The Grumpy Old Blog

The internet gurus keep warning us that if we continue to use adblockers, it will break the internet. For those of you perhaps not too familiar with internet parlance, adblockers are little extensions you can add to your internet browser that run automatically to prevent intrusive and nearly-always unwanted advertisements popping up on your screen or when you are browsing the World Wide Web. You know the sort – those that pop-up for the accident claims you've never had accidents for each and  every time you type the letters “acc” of the word “accountancy” into your computer. When not using adblockers, as you go about your web searching, your social media meandering, or your visit to a real media site, big brother, who is of course watching you all the time, picks up what you are either searching for or looking at and, hey presto, a “relevant” advertisement pops up on your screen. It’s all quite clever really. Except there are only so many times you can be asked whether you h...

Local election day in the UK, where many Britons head off to the voting station to put an "X" beside the name of someone they don't know representing the political views of a party they know nothing about. And that's just the candidates. Just back myself from the high-tech plywood and nails that I believe is officially called a "polling booth". Plainly the local invigilator must have worked in a bank, as the little voting pencils were very technically Sellotaped to a piece of string in the booth. The iPad generation hasn't enveloped the political voting system just yet, despite many councillors spending vast sums of local council tax-payers money on iPads and Samsungs to assist with a larger screen to play Candy Crush on as they attend vital Council meetings. The local school kids have been kicked out of their play-school hall to accommodate this. I was bitterly disappointed that only four names appeared on the ballot paper, none of whom was ...