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Category: Blogs and Social Media

The category collects posts on the subjects of blogs, social media, and marketing, as well as themed industry events and talks, e.g. BBC Manchester Blog, Social Media Cafe Manchester, London Book Fair, and others

Does Your Desktop Tell Anything About You?

I‘m terrible as far as image browsing is concerned. There are many images that I like, and I save them. By default, they are saved to my desktop – as is anything else that I save or download. The desktop on my computer is a rather unhealthy pool of different files (mainly images), in which I’m almost afraid of diving, even for the purpose of cleaning it and giving it some kind of order.

A Gaudi house in Barcelona

Recently I changed the desktop image on my PC at work. Now I realised there was something about the change. Yet again I started the year vowing to travel (as you know, I already spent the New Year in North Wales and went to Leeds on the spur of the moment). As a part of one work project, I had to research into all things Spanish. The magic happened: I thought that Paris – the destination I have long “lusted” after – could wait, and that I’d like to go to Barcelona first, to see Gaudi’s architectural masterpieces. It was still March, then April showers came in, and all the time I had this bright picture of one of Gaudi’s buildings on my desktop (left).

Belgium

Yesterday I thought I’d want another picture. The weather in Manchester is amazingly sunny and hot, but the desktop suddenly began to look too sizzling. I needed a change. Something non-urban, not-hot, not-red, but calming and breezy. Sometime before I researched into all things Belgian, and I eventually chose the picture on the right.

On my laptop’s desktop I used to have one of custom images of some sort of cave. This was changed last week to a picture of a Roman amphitheatre in Algeria (below, left). And at my previous work I used to have the famous scene from The Seventh Seal on my desktop (below, right).

Algeria
Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

One thing I have never had on my desktop are pictures of either dressed or (half) naked celebrities. This is not to say I have never looked at or saved such pictures to my hard drive. But no, I don’t have my favourite actor/actress/singer’ face staring at me every time I go to desktop. I also have never had any mantra messages, poems, aphorisms or phrases displayed or running in all directions across my desktop. And I definitely don’t (and won’t) have hearts, angels with arrows, tears, and other “romantic” imagery in front of my eyes. I will go, though, for flowers, dogs, Venetian masks, famous paintings or photographs, film scenes, nature and landscapes.

I am thinking if our desktops tell anything about us? I may not be the best study case for this, as I have realised that my desktop is an illustration to my creative, artistic, but also nomadic, side. At the same time, it seems to reflect the change in weather or environment. Last year when I lived in a Mancunian suburb and worked in Warrington, I had a photo of Hong Kong on my desktop – as an epitome of super-mobile, super-trendy place where I wished I could be. When it was a cold and rainy spring this year, I looked at the multicolour Gaudi’s edifice in Barcelona. And now when I live and work in Manchester city centre, and the weather is bright and warm, I suddenly want to wander off to the Belgian meadows.

I leave you to reflect on your desktops, and I look forward to hearing about your findings, if you make any.

BBC Manchester Guest Blogger

There are certain things you don’t realise until some significant time later. I never realised – until just now – that the BBC Manchester Blog was only one (!) day older than my blog. On 23rd August 2006 Robin Hamman and Richard Fair addressed the prospective readers on the subject of taking part in the BBC Manchester Blog project. On 24th August 2006 I’ve opened Los Cuadernos.

In a year and a half both blogs have evolved significantly, but now I’ll only speak of the BBC Manchester Blog. Robin and Richard have been working on it most of the time, creating some fascinating content, and having Kate Feld as a contributor. There were a few bloggers’ meeting-cum-workshops, coverage of blogging tips and topics, blogs, and Manchester events (I decided to highlight the Manchester International Festival, a great example of how a blog can be used to cover a series of events). At the turn of the year the Blog has introduced a new feature – The Guest Blogger. The idea is to invite a blogger (or someone who’s avid to try their hand at writing for the web) to contribute an article. So far Paul from IckleWeb narrated an illustrated story of the Rochdale Canal; Geoff from 40three pondered on the obscure attraction of blogging; and Rose Kennedy has shared some impressions of leaving the UK for Romania, to be with her family.

In his post Hairballs and Blogging Richard goes in more depth about this feature, so if you want to participate just follow the above link to the BBC Manchester Blog. It is fairly obvious that there will be some preference to local content or to your observations on blogging, but this should by no means limit the scope of your ideas. If you are following the BBC Manchester Blog, then you certainly know about the variety of topics it has covered. One particular idea that has just sprung to my mind is this one: if you’re an avid Facebook user who’s tried to organise a group or to take part in an event via this super-social network, or if you have extensively used/misused/abused/disused (whatever applies) Facebook applications or other types of social media, then why not suggest to share your observations with all who read the BBC Manchester Blog? A post on a similar subject – “Is It OK to Blog While Off Sick?” – has already appeared in the past.

Inside the Bloggers’ Studio

Since 2005 I have been writing about arts and culture (cinema, in particular), and when I used to make The LOOK on QT Radio in Manchester I interviewed several film directors (still under my real name then). Now, I was invited to take part in the online version of the Inside the Actors’ Studio with Sky Arts.

In case you’ve never heard of it, “Inside the Actors Studio is a well established American show that attracts the top film and TV actors and interviews them in a one on one situation in front of a studio audience of drama students”. The programme has just been broadcast on Sky through the whole of January, with guests including Barbra Streisand, Michael J. Fox, Liza Minnelli, and Al Pacino. ArtsWOM, the blog sponsored by Sky Arts, has come up with the brilliant idea to invite some arts and culture bloggers to the online version of the programme, by asking them the same ten questions that the presenter and drama teacher James Lipton asks to each of his guests. I feel very pleased and honoured to have been invited to this project. Many thanks to ArtsWOM for inviting me, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

At the first glance, the questions are simple; in truth, they are anything but simple. The very first question is “what is your favourite word?” I felt it should be the word I very often use, in virtually any kind of situation. And such word is “absolutely“, which I indeed picked from P. G. Wodehouse’s book, A Damsel in Distress. But then I also like the word “okay“, and I realised that I use them both on a very regular basis. I couldn’t possibly choose between them, so I thought it would be absolutely OK to submit two favourite words.

The question that I personally liked the most was about the profession I wouldn’t want to do. For me, it is definitely the dentist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m full of gratitude and admiration for those who work in this field, but I would never ever have gone into this profession myself. I haven’t got the courage, and I wouldn’t be able to stay aloof watching someone’s suffering from toothache day by day. What is interesting, is that a discussion about this profession occurred many years ago, and it showed my ability to use words to a very powerful effect. My mother and I were talking about which profession I should choose, and she suggested dentistry, although she knew well that I didn’t like the natural sciences to such extent. But it wasn’t my dislike of these sciences that I focused on in my short speech. It only took me a couple of minutes to paint a stark ghastly picture of my life as a female married dentist who would dig someone’s cavities in the day and have nightmares of those cavities at night. I explained to my mother that no husband would survive in such conditions. My picture must have been so vivid that my mother never brought this suggestion up again.

And I couldn’t forget about Michel Polnareff. Judging by his song On Ira Tous au Paradis and my liking of it, we’re both fairly sceptical about the church and religion. We may be wrong in our scepticism, but in truth I expect us both to get past the Pearly Gates, au paradis. How did Billy Joel put it? “You may be wrong, but all I know is that you may be right“. Absolutely.

You can read my answers in the part 9 of Inside the Bloggers’ Studio, and I do recommend you follow the link to all parts – ArtsWOM Features (scroll down to part 1 to read them in ascending order). For all the variety of answers we, bloggers, provided to questions about favourite words and professions, there are a few similarities: we all want to go to paradise, and many of us treasure sincerety and dislike fakery and narrow-mindedness. You can all have a go, too: just take these questions and repost them with your answers on your blog.

What is your favourite word?
What is your least favourite word?
What turns you on?
What turns you off?
What sound or noise do you love?
What sound or noise do you hate?
What is your favourite curse word?
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
What profession would you not like to do?
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

In the beginning….

What to write in your first blog post may baffle the author. As a writer, I wanted to compare publishing a post instantly to labourig over a piece of paper.

As I was thinking of what to write in the very first post in this first blog of mine, I suddenly realised that you’re probably more compelled to produce something when you stare at the screen rather than when you’re falling short of breaking a pencil because nothing ‘worthwhile’ comes to mind. I guess in my case it had to do with the nature of the blog: once you finish typing  and click “Publish”, your musings will appear in the space where they can be read virtually by anybody, from a college student through a BBC broadcaster to a pensioner. I don’t know yet if the understanding of this may put any pressure on what and how you write. One thing I know for sure: when I was publishing articles online or ‘making’ a website with AOL Homepages, I didn’t have this feeling of being obliged to write something as quickly as possible. In part, I felt so because I wanted to begin to publish other stuff, but in part it was because an empty blog – my blog – looked terrible, so I needed to fill it with something, to write that notorious first blog post… and what could be a better filler than an introduction? 
 
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