Friday 4 December 2009

Just tell me who you are?

Is it too much to ask for a website to be upfront about what it is? This blog is called 'rant' for instance, and you won't be surprised to find out that it is a place for people to have a rant. It is not a place to buy shoes, save polar bears, download music or look at people with no clothes on. It is what it says it is. A place to rant, moan, whinge, complain and generally get stuff off your chest. I mention this because of a rather embarrassing incident that happened to me yesterday. 

Whilst taking the 6.30pm train home after a hard days work I decided, through the marvels of modern technology, to check there that there were no other websites doing the same thing as this one. There are a couple of ranting sites set up by Wisconsin based teenagers to complain about things I'm far too old to understand, but none as far as I can find that are an open forum, inviting others to contribute. So far, so good. Unfortunately during my research I clicked upon one particular site with the word rant in (I won't tell you the rest for reasons that will become apparent), and was given rather a shock. As I was sat on the full commuter train, iPhone in hand, I shared a polite smile with the young lady to my left while the page loaded, a mutually understood gesture that said 'Hello, please don't talk to me, I'm English.' Imagine, if you will, my horror when an image filled my screen that, frankly will stay with me for some considerable time to come. Two men, one with a moustache, neither with clothes and if I say that one of them was 'playing  the trumpet', you'll start to build a picture. I immediately pressed the bookmarks page to load another site, any other site, but of course now the screen was frozen, a little ball whirring round on top of the two close friends, teasing me. I had to then hold the phone, screen covered, while the browser eventually loaded a new page, once it was good and ready. On top of the shock, and colossal embarrassment my phone is now probably loaded with dirty cookies, and I will become not only the recipient of endless spam emails of an unsuitable nature, but also fall under the watch of 'Operation Ooh I say!' of Scotland yard.

Now if that web site had had a more relevant name, I would not have gone near it with a barge pole, and the poor woman sat next to me on the train would not have had the unsettling experience of wondering why the man next to her was holding his phone by his ankles.

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