March 2005

We have too many identifiers. Too many means of contact. Some disposable, others a little harder to dispose of. Some are valuable, others are casual. We have:

1. Home address
2. Home fixed telephone line
3. Work address (not for me)
4. Work fixed telephone line (ditto)
5. Work fax (some people sadly have a fax at home, but few are anal enough to have a dedicated line for it, though I must shamefully confess; I once did
6. Mobile phone
7. Email address(es)
8. MSN Messenger handle
9. AOL Chat handle
10. Yahoo Messenger handle
11. ICQ number
12. Skype ID
13. eBay user ID - this accrues value if you buy and sell!
14. Amazon user ID - see eBay above
15. Message board ID for each message board you participate in
16. Blogger ID - including all your blogs, public and private

Every one of the above is a different identity you schizo you. Who said that?

Is it any wonder we always pick the same password for everything we do? And can you imagine me putting all the above onto a business card? No. I can’t either. And neither can I. Nor I!

The truth is, some of these identities are best kept separate. Different compartments of our lives, with no transgression of boundaries. Then there are the secret identities - the ones created temporarily - that vanish back into the ether from whence they came once their purpose is served. Creating a temporary identification for a specific web site is such a commonplace event now that a brilliant site called BugMeNot takes care of all that for you. (Thanks for the link Geoff). You enter the URL of the site, it gives you an ID and password from its database. The caveat is very fair - if the URL doesn’t exist on its database, it’s only fair that you create a user id and log it with them so that others too can benefit.

It would be nice to have a common handle which is in effect a master key to all your other identities. Nobody else would have this ID, but messages could be passed up to your master ID through this channel, without the users of your “lower” IDs ever being aware of who the top-level-owner is. This secrecy, or privacy if you prefer, is more likely a requirement of email and instant messenger type communications. It would still be good to have a single public name for phone calls - perhaps the call would go to the appropriate channel depending on the originator ID - if it’s a known fax number, it would go to your nearest fax machine - if you’re travelling - you could certainly update your latest number through your public key by swiping a card through say a hotel room door - and the caller need never know where you are.

Of course, you might not want everyone to know that you’re having a sordid weekend at Babington with two leathercladgimpbitches, but by having your public key, unless the caller could hear the proud thwack! of your cat o’ nine tails breaching the soft hide of the nearest gimp to penetrate to the flesh beneath, they wouldn’t have a clue where they were calling anyway. No more “aren’t you at the office dear, because I’ve tried there!”.

It’s already a feature of the online chat clients that nobody knows, nor cares about where you are. It shouldn’t be too long beefore the same technology arrives for the voice. Then if we could only have a single ID to contain the mess, we would be very organised indeed.

Let’s be fair, I sent an email to a Guardian journalist who happened to be reporting on the Liverpool match. I can’t afford Sky, and I’m not sure I’d want to pay those scum even if I could afford it, so I read the live text flashes on the Internet.

Anyway - here’s how Barry Glendenning of The Guardian wrote my email up:

77 mins: There’s an awful lot of very smug Liverpool fans sending me emails in which they’re crowing about how great their side is and what a big know-nothing Liverpool-hating monster I am. While I’m happy for you all to enjoyu your moment in the sun, please don’t get carried away. This Bayer Leverkusen side are putting on the worst Champions League show I’ve ever seen tonight. They are beyond hopeless. Admittedly you can only beat what’s put in front of you, but a bad League Two side would have beaten tonight. Not that any of you glory-hunters would know what League Two is. Anyway, a bit of perspective is all I ask for.

83 mins: Perspective like this: “I’m a Liverpool fan,” writes Shahid K Ahmad. “Your reporting is fine, Gerrard is over-rated. Xavi Alonso came into the team and immediately looked more accomplished, turning Liverpool into a semblance of the passing side of old almost immediately - and at £11m when Gerrard was valued at £35m - makes me wonder if we wouldn’t be wise taking the Roman silver, if it’s still available.”

Since I was mildly disparaging about Steven Gerrard, our captain, who is very good, but just not as good as everyone seems to think, I was pleased with my Judas reference.

Could there really be a cure this time? Could it really be made available to ordinary diabetics?

BBC report
Guardian report

There are of course, the usual problems as with any transplant procedure that involves donor material. The diabetic would have to be on immunosuppresants for the rest of their lives. Also, the procedure isn’t totally successful for everyone. Some diabetics still need to take a little insulin. And of course, there simply aren’t enough islets to go around - recent estimates show that 0.1% of diabetics could currently be treated.

What’s annoying is the way the media reports the “agony of injections”. Injections aren’t a bg deal actually. What’s worse is a much longer list:

• Hypos
• Kidney disease
• Heart disease
• Nerve disease and amputation of limbs
• Blindness
• And if you’re really unlucky, impotence

Compared to that lot - which many diabetics look forward to, injections are a walk in the park.

I’ve picked up my book again. Silly metaphor. My book only exists as a stream of digital information on a fallible, spinning medium. The only way I can see my book, never mind pick it up, is by asking my machine, nicely, to find those bits and to display them in some meaningful way using an intermediary called Microsoft Word. All hail Microsoft Word! So anyway, I’ve started writing again.

I’m tired of waiting to decide what to do with my life. I always said to myself that I’d be an author when I’m 40. This is my 40th year. Why wait until December? I’m too old to be a pop star and too young to give up on my dreams.

So far, I’m toying with three possible titles for my book, a novel set in London:

1. A Fracture In Belief
2. Boiling Frogs
3. My Personal Jihad

I need an agent. I wonder if my library has a copy of this year’s Writers and Artists Yearbook?

Kafka
Today is Friday. The day I see my kids. The time is variable, but the ex and I have not argued so much this week as we’ve both been under a common strain - that of our eldest daughter’s imminent entry to a secondary school. That’s another story.

I waited in the warmth of Starbucks in Randolph Avenue after noticing that the Randolph Surgery (where I have been a patient since the late 70s) opened at 3p.m. I went in and asked if I could see the doctor. There were three matters I needed to discuss. Here’s where it got stupid. The lady behind the counter, who was very courteous, patient and polite, told me that there were set times in which I could telephone. That there was no possibility of seeing a doctor without having called first. I pointed out the absuridty of this. I pointed out that I was actually in the surgery, there was no one else there, and that it would be absurd if I merely stepped outside, called and spoke to the same doctor that was now standing behind her.

The doctor leaped to the receptionists defence with thinly veiled hostility. Strange, I was also patient, but rightly incredulous at the stupidity of a system to which seemingly intelligent people had become mindless slaves. She told me that the purpose of the system was to protect patient confidentiality. This was odd, as by this time, I had already been forced to describe in detail my wish to see the resident counsellor. She needed this detail in order to search the records. I was eventually told that despite the presence of the record, which she confirmed was there eventually, after making me feel like I was bullshitting for a while….

sidetrack…

Isn’t it pathetic when there is a computer system involved, you have had a conversation, you have agreed action points and yet you are told in no uncertain terms by an unyielding fool of a human obstacle that if it’s not on the system, then it never happened. You morons! If your “human” doesn’t enter the information, or does it incorrectly, how will the computer remember? So the human blames the customer because the computer doesn’t tell lies. That’s right. Because the human is incompetent. I can’t wait until they get rid of all of these imbeciles and replace them with computers!!

backtrack…

So there I stood - my doctor giving me shit for a system that was broken - and by which she was working. She was telling me that the system was to protect the confidentiality of the patient - this after I’d already been forced to blurt out my most private details - I might as well have said “it burns when I urinate” rather loudly.

So what did I do? Yes, you’ve got it. I stepped out, put 50p of my precious, limited money into a phonebox and called the surgery. In case you’re wondering, my mobile is too expensive to use during the day, otherwise I would have dialled her there and then whilst peering into the window from where I would have been clearly visible to her.

And then my money ran out as I was trying to work out how they’d screwed up this time with my medication. In utter despair, I wrote a note to her, deriding her for the change in doctor/patient relationships from the old days, when the patient was actually a person and not a bundle of disjointed prescription-request-inconveniences. I strode back into the surgery where the doctor was writing me a prescription for a new drug and she passed this over to me as I swapped it for the note I’d written.

It doesn’t get any more absurd. If I’d had a hypo, and I wanted to see the doctor, would they have kicked me out to make a call first? And allowed me to collapse into a coma? Where are we heading?

These are seriously good PJs. There’s no way the button-holes on these babies will ever tear. In case you’re wondering which drug is responsible for my loss of sanity today, I should let you know that the helpful Fay from Derek Rose (I’m so glad people still have names like “Fay” in the 21st century!) ensured I received my replacement PJs today. They feel sumptuous, decadent, elegant.

My faith in old-school customer service has been restored. Why does it work? Being nice to your customers - isn’t that just bad for the bottom line? And aren’t I just a skank? Well that’s a separate discussion, but Derek Rose obviously knows that happy customers spread the word - and that’s good for the long-term prospects of your business. It’s not rocket science!

These glorious pyjamas feel a million dollars, but cost less than four hundred. I’m sure once I’m minted again (watch this space) I’ll be buying plenty more Derek Rose pyjamas. Few garments make one feel so spcial. And if you’re minted, I suggest you do the same!