I forgot to pay my Barclaycard bill this month. The amount I forgot to pay was massive. Absolutely huge.
Yes, the balance from my statement last month was a staggering £21.28.
Okay, that small amount of sarcasm aside (almost as small as the amount in question), at the end of the day the payment was due and I forgot to make it. It was my mistake, so let’s just get on to the point of this:
Okay, it’s not that interesting – in fact pretty boring – but when it happened, the absolutely amazing alliteration advanced itself into my mind and I just wanted to use it.
Basically, the complete non-story is that when I gave my nephew a lift somewhere yesterday, he commented that he’d been to the cinema the night before and seen a trailer for a film that was about some kind of virus, but it made him think of zombies due to the what happens to the infected, the way they behaved. He couldn’t remember, at first, what it was called, only that it began with a C.
Knowing that a remake of George A. Romero‘s The Crazies was at some stage in its production (I haven’t kept up, so I don’t know what stage it’s at) I asked if that’s what it was. He said no, then remembered that it was called Carriers – which I hadn’t heard of.
I went to see Law Abiding Citizen today (it’s reasonable; a bit of a stretch and definitely requiring some suspension of disbelief, but it’s reasonable; okay; not too bad.)
One of the previews was for Carriers.
And the next trailer was for The Crazies.
There you go. I said it was crap non-story. I just needed to tell it as an excuse to use the alliterative title.
It was only a really, really trivial thing – but that’s what it looks like: My local paper have removed a comment I made on their website, and I can only imagine that it was removed because I shamed them.
The news report I commented on is this story about the son of a recent lottery winner. When I read it I noticed the comment that the chap in question wasn’t happy that his “personal life had come out” – the fifth paragraph in the article, which reveals where he lives, and his wife and son’s names and ages. The paragraph before gives his age and what he does. Indeed, later in the article, it points out that he originally claimed to do something else, in order to keep his real job a secret – I imagine most, if not all of the rest of the details I’ve mentioned were also included in what he didn’t want revealed.
The Bristol Evening Post published that information on their website in the very story in which they quote the man as saying he was unhappy about those details being published. Ironic, I thought.
And that’s pretty much what my comment said. I quote from memory, but it was something like:
‘[He] said he was “not happy” that his personal life had come out’ – quotes the Evening Post, while publishing those very details. How ironic.
Today, that comment is gone.
Removed.
Deleted.
Censored.
Note: This post is actually an article I’ve had on a couple of websites for a number of years, originally written shortly after softrock.co.uk became the victim of a very deliberate use of email addresses at that domain in the headers of UCE (aka a “Joe Job”). Now that this blog is up and running, it’s the ideal place for such material – so one quick re-read, check and update later, here it is.
Right at the start I should state that I am very strongly opposed to the use of munged email addresses, due to softrock.co.uk having been inundated with non-delivery reports and other annoyances since spammers used softrock.co.uk addresses in the From: line of their junk several years ago. I make no denial of that and do not try to defend the fact that my position is biased against munged addresses as a result of this.
However, please do not let that put you off reading this if you are a user of a munged address, or if you are considering using one. If anything, you should read on because there are some alternative suggestions towards the end of this article, just for you. Please consider using them, instead of your current or intended approach.
