Roger Edwards 1/7/16 Roger Edwards 1/7/16

How Not to Do Business

I've been blogging for nearly nine years and by sheer persistence the audience has grown and traffic is relatively respectable. There are plenty of web based tools available that can determine how well a site is performing and as a result I have recently started receiving a great deal more unsolicited material. This consists of press releases, invitations to review content and even the occasional freebie. I'm fine with all this because it broadly indicates that Contains Moderate Peril is growing and appearing on the radar of a wider variety of organisations. Plus some of the stuff I’m sent is quite useful. At the very least it proves the old adage that if you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it will stick.

I've been blogging for nearly nine years and by sheer persistence the audience has grown and traffic is relatively respectable. There are plenty of web based tools available that can determine how well a site is performing and as a result I have recently started receiving a great deal more unsolicited material. This consists of press releases, invitations to review content and even the occasional freebie. I'm fine with all this because it broadly indicates that Contains Moderate Peril is growing and appearing on the radar of a wider variety of organisations. Plus some of the stuff I’m sent is quite useful. At the very least it proves the old adage that if you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it will stick.

However among these various communications are small percentage from businesses that always seem to have a "great business opportunity" or "proposal that I can't afford to miss". Effectively they're trying to sell me something that I don't need or worse still, they want to buy a link back to their site. It is the latter galls me the most.

Now I am not averse to the notion of my blogging endeavours making money if possible, but funnily enough I do have some principles regarding how this is done. Firstly, I don't carry any advertising on the website because the delivery software totally dictates what material gets shown. I don't like that notion at all. Then there are are some businesses that I don't want to be associated with and featuring them on my site in my opinions cheapens it. Plus the use of adblockers seems to be making this means of generating revenue obsolete anyway. I also apply exactly the same stipulations to anyone trying to buy a link from my site to their. Do I want to be associated with you?

Secondly, although link sharing has its uses, it is fundamentally based on a parasitical concept. Think about it for a moment. After years of giving up my free time to write and build up an audience, some third party thinks they can just waltz in, toss me a few dollars and leech off my blood sweat and tears? I think not. Plus while we’re talking about hard work, something I’ve noticed about many of the business requests I receive is the casual and lacklustre way in which they are made. They often lack any real effort. Business etiquette, common sense and good manners seem to elude them.

Take for example the above email. Who in their right mind thinks this is a good way to conduct business? Let's address some of its points of failure in bullet point format, because it will curb my tendency to rant excessively about the overall stupidity of this communication.

1.) For starters what kind of business do you wish to conduct? If you are making a pitch then it may be beneficial to include the relevant details.

2.) So my site fits your needs? Really? As you haven't at this point given me any inkling of what it is that you want, please remind me again why I should give a fuck about what fits your needs?

3.) As for the best way to contact me, let's ponder that one for a moment? Hey why not drop me an email like the one you just fucking sent?

So it would appear that this joker wants to do some sort of business with me, but is reticent to stipulate the exact nature of which and furthermore wants me to waste my precious time contacting them to proceed further. The stupidity of the proposition beggars belief. They must be stupid, ill-mannered or utterly clueless about how to conduct business; or maybe all three? Perhaps a Venn diagram will help clarify the situation.

Here is some guidance to those wanting to do business with Contains Moderate Peril. If you have any sort of business proposal then a concise email providing an overview of what you are offering is required. I will then on the basis of that communication decide whether I wish to contact you to discuss the matter further. Do not make any type of pitch where I have to do all the leg work. If you want something from me then make some effort yourself. My time is precious and I have better things to do than accommodating your ineptitude.

Also take time out to consider what you are selling. I'm not interested in gambling sites, miracle cures, dating websites, stilts for Dachshunds or an Osmonds tribute act. Make sure it is relevant to Contains Moderate Peril. And if you haven’t even the decency to use my name in your email then don’t bother. I like manners. By following these simple rules there's a chance for a mutually beneficial relationship. Ignore them and you'll be pissing in the wind.

Roger Edwards 1/2/16 Roger Edwards 1/2/16

The Decline of UK Politics

I’ve written this post from the perspective of politics in the UK but I daresay that some of the points are relevant to other Western countries. Please note that this is not a post advocating any particular political stance or ideology. It is a commentary about the system itself and the public’s current relationship with the world of politics per se.

Two party politics has dominated the UK for over two hundred years and the electoral system that has evolved reflects that. The first past the post system has major shortcomings when dealing with emerging parties and diverse voting patterns. In recent years the traditional parties have seen a decline in membership and they no longer enjoy the levels of support with the UK electorate that they did fifty years ago. My parents grew up in a culture of tribal politics, driven by class, wealth and left wing and right wing ideologies. I personally think the notion that a single party can adequately represent all my political, philosophical and ethical needs is risible. Therefore I have no specific party allegiance or cleave to a particular political school of thought. I am a floating voter when it comes to both local and national elections.

Although politics is a deeply divisive and problematic subject to discuss, a fully functioning democracy requires a politically literate and engaged population. Sadly that is not the case at present. Political debate, national policies and our entire approach to the subject has deteriorated in my lifetime. Politicians are viewed cynically by the overall population and often for legitimate reasons. Parties no longer seem to be driven by any credible ideologies or dogma. Major issues are seldom addressed and often kicked into the proverbial long grass. Furthermore the media exults political discourse of the lowest common dominator. Meaningful and civilised debate is virtually non-existence. Consequently large swathes of the population are no longer interested in politics. Many of those that profess to be so, are ill informed and have no idea how to discuss their views in a viable manner.

It is ironic that in an age when virtually anyone has access to tools that allow them to express an opinion and engage with others, that the level of debate has so notably declined. We live in a binary world in which opposing views are not countered by facts and data but are merely shouted down. In seems that many who live in our democracy seem to eschew its universal applicability. Tolerance, politely begging to differ and simple common sense are scarce commodities these days. Furthermore the UK has slowly since the sixties assimilated US style politics, which chooses to focus on the cult of personality rather than issues. Electoral pledges and longstanding policies are replaced with soundbites. It’s no longer about advocating what your party can offer but sowing the seeds of fear about the opposition. Last year’s general election result effectively came down to floating voters deciding at the last minute based on who they feared the most with regard to running the economy.

This malady affects politics at every level. From the comments section of any news website, to local government, right the way up to Parliament itself. I recently attended several council meetings regarding a local issue and was shocked by the lack of decorum and the subpar debating skills of the councillors. Straw man arguments and ad hominem attacks were rife and the quality of the meeting was very poor. Few had any concept of public speaking or debating skills. Yet this approach to politics is endemic at present and I fear it will be the driving factor behind the forthcoming Europe referendum. I would like to see detailed arguments from both sides of the debate, backed up with facts and data. Whether the UK remains part of the EU is an extremely complex matter with major ramifications. Surely the public needs to be provided with robust information before an opinion can be formed or decided upon. Sadly the debate will be driven by fear and some perfunctory soundbites. It is deeply worrying that a decision of this magnitude will be decided upon in such an arbitrary manner.

The most depressing thing for me about the state of contemporary UK politics is the feeling that my vote carries no weight and is of little consequence. I believe this is a contributory reason why a third of the UK’s 45,000,000 registered voters do not bother to cast a vote. Let us not forget that there is a further 6,000,000 people who are entitled to vote but have not registered. Thus we have elected government implementing policies with nowhere near a convincing mandate. The current administration is in power after successfully polling about a quarter of the electorate. Again due to the failings of the current voting system other parties gained over 4,000,000 votes yet only secured one seat in Parliament. Unless you live in a marginal seat that can potentially swing between parties, then your vote has no impact upon political change.

I am also not comfortable with the blanket demonization of all politicians, journalists and pundits. Although many are of a poor standard there are still those that seem motivated for the right reasons. During my career I’ve met many on both sides of the political divide that I admire. However they are often hamstrung by the system they work within and the fact that they are often dealing against groups with powerful vested interests. The net result is that those of worth and character frequently go unnoticed on a national level. Plus the unsophisticated rhetoric of the current political arena means that we seldom get beyond “Tory scum”, “bleeding heart liberal” and “Champagne Socialist”. Such hyperbolic language stifles any discussion and further muddies the waters. The opinion of those that use such jargon is seldom informed.

What I would like to see emerge from the current status quo would be a new voting system based upon some form of proportional representation. I would also like to see new parties emerge as well as far more independent candidates, especially at local level. There is a need for policies born out of intelligent debate from all quarters, rather than thought up be biased think tanks. Politicians need to create a new covenant with the electorate and validate it by their deeds. However I am fully aware that this is all highly unlikely. Society seems to be regressing at present, as the divide between rich and poor increases and tolerance, informed opinion and a wider world view are largely in decline. I can if pressed fall back up a personal position of “I’m alright Jack” but many can’t. Also I don’t want to have to adopt such a self-centred and isolationist mentality.

As I stated at the start, I do not consider this post to be a political statement in support of a particular party or group. I merely see it as a summary of the perceived failing of our current political system. It is of course based upon my own personal perspective. I’m sure that those that enjoy power would see it quite differently. However we are far from a golden age of national politics and are not necessarily a nation driven by common ideals and values anymore. The good of the country seems to have been supplanted by the needs and desires of the individual. None of this is good for the UK. A healthy democracy needs a government that is seen to respond the wishes of its people. There is also a need for a robust opposition and debate. None of this is possible if the majority of the electorate are political disengaged. If this situation is not addressed then the future consequences could be dire.

Roger Edwards 12/18/15 Roger Edwards 12/18/15

The Secularisation of Christmas Entertainment

The central theme of this post may well be better suited to a scholarly essay by a noted academic. I'm afraid all you'll get from me are just a few personal observations. But I wanted to raise this subject because I am at an age now where I am very conscious of the changes that have happened in UK society over the course of my life. I'm not advocating one side of the debate over another, just merely collating my thoughts on a broad cultural shift. Christmas has become increasingly secular over recent decades and because I write about popular entertainment that is the medium I viewed this process through.

As a child of the seventies, I grew up as a cultural Christian. School began each day with a formal assembly in which hymns were sung, Bible passages were often read and a moral lesson was taught by the headmaster/mistress. Shops closed on Sunday, the public broadly attended services and the establishment still showed deference to the Anglican Church and other denominations. Irrespective of my personal beliefs, I was raised in a society that was steeped in Christian tradition (and still is). Remember that church and state have never been truly separate throughout UK history.

As I have previously written about Easter, Christian faith has slowly been driven out of the TV schedules over the years. Faith based content is far from common place on the major TV networks. TV shows and films seem to focus on the secular aspects of the season, such as family, the exchange of gifts and being together. Much of this alternative entertainment is based around the faux mythology of Santa Claus, Kris Kringle or even Dicken's tale of Ebenezer Scrooge's redemption. The Christian message with its fundamental tenets of service to others, giving and personal self-sacrifice do not sit well with a prevailing culture of self-indulgence and hedonism.

In recent years, a new factor has impacted upon the inclusion of Christianity in most forms of Christmas entertainment. Because the debate between religion and the secular has become increasingly polarised the media have naturally focused on extremes on both sides of the debate. Such elements are always good for a cheap binary headline. As a result Christianity is portrayed as the province of killjoys, bigots and the lunatic fringe, despite this not being an accurate or fair representation.

With regard to gaming, trying to dovetail a Christian message into such a medium is a difficult task. The lore and other worldly settings negate any obvious Christmas reference. The fact that games, especially the MMO genre have a global audience, developers are mindful of the diversity of the player base and the multiple faiths they represent. As a result we get Winter Festivals, Yuletide events and other broader concepts. These are more akin to our secular Christmas experiences in the real world. Yet they often come across as somewhat hollow undertakings and somehow fail to capture the sentiment of the season.

At this time of year in the UK, it is traditional for the head of state to broadcast a Christmas message. The Queen is formally the "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England" and also comes from a generation that genuinely believe in their Christian faith. Therefore, when she speaks on such matters I believe she does so with utter personal conviction. I respect this in principle. Sadly the concept of a Christmas message has now been adopted by politicians as well as anyone with a media presence and an axe to grind. Seasonal messages from such quarters as these seldom have any credibility.

The secularisation of various facets of UK life is a complex subject and this post is far from a thorough exploration. I've simply collated a few thoughts on the matter. This beggars the question as to whether I have an overall point. If I do, then I believe it to be that the ongoing secularisation of Christmas, especially through the medium of entertainment, has not necessarily been to society's benefit. Although one can never recapture ones experiences of the past, I can honestly say that Christmas as it currently exists, is a somewhat hollow and arbitrary experience for me. It has usurped a festival that had positive moral connotations and replaced it with consumerism and “organized” fun. I don't know what the answers are to this conundrum or whether I am correct in my observations. All I know is that I feel that something has been lost and that makes me a little sad.

Roger Edwards 10/27/15 Roger Edwards 10/27/15

Out With the Old

I’ve been blogging and podcasting for over half a decade and as a result I’ve left a trail of material scattered across the internet. Maintaining multiple sites and hosting old content costs both money and time. Although the world is treating me relatively well at present, I am not a man of limitless resources. Therefore I have decided that it is time to close some of these sites and archives.

The first to go will be the back catalogue of Contains Moderate Peril podcasts. These are currently available via Libsyn, the old CMP website and iTunes. All one hundred and seventy three episodes will cease to be available after 31st October. If you wish to keep any for posterity, my advice is to download them now while you still can. This will also affect the Council of the Unwise podcast but there are only a few instalments of that show. Please note that the Burton & Scrooge podcast is still alive and kicking but is not subject to a regular schedule. Brian and I produce it strictly on an “as and when” basis.

I will be closing the old Contains Moderate Peril website at the end of this month. Rather than leave a trail of broken links I shall set up a global redirect so that wayward traffic finds its way to the current CMP blog. It’s a shame to lose an established presence on the internet but I feel that the current situations with two websites co-existing simultaneously, to be both confusing and detrimental to traffic. All previously posted content has been successfully exported and saved.

Despite what I and a lot of others people where told a few years back, you can function as a human being quite efficiently without Facebook and Google + accounts. Both are closed communities that require individual input, which creates more work. In the past I have simply reposted content to these platforms, which on mature reflection is counterproductive. If anything it takes traffic away from CMP, so I have terminated both of these services forthwith.

I would also like to reiterate that I shall no longer be directly involved in the running of the Newbie Blogger Initiative. I shall be closing the existing site and the forums at the end of this year and will not being renewing the domain name next May. If someone wishes to utilise the current .com address then they may wish to get in touch prior to the domain name lapsing.

It would seem that a lot of veteran content creators are currently facing similar issues to mine or at the very least trying to balance their creative desires with the realities of the real world. Unless your life remains static, there is no way you can avoid the shifting demands of modern life. I would not be surprised if we see several high profile community members scale back their online endeavours or even cease them entirely in the not too distant future.

Roger Edwards 9/17/15 Roger Edwards 9/17/15

Working in IT

Working in IT is an extremely broad job description that encompasses multiple subsets and disciplines. Each specific field has its own skills and academic hierarchies. You may well be an experienced Network Administrator but that doesn’t make you equally as knowledgeable with regard to Database Development and vice versa. Saying that you work in IT is pretty much the same as saying that you work in healthcare. You could be working in procurement or be a Cardiothoracic Surgeon. However none of this is of any concern to those who work outside of IT. If you get collared by someone at a social event and tell them you work in IT, it’s only a matter of time before you get asked “I’m thinking of buying a new laptop, which one is best?” or something similar. I always tell them that Purple ones have the most RAM.

I won’t ramble on about how I got into IT as a career, as it’s not particularly interesting. I will say that having an aptitude for technology has helped as well as being in the right place at the right time. I was working for a major UK government department at a time when it was undergoing a major systems upgrade. I volunteered for a new position and was trained by seasoned third party contractors. Although I have some formal qualifications most of my knowledge is from hands on experience. After twenty years I now find myself self-employed, running a niche market consultancy offering superfluous and overpriced solutions for clients with more money than sense. It’s not the best job in the world, nor is it the worse. For me my real passions now lie elsewhere and work is mainly a means to an ends, although I recognise that I have far more favourable working conditions than many. Not many careers allow you to work in your underwear.

Of course this is a typical home office...

Something that I’ve found interesting since I’ve been writing online and podcasting is the amount of friends and colleagues from the Bloggersphere that also work in IT. Perhaps their technical aptitude means that social media and other online activities are not so daunting. My Father who is an old school mechanical engineer considers IT to be this generation’s equivalent field. It’s a skilled profession with many new and evolving disciplines. It also has clear career paths and progressions, making it stable work for those buying a home or raising a family (other money pits are available). However not every job in the IT industry is safe bet. There is a great deal of short term contracts and market rates rise and fall, based on supply and demand.

There is also the perception that IT is a very academic and studious industry to work in. This can be true but a great deal can also be learned simply by “monkey see, monkey do”. And while we’re on the subject of perceptions working with technology still has the whole geek and nerd stereotype associated with it. The funny thing is the vast majority of my IT colleagues are very social creatures who are often far more emotionally literate than many of our peers in other industries. However something that has changed in the last decade and a half is the perceived standing of information technology. Up until 2000 I felt that many considered IT to be a field very much akin to alchemy, because it was alien to so many people. Now because technology is so pervasive in our lives IT literacy is much higher. As result I find that I am no longer regarded as a Wizard but just an overpriced Photocopier repair guy (no disrespect intended ).

IT is still very much a male dominated industry. My own personal experience reflects this as I have only worked with six female colleagues over a twenty year career. Considering that there is no gender imbalance with regard to the use of technology it is sad to see such a disparity within the industry itself. To say that the IT sector is institutionally sexist would be too broad a generalisation. However I have regularly encountered individuals with prejudicial views often at an age group commensurate to my own. There still seems to be an assumption both within IT and from its external customer that when someone arrives from the technical department, regardless of their level it will always be a man; hence phrases such as “call the tech support guy”. From my perspective ignoring the skills and talents of 50% of the workforce is illogical, so I support in principle any endeavour to redress this imbalance within the industry.

Although IT is a multi-faceted industry perhaps the area we are all most familiar with is tech support, because pretty much most businesses have IT infrastructure and services that need maintaining these days. First line support is one of the commonest entry points in to the industry and many IT professionals will have at one point in their career cut their teeth providing customer support or manning a help desk. Like any job that involves dealing with the public, it can be challenging. This is exacerbated in IT by the gulf in knowledge between vendor and client as well as unrealistic user expectations. The person you speak to on the phone does not know the answer to everything. If they did they wouldn’t be answering the phone.

Anyone who’s worked in tech support will have a wealth of amusing anecdotes and horror stories regarding the “users”. Most office staff will have similar vignettes about the IT support department. It is a strange symbiotic relationship. Most of those that have worked in first line support do not look back upon it fondly. It’s a rite of passage that has to be undertaken to reach the next stage of your career. To this day I do everything in my power to minimise my personal interaction with the customer. However it is far harder to escape the technical needs of ones friends and families or that neighbour who has a PC that’s still running Windows ME. If you want to avoid such situations you either need to lie to everyone you meet about your line of work of become an orphan.

I once went to a social event after a long day at work, only to find myself saddled with insufferable dullard who was out for some free advice. His simple enquiry turned out to be a crass attempt at an hour’s free consultancy. After five minutes or so I interrupted his stream of questions and asked what his preferred method of payment was? Before he could answer I pointed out what my hourly rate was and that I had a credit card reader in my bag. The conversation very rapidly turned to his new patio which proved to be as equally dull. However to counter this particular story I would like to offer another. I worked for nearly two years at St. Georges Hospital in South West London. Undertaking the most arbitrary support tasks within the A&E department, such a fixing a printer or a PC on reception were always met with genuine gratitude. I was told by front-line staff that removing such hassles made their life demonstrably less difficult. I got immense satisfaction from this.

"Congratulations. You've just bought a cloud-based enterprise solution and I'm retiring to the Cayman Islands."

So there you have it; a few random thoughts about working in IT. It’s not something I deliberately set out to do, yet all things considered it has served me very well over the years. As a result I’ve worked for some very diverse employers and seen some very interesting aspects of life I may not have done so under other circumstances. Furthermore it has been intellectually challenging and a source of self-improvement, as there’s always something new to learn in this field. As someone who doesn’t care for office politics and social hierarchies too much, IT has also been a means of bypassing a lot of work place drama. The person at the top of a company and the most junior member of staff both rely on technology and I have always endeavoured to treat them equally. IT has afforded me a great deal of freedom outside of standard business rules and etiquette. Plus in what other industry can you walk around with a network cable or a circuit board and people just assume that you’re really busy?

Roger Edwards 9/4/15 Roger Edwards 9/4/15

My Work and Gaming Environment

I know a good bandwagon to jump on when I see one, so I’m also going to write about my personal work space. Joking aside I don’t consider this sort of post to be just filler. As a self-employed person my desk and PC set up has a major impact upon how I make my living. I spend a significant part of my week based at my desk, so it’s essential to me that it is an organised, efficient and healthy work space. As I use the same set up for recreational purposes, it is doubly important that this is an agreeable environment.

First off there is my chair. It is an executive model that is two years old and has certainly seen better days. It conforms to all the usual health and safety regulations, being fully adjustable and fire resistant. However it doesn’t matter how well designed a chair may be, if you don’t sit in it properly then all its health benefits are mitigated. I have a tendency to slouch but when I do sit properly my trusty chair has proven to be comfortable and supportive.

The desk is actually a dining table I bought back in 2008. It is a little higher than the average office desk and as a result my monitor is directly level with my line of sight. I favour a clear desk and tend to avoid the miscellaneous bric-a-brac that usually accumulates. I keep an A4 notepad to hand as well as my 7 inch Android tablet. I use this so I don’t have to tab out of games to web browse and to also playback podcasts. This has the benefits of not placing additional system demands upon my PC. I tend not to eat at my desk while at work or gaming. I use a coaster for drinks because someone has to maintain standards.

My primary display is a single Samsung SyncMaster T240HD dual monitor and TV. This is a curious hybrid with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200. It’s becoming increasingly hard to find 24 inch screens that accommodate this resolution these days. Although seven years old this screen still has a bright and vivid image quality. Audio is via a pair of Logitech LS21 stereo speakers and subwoofer. These are over 12 years old but still provide adequate sound quality for gaming.

Having worked in IT for twenty years, I have until recently maintained a stockpile of spare peripherals. These were mainly surplus stock from corporate rollouts and tended to be Dell or HP items. I get through a keyboard and mouse every twelve months as I wear them out through constant use. This summer I exhausted my stock and had to buy a new gaming mouse. I chose a mid-range Steelseries Rival Optical mouse which I’ve found to be perfectly adequate. My keyboard is the one that came with my Zoostorm PC when I last upgraded in spring 2014. Cataloguing the finer details of one’s PC is incredibly tedious. Let is suffice to say I have system based around the ubiquitous Intel Core i-5 processor, an acceptable amount of RAM and a suitable Nvidia GPU. I recently upgraded to Windows 10.

Overall I am content with my work and gaming environment. Much of the hardware could be upgraded if I chose to but everything that is currently in place is both functional and a known quantity. The space in which you work and play is just as much about comfort and familiarity as it is about performance and reliability. So at present I am happy to maintain the status quo. It suits my needs eminently and ensures that my desk is free from water marks. Finally before anyone asks, yes I do dust my desk and PC about twice a week. I am not a barbarian.

Roger Edwards 9/2/15 Roger Edwards 9/2/15

Re-evaluating my Relationship with Twitter

I enjoy Twitter. I consider it to be an amusing diversion. It provides an opportunity to interact with friends that I’ve made all over the world. I find that swapping banter and trading quips with my twitter chums, often raises the spirits after a day filled with first world problems.

I recently went through my Twitter settings and “unfollowed” a lot of accounts. This included celebrities that only Tweet occasionally when they had a tour or a book to promote. Politicians and social commentators whose views and principles I find tiring. I even ditched a few fellow bloggers who have a tendency to whine or moan about their lot in life. You could argue that I’ve created an echo chamber and that I’m living in an online bubble. You may well be right. Humans often do the opposite of what they claim to believe. It’s like our default setting is one of cognitive dissonance.

The today at about 6:15 PM GMT the following Tweets appeared in my timeline. A timeline filled with gaming news, movie trivia, jokes and fun; a tide of light, ephemeral and utterly inconsequential inanities.

There amid all the trivia and decadence that we surround ourselves with on a daily basis was a picture of a small child, face down in the water on a beach in Turkey. Dead.

It took several seconds for this image to fully compute. What exactly was this picture that Father Roderick Vonhogen had unceremoniously dumped in my bright and cheerful timeline? So I followed the link to The Independent website and read the subsequent story. Then finally magnitude of what was depicted finally hit me and it hit me hard. I make no bones about the fact that I wept at the utter tragedy of what I saw and read.

If you can bring yourself to follow the link to the newspaper article, you’ll discover the very human face of the “ongoing migrant crisis” that is currently occurring across Europe. The child is believed to be a dead Syrian refugee, one of eleven that have died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos. Like many people, my perception of this political and social issue is both vague and abstract. Until today it’s simply something that has just occupied the news and frankly doesn't have any meaningful impact upon my cosy life.

Today that has changed.

I have no political axe to grind with regard this matter. I fully appreciate that all the factors that are contributory to the current wave of migrants are very complex. This is not a black and white situation and there are no easy solutions or quick fixes. I am sympathetic to the needs of both the migrants and refugees as well the populations of the European countries affected. But as a human being I can no longer ignore the fact that there is a very real tragedy taking place on my very doorstep. I cannot dismiss dead children washing up on beaches as if it were nothing. So tomorrow I shall start by lobbying my local Member of Parliament and seek clarification as to exactly what the UK government is doing with regard to this matter. Ironically my MP James Brokenshire, is also Minister of State for Immigration. Contacting my political representative may not have much impact but it’s a start. A position of concern is better than one of indifference.

And so we return to the subject of Twitter. Ultimately it is wrong to adopt a shoot the messenger mind set, after all my Twitter timeline is something of my own making. Plus it is intellectually flawed to assume that everything that is not a weighty issue is “bad” and should be dismissed. Relativism and context should not be thrown out with the bath water in a fit of knee-jerk self-pity.

However I do think that if Twitter is to continue to be one of the windows that I use to view the world, it may be time to take some steps to change the view. I need to leave my self-imposed comfort zone and allow a greater diversity of content in my timeline. Rather than disengaging with the world as I grow older, I need to do the opposite. Exactly what I should do I’m not sure but I feel that I should do something? Changing my use of social media is perhaps the first step of that process.

Roger Edwards 8/1/15 Roger Edwards 8/1/15

Same Meat, Different Gravy

After a short break the time has come to relaunch Contains Moderate Peril. Ironically I've returned to blogging just as the Blaugust has started, so bang goes my plan to reduce my writing schedule. So for the next month I shall be writing everyday but once this event comes to an end on the 31st, I will defer to my original idea of writing several times a week.

I've written in the past about the importance of finding a writing schedule that is both comfortable and achievable. It is beneficial for both the writer and readers. If your audience knows that there is going to be regular content then they will visit consistently. The moment you cease posting articles then the traffic will abruptly stop. The old incarnation of this site has seen a 75% reduction in traffic over the last fourteen days.

There is something quite invigorating about a new website. As of yet, there are no broken links or missing images and the blog has a lean and streamlined feel to it. I certainly am impressed with Squarespace and can see why they are rapidly becoming the website host of choice. It was very easy to create Contains Moderate Peril 2.0 and get things up and running. Too often the aesthetics of a blog can become a distraction and hours can be lost tweaking templates rather than writing.

Overall it will be business as usual for Contains Moderate Peril. I will continue to write about movies, TV and gaming as well as other aspects of popular culture, only this time round I shall be more candid and forthright. This is after all a platform for personal opinion and expression. The site may also on occasion stray into other contemporary issues and news stories. Simply put if it’s something I'm thinking about then it may well turn up here.

So now that I've set out my stall, I guess it’s just a case of getting on with the content creation. There’s no need for a mission statement and I'm not going to hamstring myself by setting unnecessary goals. I'm just going to write and share my thoughts. If there’s one lesson I've learnt after seven years of blogging is that it doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.