h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I guess there's a lot to be said for finding your niche.

(Have you seen my new blog yet? "Sandals We Have Loved: Leather Summer Footwear Of Central Europe, 1945-89".)

I don't have many old photographs, but the ones I do still like to look at from time to time, black and white and from the 1960s, are representative of the sort of snaps our family used to take with the old Box Brownie (yes, we really had one of those).

And do you know what? They're almost all of us. We didn't take many pictures of the places we went to, we took pictures of us at those places. Here we are at London Zoo. Here we are at the Tower of London. Here we are sitting on the beach at Southend. Here we are in a park having an ice cream. We might have taken a picture or two of a Beefeater, or the soldiers at Horseguards Parade, or Buck House, but there weren't many of those. And I'm willing to bet that we weren't atypical in that, for a normal working class family in the 60s.

In fact, these were exactly the kind of pictures we took
http://twitter.com/London_Mush/status/486081234972725248

And in a related story: Tour de France and the selfie http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-28192817

"Indeed it seems, for some, the very act of attending an event is driven by the need to take a selfie to promote on social media."

Oh good grief

I suppose, though, that's similar to what we've always done - getting a picture of yourself standing on the Great Wall of China, or in front of the Taj Mahal, or at the top of the Empire State Building, but those were usually posed and taken by someone else, and then shown to people we know.

My mug is ugly enough in real life, without additional photographic evidence of me Gurning in front of something more interesting.

when you use sites like instagram you get lots and lots of pictures of food... some of it looks like you'd want to eat it

The culprit responsible for Selfies was discovered today. It was Bean.

http://i.imgur.com/GfdD6h3.jpg

I was rather hoping for The Beanster. Not Mr.

I put this here for your educated and careful consideration

http://news.distractify.com/culture/craigslist-surveillance-restaurant/

They make fair points.

There was a recent story doing the rounds about restaurateurs showing people the door when they start photographing their food. The general tenor of the reports was "temperamental egotist prima donna chefs at it again", but when you read comments like this one, you can see where they're coming from.

"The customer is always right" is a myth on a par with "the police won't harm me, as I've done nothing wrong".

People occupying a table for almost twice as long can do some serious damage to a restaurant's takings, not to mention a server's income when that server is on $2.13 an hour plus tips. It also pisses off those of us who are old school enough to still think that having a meal at a restaurant is about enjoying some good food and good company, not updating our bloody social media and writing a snippy review of the place.

While that article makes some good points about our modern, always connected society, I find some of those claims highly doubtful.

For example, "26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food."

I find it difficult to believe that more than 1 of every 2 customers spend three or more minutes snapping picks of their food.


I agree with the sentiment of the article, but I highly suspect its veracity.

The plot (but hopefully not the gravy or the custard, at least not too much) thickens http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28272380