A short update about the blog.

There have typically been two ways for people to know when I post something new to the blog – either to visit the website and have a look, or to use the RSS feed with a suitable RSS Reader.

After a bit of prodding over the weekend, I can now add a third option – Facebook Pages.

So, if you use Facebook, click on the IanVisits Page and if you “like” it then the updates will automagically appear on your Facebook wall.

You can also follow me on Twitter – where you can be delighted to hear about my constant battles with drinking too much coffee or forgetting to turn the oven on.

Even though I am undeniably right now in the UK – the local Wi-Fi service I am using still tells the world that I am actually in Germany, so when I visit websites, I tend to see German adverts – which can sometimes be slightly amusing. Although the fun breaks down a bit when Google keeps trying to redirect me to their German website.

This morning though, I am seeing an advert on Facebook exhorting me to Visit London. Maybe I will.

Even better, if you string the advert below it into a single phrase, it could be saying “Visit London, but only if you are Gay”. I wonder what the Daily Mail would make of that.

(should Gay be capitalised or not? Hmm)

As one of my hobbies is reading the Early Day Motions in the House of Commons (yes, I am that sad), some of which are serious and some can be quite amusing – I came across this one which was actually quite interesting.

I used to do a little bit of lobbying and still fire off letters to unsuspecting victims to express my views on an issue.

The key thing I was taught when doing letter writing though – is never ever send a “copy/paste” letter to your MP. The MP’s office will get hundreds, if not thousands of identical letters from constituents and will promptly realise that the “concerned voter” is actually an organised campaign by a large organisation.

If I do write a letter, based on an organised campaign I will always state that fact – but then explain why I am personally concerned about the issue and only highlight the research from the organiser which is relevent to my comments.

To his credit, my local MP is quite receptive to these sorts of letters.

I was therefore a bit troubled to read this Early Day Motion this morning:

That this House notes that a campaign by Greenpeace sent around 7,000 largely identical emails to hon. Members who had signed an Early Day Motion about Heathrow; observes that this caused some hon. Members’ mailboxes to become unavailable to constituents who wished to discuss this or other issues or personal problems; further notes that a request to discontinue was not accepted unless hon. Members were willing to commit to vote as the organisation wished; and believes that denial of email service by mass spam is an inappropriate and unpersuasive tactic.

I totally agree with the MP (the audience faints in shock) and think this sort of blunderbluss spamming of MP’s email and postbags is frankly just a waste of time. The MPs are going to, understandably treat 30 identical letters as just one complaint – as it is so obviously from just the one originating source.

Having said that I support the point that a DoS style spamming of their email addresses is a bad idea – I am slightly amused by the campaign to ‘cc every email on a specific date to our illustrious Home Secretary to protest against the government plans to keep a record of every single email transaction I engage in.

Incidentally, having a secure link to my email server – which happens to be in the USA – tends to render that law impotent.

Online advertising can sometimes throw up oddities, especially when an advert appears next to a news article which is disparaging about the product – or similar such hilarity. With the rise of contextual advertising though, where the contents of the webpage decide what adverts will appear, this should in theory be a declining issue.

However sometimes you get something so bizarre that you are left scratching your head in bewilderment at what just happened.

On Facebook, my comment this morning was somewhat disparaging about T-Mobile, and lo!, for there appeared a T-Mobile advert. Understandable, as I doubt the algorithm to stop the advert appearing had my text as one of the stop phrases.

However, it was the other two adverts which made me blink several times in disbelief.

Quite what is the message they are sending – that is you are single and gay, then maybe trying older women would be an option? Or maybe if you fancy older women, then you might also like to try out a bit of man-on-man action?

It’s bad enough being perpetually single without these sorts of confusing messages being directed as me!