Lockdown. Day whatever.

For us, it’s day 5 and we’re doing OK.

In reality, there’s not much point in counting because the government will tell us when the lockdown will ease and life can start normalising once more.

So far, I’ve written lots of e-mails. Send one, get one back, which is always a pleasure. It’s also good to hear how everyone else is coping, their thoughts, ideas and of course, health.

Why not use Facebook? Because it’s fast becoming a cess pit of advertising, onward posting of fake news and scaremongering. You may have already noticed it, but those regular posts from friends are becoming fewer and fewer and the crap, more frequent.

That’s not because your friends are posting less. It’s FB’s algorithms sending you less of what you want, to keep you on the page longer, endlessly scrolling to find something of interest. All that extra screen time delivers more advertising and crap, most of which FB charges for.

Oh yes. I won’t discuss anything personal regarding friends or family there. Ditto, What’sApp – who owns it?

If you want to chat, or discuss something, e-mail me, or do without. Otherwise, we’re both at risk.

Still think FB is your friend? Watch this – it’s a video about a machine learning to play the ancient Chinese game of Go. In almost no time at all, it beat a 19-time world champion. This video was made in 2016. Imagine now in 2020 how FB’s servers can manipulate your computationally much less challenging personal data in the same soulless, profit-driven way.

Still don’t get it? Read Christopher Wylie’s “”Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World”? It was Facebook that made it all possible, by giving CA it’s entire database – look what a score that made for the unscrupulous.

So, watch the vid and then ask if FB is really your friend?

Meantimes, I’ve decided to post some ideas I have about things I plan to do when normality starts to return. I doubt it’ll be a daily post, just when I think of something worth sharing.

Today’s plan – to be able to cross the road to the Hackney Brewery and have an ice cold pint (or two) with no. 1 son, Julian. You don’t know how much you miss these things until you can’t do them any more.