My Morning Internet Routine

As regular readers of either this blog or my excruciating Twitter feed (@CharmedLassie) will know, I'm a stay-at-home research student and wannabe writer. This means I have to scavenge for self-discipline and remind myself that the only person who loses out if I don't get anything done is the idiot staring into space and listening to Radio 2 most of the day. However, I've noticed that my morning routine, before I can get started on any work, is very ordered and specific. Maybe even worth documenting?

• The first website I visit is Facebook due to the fact I'm playing three games on there at the moment. Yes, a waste of my time, perhaps. But they have the advantage of keeping me at the computer, or getting me there for set periods of time to harvest crops or build up my city. Whenever I'm sat at the computer my conscience inevitably kicks in. Plus, they offer little incentives: work for an hour and you get ten minutes tending to your farm. It actually works.
• My email pops up in the corner. I check (mostly delete) all that and log into Twitter while I'm sorting out my Facebook games. I'm obsessive; I have to read all the way back to where I left off the night before. I respond to anything directed at me.
• I visit The Telegraph website. I scan the homepage but I'm mostly interested in the 'Comment' section. I get riled, I respond to articles and I send any interesting ones to my Twitter feed.
• I go to The Guardian website. I visit the 'Comment' section and then usually the 'Culture' page, again sharing anything I find of interest.
• The Independent website is my next stop. What I use this for mainly are the headlines on the right-hand side. They're really good for breaking and recent news stories, several of which end up on Twitter.
• I go to the New Statesman website and check out their homepage.
• Next port of call is The Spectator Blog page, full of political observations and stories that, while interesting, probably wouldn't make it onto mainstream news sites.
• Next it's the BBC News site! Local news then most-read stories. I then check out the 'Entertainment' section.
• It's the turn of my Google Reader page. I scan the updates from the blogs I'm subscribed to and read/respond where appropriate. Then I look at the sites related to articles I may want to write for Lesbilicious.com and plan those into my day.
• I check my university email.
• I FINALLY GET TO WORK!

Is this obsessive? Looking at it like that, I think it might be. However, I do have a severe craving to be well informed. I blog about both writing/reading and current affairs and, though I'm blowing my own trumpet a little, I feel like I'm pretty up-to-date with what's going on around the world. I know people who really don't care what's going on in Westminster or the Middle East and I struggle to understand the apathy. I would just much rather know.

And I do get to work eventually... honest.

Am I the only one with this sort of rigid routine?

Let Cumbria Grieve

Picking over the bones of catastrophes is commonplace.

Ever since the Victorian age when information became readily and quickly available the public have had a fascination with disasters, both societal and domestic. Every case that stood before the Divorce Court fed the inquisitive nature of the masses, giving rise to illustrated editions of papers with full explanations of proceedings. These papers were the heat and OK! of their day; thriving on gossip, misfortune and sheer stupidity.

Human beings are nosy, there’s no doubt about it. We like to know what other people have done wrong because it makes us feel better about ourselves. I'd say we writers are the nosiest of the bunch. But we do go a little too far at times.

Take the recent Cumbria shootings, for instance. Events like this are rarer here than in America so it’s natural the case has garnered a fair bit of interest. More than that, the circumstances around it being unexplained to date heightens the mystery. But as a country we need to learn a lesson – leave them alone. Last year when Cumbria was rocked by severe flooding our journalists did the same thing: camped there for days on end, reporting the disaster but not really helping. No one’s denying the right of the British public to know what’s going on in the country but must it be so flamboyantly cruel?

As in the Victorian era people are hunting for salacious details; reasons and excuses. It isn’t just a case of getting to the truth either: people want to examine the victims, know their families, to get inside a tight-knit community which is struggling both with their losses and the unwanted limelight.

Of course I watched the events unfolding on television and I’m definitely interested in the case. But the film crews camping at the sites of such tragedies needs to stop. If news must be reported from the site and absolutely requires a prolonged stay in the location why not advocate a greater sharing policy between news crews so that only one major operator needs to be there? I know that won’t happen – I know Rupert Murdoch is too money-hungry and self-aware to let the BBC steal his thunder in any such situations.

But it shouldn’t be about money and it shouldn’t be about nosiness. If we could let the police investigation proceed and the community heal then we might get the answers we’re looking for in the long run. But maybe that attitude has little place in a ‘now, now, now’ society… I don’t know.