GORDON BROWN

My monthly article for the local magazine I write for:

4. ‘Them’

I was invited to take part in a blog debate on the way that modern technology is invading our lives. A colleague of mine posted the following on the site:

“Starting from our very email address, a hidden host of psychological manipulators will profile us and every digital movement we make. They will track us around the web and they’ll know every sordid little thing we are up to. Every weakness, every failing, every hidden desire.

They’ll analyse every purchase we make, every specialist interest website we visit and each specific page or even word we dwell on. They’ll track us around every dating website we join and every naughty photo we look at. And then they’ll pounce. But not in our faces. Behind our backs.

Yes, they’ll sneak up on us by delivering covert and clandestine digital messages that will get to the very heart of our secret fears, hopes and dreams. And by Christ will they make us part with our money? And we won’t even know they are doing it.”

Paranoia is a dangerous thing and If I had a penny for every time someone told me that ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are) were watching our every move, listening to our every conversation or controlling our every desire I’d have a couple of quid. 
 I bet good money that the first person to send a letter was scared that ‘they’ would read it. (More likely the first tablet sent in Egyptian times – or before) 
But there are two things that occur to me that give me hope for a future where I’m not a victim of Big Brother:

a) There are 6.5 billion people on this planet to track – a number growing at a rate of knots.

b) There is a wealth of communication channels – Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, Myspace, this blog, e-mail, MSN, other blog’s, websites, forums, live chat, video conferencing, mobile phones, landlines, broadcast radio, local radio, internet radio, You Tube, web TV, snail mail, conversations in the street, debating societies, rock god’s pronouncing on the world, film etc etc etc – and the number of options is also growing at a rate of knots.

My hope lies in the fact that there is a simple equation that will protect me from ‘Them’.

The ‘Them’ equation:

(The growing number of people on the planet) multiplied by (The growing number of channels available for communication) =  (An inability for technology to track everything we do and say).

In essence people AND technology will defeat people WITH technology.

Now I’m off for a quiet lie down in a lead-lined cell – underground – but then again I hear the CIA have attached detectors to worms that can translate my thought waves at a distance of one hundred miles and through a mile of granite rock.

I turns out that the submission I made to the Scottish Book Trust’s ‘Books That Changed My Life.’ competition has been selected to be included in the final book – to be published in March – see http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/thebook/story/gordon-browns-story-about-the-fog.

I put the full stop on the first draft of the third novel the other night. The second is with some people to look at and I thought I’d keep my foot down on the old accelerator and keep writing. So on that basis – it is onto the fourth.

At the moment the second novel is entitled ‘59 Minutes’ and when I get a chance I’ll pop up a chapter and the synopsis – probably over Christmas.

Sad news about Borders. They have been extremely helpful to myself and I hope they find a buyer. As a result of the news my signing that was due for tomorrow at the Fort Kinnaird branch has been cancelled. At the moment the two due in the Glasgow branches are still on.

I’m putting an article into the local magazine (my g76) on a regular basis and thought it worth sharing the first one.

A Brown View on Life.

1. ‘Stuff.’

It’s nearly Christmas and for many people it’s time for the attack of the ‘pressie panic.’  What should I get for Gran? Does my son really need an X Box, a Playstation AND a Wii? When will I start shopping?  A friend of mine is a Christmas Eve shopper; in fact it’s now a matter of pride that he waits until the last possible moment to buy anything as he knows it winds up his partner.

This got me round to thinking of Christmas presents that stand out. Presents that I really appreciated. And that’s where I started to struggle. I’m not being ungrateful but presents that I remember with affection are a bit thin on the ground and that’s a bit of a worry. So I talked to my wife about it and the conversation shifted to all the stuff we have bought over the years and what items we value. We started to draw up a list and it took on an interesting slant.

Take for example the double, collapsable buggy that we bought when our youngest was a few months old. It was a star – three trips to the US and my eldest, by now five and the size of a seven year old, happily flopped into it with his sister when the going got tough at Disneyland. Designed for a a couple of light babies – good for ten times that. Brilliant. Or the fold away cot that is still in use today with my brother’s newborn – fifteen years after we bought it – a multi coloured gem that has provided a string of children with a play area and bed non stop since the day it was removed from its box and shows no signs of being retired to the bin just yet.

What about the folding card table that we inherited from my mother in law. Forty years old, cheap as chips when it was bought, repaired within an inch of its life and now serving as a table for the barbecue food – genius. Then there’s my waterproof radio for the bathroom. Shaped like a penguin; eyes for tuning and sound, bow-tie for selecting FM or AM, mouth for speaker -  it has faithfully worked for years whether it is in the shower with me singing or sitting in the rain as I repair the garden fence. And, to top it all, bathroom radios recently won the award for the most useless item in the house. Voted on by WHO? Useless! My penguin is crying at the insult.

So what will I be looking forward to this Christmas? A thigh massager for the car? A holographic picture frame that changes colour? A four foot high Rubick’s cube? I have no idea but, as you open your presents this year, just take a moment to think about the stuff that has made a difference to your life. The stuff you look at and think – now that is a great thing to own. I bet you’ll be surprised.