Slipping in to autumn

Slipping in to autumn. The rain came today after a month with very little. I went up to the ranges to find my chanterelle spot, but the red flags were flying so no mushrooms and a second-choice walk.

I've done my back-blipping now. Floating around on a boat last week was great for pictures. It left me reflecting that a lot of fine images are rarely seen by so many in the community. This one here, for instance is brilliant but hasn't had many views.

The spotlight fix has improved things a lot but there's still so much gushy stuff out there on comments. Insincerity isn't being excellent. I don't mind it so much where the gush is deserved but sometimes it's on below par stuff too. That doesn't seem fair.

I was reading Erin Kelly in the Daily Telegraph today where she was writing about the success of suburban noir, suggesting that it reveals the kind of stuff we leave out of our lives as we present them on social media. "Maybe that's why the darkness beneath is so intriguing," she writes in a feature musing over the Gone Girl film that we're going to see tonight (I've read the book - great read - completely forgotten it. Edit - the film is OK but the book is better).

What does a photograph and a line or two of text (if that) tell us anything about a life? Not much. You can often see more through a house window or hear more on the other side of a garden fence.

Just occasionally here, we do get glimpses in to reality but not very often. On social media, lives can be edited or, in some cases, re-invented like a role in a play. I wonder what Shakespeare would have made of it? All the men and women merely blippers They have their exits and their entrances. They have their soliloquies. Some ham it up for the audience, some prefer to sit in the wings. Some like to parade in front of the lens, but most here prefer to sit behind it, then to edit. What we see and read is what a blipper wants us to see and read. Being human, being sapiens, we read around the edges, sometimes learning from the little things, sometimes misinterpreting, always feeding our prurience. That's what the newspapers do too. In that sense I've been blipping all my life.

Maybe it was the news that prompted these thoughts today. Why is there so much pain in the world? Why did a good man like Alan Henning have to die? Why do all the good muslims in the world have to suffer because of the actions of a few?

I'm not religious. In fact I'd say the past 10 years or so has cemented an atheism that had been fermenting for years. Of course I respect those who find comfort or meaning through religion, but not those who try to impose their beliefs on others. Time to shut up Donkin. The bell has just summoned me for tea. More of that wild salmon. Then it's time to pack again.