Going grainless

I've done it. I've deactivated my Facebook account. Not deleted, mind. I'm not quite ready to take that drastic step yet. But quietly and without announcing it to anyone I've put it on hold to see how long I can go without my fix of tedious trivia (what have my friends had for breakfast today?! ooh look, holiday photos from that woman I spoke to for five minutes at a social three years ago). I think there's  actually a mathematical formula to calculate how much less than two fucks I could give about whether it's going to snow again in Cornwall when I never go there.

I'd like to say I'm doing it in protest at the Cambridge Analytica datamining scandal. I'd like to say I'm taking a stand and taking back control. I'd like to say I will play no part in the election of despots, the spread of fake news and the dumbing down of society simply because I like to watch videos of collies sledging and get into arguments with strangers about whether dogs should be allowed to sleep on sofas (the collie is pretty cool, to be fair). I'd like to say I'm concerned about causing long-term damage to my attention span (either I can't concentrate anymore or many newspaper articles are unnecessarily long and fall well short of riveting; either is possible).

I'd like to say all that but the truth is it's just become a bit boring. Nobody seems to have anything interesting to say anymore (maybe they're afraid of who's listening). Nevertheless, for all its tedium, I don't seem to be able to keep myself from logging on several times a day. It's like I need my dirty little hit of pointlessness. More worryingly, I've noticed I get grumpy when there are no notifications waiting to greet me. This leads me to suspect that in some way I'm addicted to it and, never having been the type of person to want to be controlled by something else, this I resent. I also resent the fact that I seem to have been hoodwinked into my addiction. I mean, when a gambler enters a bookies at least he knows where he is and what he's there for, right? When an alcoholic picks up a bottle, he might be wrong to think he can control it, but at least he's not kidding himself that it's orange squash in there.

Now, all I have to do is work out what to do with my hands...

Lights out

The Women’s Institute Journal 1988 lists the comings and goings of a retired secretary and Cooperative Society member in clipped, efficient entries. “Dot to tea”, “Precinct with Bobby for shopping”, “To building society this morning”, “Anne rang evening”, “Chops for tea.” Through the medium of shopping lists, everyday communications, bills paid and payable, the WI Journal faithfully records the beginning, middle and end of another unremarkable year in the life of Mrs Mima Williams, 69. 

Only 1988 was quite unlike any other year for Mrs Mima Williams, 69, for this was the year she was dying of advanced stage, inoperable lung cancer. This year, her last on earth, sandwiched between visits to the precinct and the tearoom, acting as a grim parenthesis to trips to the post office, the hairdressers, the butchers (did she see herself hanging in the window? imagine the day she would be just another carcase lying cleaved on the slab?) were endless hours in hospital waiting rooms; sitting in comfy chairs feeling anything but comfortable as she watched her veins slowly fill with useless chemotherapy - a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. The gradual ebbing away of hope with each set of negative results. The quiet horror of mornings spent in front of the mirror, carefully teasing newly unanchored strands of hair from her head, strategically aligning the remains of her wash and set, powder-puffing over the fear so she could face the world. The inedible chops congealing on the plate, scraped into the bin. The clink clink of the teaspoon on the second-best china a metronome marking time in Death’s echoing antechamber. Sitting alone in her first floor flat in the gathering dark, a candle flickering in a hurricane. 

None of this is mentioned in the pages of that bastion of reliability, the WI Journal 1988. the practical entries belie nothing but business as usual. Nowhere in the pages of those doughty ladies is there a single entry saying, “I have no control over my life anymore”, “my body is at war with me”, "my grandchildren have already forgotten me”, “I am frightened”, “I am alone”. 

On its final page, the WI Journal 1988 provides a space for the diligent diarist to continue into the start of the next year. This section has been left blank.