posters, find people to distribute information & posters to the public, find prizes for the tombola & someone to run it in time for early early March, plus late on Brian the elusive one on my photos wants me to find a school choir as well.

Well you can see I have to much time on my hands & a brilliant social life so I thought it was time to venture out & try to make social contact as described in my previous blog. Well I had been a member of Friendsreunited for some years as some of you will know, which had helped me to track down a range of long lost friends, so why not have a look at their companion site to chat, well sadly not quite what I wanted.

In conversation with someone at work they said, why not try their dating site you can just meet up & chat or make friends, so off I went, this is not good for my back, but I will try anything once, Joined up Had a look & there seemed some pleasant people going from their profiles & photos, although others had said be wary people can tell lies (surely not on the internet) plus people appearred to have looked at my profile. so jump straight in thought I & guess what , I got stuck on a page saying they wanted MONEY before I could access anything, well I thought about it & decided being tight & looking for a holiday(more of this in my next blog or maybe later in this one) decided not to bother.

Well yesterday I got a message to say someone was trying to contact me, well being the sad person I am curiosity got the better of me so I decided to contact them, with bated breath I clicked on the link to BE TOLD I NEEDED TO PAY MONEY FIRST, well what should one do.

I felt if someone after reading my profile was that desperate, then I should at least read their message, although friends keeep telling me how I dont look my age, maybe that actually means I am older than I look, must check this out.

Finally curiosity got the better of me so I paid the money & clicked on the link, the message was quite brief & sadly the lady although maybe a very nice person from her profile did not seem to have anything in common with me, plus she lives a considerable distance away from me, so right or wrong I have not yet contacted her but thinking of crititism I have made I now think that I should aknowledge her at least for making the effort.

Whilst browsing through the other members interestingly I came across someone I know & again am not sure whether I should say hello(but would it embarrass her) I suppose she could of contacted me if she wanted.

Well last but no means least I noticed a pleasant looking person so looked at her profile, which if correct meant she was not looking for someone like me but for reasons I am not sure of I e mailed just to say what a lovely person she seemed, what a nice suprise she e mailed back just to thank me, but my feeling is thats the end of that conversation, so lets see what happens on my next visit, I will try to remember to keep you posted

These brilliant photos I came across from a new aquaintance the other day & she was willing for me to put them on, I hope you enjoy them as much as me

How do people get a blog viewed by others

After my previous discussion on blogs & how & why we view them it has been suggested that putting in words that may draw peoples attention, when they search for a chosen subject, may actually work better than the actual content, so i am going to try this with this latest posting for a week, please feel free to leave suitable comments on the idea

I have decided to put in words that friends have suggested such as Ken Dodd which worked last time, Cyclops for those interested in greek mythology, terry wogan & Mr Blobby my heros & my favourite singers at present Nat King Cole Katie Melua Neil Diamond

Because I am interested in photography in particular sunrises & sunsets, which my readers seem to like are included.

My interest in disability issues may also be something which people may be interested in, in particular issues relating to problems of carers of people

Well this will do for a start I will see how I go on in the course of the week and report back adding other words as the week goes on

156 December 2006

This week I have been full of a virus, and am just starting to come round again, so I am a little disapointed that so far the post has not attracted any more viewers.
Possibly another range of interests may draw some more readers, such as the fact I am going to try to read Eric Sykes autobiography over the xmas holidays between all the festivities.

When I visit my family in County Meath, they will hopefully of bought the new version of Buzz, which is an interactive game, on pop music which sadly I never seemed to win last year, apart from when grand daughters & friends who are teenagers helped by pressing my remote because their reactions are quicker than mine.

I suppose I could mention a range of musicals but having done that in a previous post, I suppose it is not worth the time spent typing at present. I could mention some of the artists I worked with in nightclubs when I was young such as Gene Pitney, who had a truelly original voice not changed by amplification & sound effects, another who I am facinated by is Tony Christie who was at his peak, when I had a week listening to him doing sound & lighting back in the 70s. Now thanks to Peter Kay he is back again with the same songs hitting the top spot again.

Other acts that I did the the sound & lighting for back at that time included, The Three Degrees, The Barron Knights,The Grumbleweeds, Matt Monro, & Vince Hill. It was at the time of the Comedians so I had the pleasure of watching Charlie Williams the interesting act of Bernard Manning as well as the rest of their circuit (sadly some names are stuck in my head)

Since my last entry, one of my faithful readers has given me permission to reproduce his e mail showing that even when people such as me are thinking its all right for those who can go abroad for months at a time when the rest of us are shivering in the cold, all is not sweetness & light for them over there, I am so impressed that I have decided to provide a new post just for the tale

So please go to Zorros adventures in Bogata for a fun read

Another exciting week in the life of a tog

1 December 2006


Good morning all you readers, after that last serious blog I will now return to my usual but unpredictable life adventures, hope you like the photo of sunrise from my bedroom.

According to research it appears that many people give up on their blog quite quickly, one of the reasons being lack of interest by others in the blog, because people are not aware of what a brilliant blog it is. (sorry felt had to say that)

Therefore please readers carry on reading, pass my details on to friends, continue complimenting me on my photos, so long as its true, and a special thankyou to friends in New Zealand Mike Jan Rachel & Abigail (thanks for the card) , Hamster, Amo, Brian, Alan (wherever you are) & Andy

If you have been following my journey you will remember that I have been struggling to resolve issues regarding my insurance claim as well as my neighbours claim.

Well good news for my neighbour finally her TV arrived and even I was impressed with the quality of the set as well as how easy it is to operate. She wanted to tell everybody about it until I reminded her that others may try to steal it because of the world we live in.

For me finally my replacement sound system arrived on Tuesday and I spent 2 hours setting it up, after removing the other system and its 5 speakers, by the way I now have in my home 11 speakers, plus the 5 that came with this system ( if anyone has ideas of what to do with them let me know).

Sadly the system would not work so contacted the supplier, they now want to replace the whole system including the speakers, so guess what I then had to put it all back in the boxes, so today another replacement arrives. So that’s another 2 hours spent, but finally maybe I can listen to a tape or CD , in splendid surround sound .

My car went for its MOT on Tuesday as well, again bad news it failed so I had to pay for a rusty brake pipe to be replaced, total cost £100, which will make a hole in xmas plans.

On a more interesting note at our team meeting 3 of the staff did a talk on Islam, which as well as being very interesting, answered some of the questions we are usually to embarrassed to ask and was a reminder that if we can be more tolerant as well as starting to understand other cultures and religions we can live and work together peacefully.

A Togs thoughts on Blogs & Blogging

As a result of complaints from some of my readers, reluctantly this is going to be a serious Blog, there is a possibility that it will be reflective, that I will cogitate and give readers food for thought on the topic of Blog's.

When I was doing my research into Blog's I spent a lot of time looking at a whole range of other people's Blog's from the very serious through to the very humorous and lastly to the absolutely appalling which I hope my Blog isn't.

I was fascinated at the range of topics that are covered by people in their various Blog's, from one of my favourites the 43 bus to some that were so terrible I would not want to mention them and give them publicity they were that bad.

Friends suggested looking at Myspace and YouTube which I did and found that at YouTube a man in his 70s was one of the top Blog's although the average membership is around the 18 to 25 age group on the site. Further the video of his I saw was of him reminiscing about the First World War. I have a feeling that this will cause confusion to people such as psychologists and PR companies when they are trying to decide what people are really interested in with regard to Blogs.

Another thing that I wanted to look at was how could I improve the chances of other people reading my Blog, also what sort of topics would appeal to the sort of people who search for Blog's on the Internet. Sadly I have not found the answer as can be seen by me when I look at Sitemeter and the number of visitors and where they originate from ( I do wish I could find out who gren with envy, scarlett angel & annonomous are) to find out what drew them to my blog

This weekend in the Sunday Times there was an an article about Internet nuns who have their own Blog's, which will obviously of attracted a whole range of people for different reasons to read the material.

In my own Blog I mentioned a visit to see Ken Dodd which attracted readers sufficiently to make comments on my Blog quite quickly after I had posted the Blog, which show there are people out there constantly looking for information or knowledge about their particular interests and hobbies, often into the early hours of the morning.

Having said that in one of my Blog's I could not sleep one morning so got up at 5am and read the Sunday paper supplement and found an interesting article that then provoked me to then enter a new post on my Blog, interestingly enough nobody in my circle of friends and readers has passed any comment on the subject which I thought was unusual and was worth comment on the topic.

I'm not sure quite why I or any other person would want to sit at a computer for hours on end either typing, or in this particular instance, using speech recognition creating a Blog or posting, that possibly other people may never ever choose to read. Is it because it is a way to convey our thoughts, feelings and experiences to the outside world in a way which we would never ever do in public, because our friends often are not interested in our day-to-day life and interests, or we are reluctant to let people know of these same interests fears & feelings.

Hopefully therefore putting out our Blog for the millions of Blog readers to read, approve and helpfully comment positively as well as possibly giving some of us a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment when this occurs.

What is even stranger is the fact that there are people out there such as me who spend time reading and commenting on other people's Blog's, when there must be lots of other things that we could do to occupy our time. I suppose I can understand people who have shared interests searching for others and their Blog's to increase their knowledge on a particular subject and share with others. It is even understandable that some people use Blog's to convey their thoughts and feelings about the highs and lows of their lives in an anonymous manner to strangers.

What I personally struggled to understand are the people who have not made the effort to write in normal English that people such as I cannot understand or read without great difficulty. Maybe this is as a result of the growth in people using texting as a means of communication, that excludes a proportion of us Bloggers, but may be that is what the intention is.

In my own Blog more people have passed comment in personal conversation and by e-mail on the quality of my photos, than they have on the content of the rest of my posts despite the fact that I spend a lot of time thinking of content for the Blog's and then typing the piece into the Blog.

The question therefore is why on earth bother either reading or writing Blog's, unfortunately art present, I do not have the answer, to make it worse as my readers are aware, I have now with little success created another Blog on MySspace to widen the readership of my blogs, which so far nobody appears to be able to gain access to.

If this is typical of people entering into the world of Blogging and the difficulties they encounter when trying to make a statement or share an interest, is it really worth the effort and what lengths are we prepared to go in the hope of gaining an audience, which I feel maybe is why many such as myself do it.

But even this is a contradiction because I have chosen to use another name so only those who I have informed of the blog actually can identify me, so even if I gained a larger redership, I could meet readers of the blog on the street or elsewhere and none of us would know the other, so is this fame.

I remember a friend many years ago commenting on the fact that I enjoy being behind the scene as in theatre controlling the event, rather than as an actor who people can actually identify, she said there is a name for people such as me and possibly other bloggers, which is "eminence gris" that means "grey eminnce" which fits in with my personality.

Thanks for reading this Blog, I would be interested to hear any of your comments about the content, I do realise for 1 of my readers there is missing punctuation but unfortunately my throat is getting dry and it is now 10:30 PM so you readers will have to put up with the Blog as it is