Holding pattern

 

I was irritated to received a couple of emails from the AI systems which are now patrolling blogs. So much for no-robot declarations, which seem to get ignored. 

ROBOTS.TXT insert:

User-agent: *                 # any robot
Disallow: /                   # disallow all directories

They got me though. 

I'd used a picture of a well-known slightly wooden movie star in 2014, which I'd retrieved from a commons PR site. It turned out to be under some copyright restriction, so the patrollers ignored ROBOTS.TXT and managed to scrape me (20-plus years of blog) and claim rights. Their bill/invoice was around £5,000, which must have been nice work if you can get it.

I reverse-searched for the picture and found about 20 copies of it scattered around the internet, including some using the picture to pretend to be someone else - including a cage fighter. 

So I appealed to the equivalent of a parking fines system, which had preformatted responses for $every_known_excuse.

I ended up in a haggle to get the fee reduced but eventually had to pay something to get the issue cleared. 

It's taught me about volunteering too. I also administer a couple of sites locally where there are galleries included with unattributed pictures going back years. Sure enough, one of them also attracted an AI-fine. As I was the site admin, the penalty notice winged its way across. Same schtick; same result.

Now I am penniless. So I thought I'd try a spot of digital detox. 

• Delete rashbre central to avoid any further incidents. 
• Delete the artistic volunteer galleries of pictures.

And breathe.

No publishing for a couple of months to see what effect it had upon me. Like anyone who uses twitter or other social media, the biggest reclaim was time. Instead of spending time considering content to create, I suddenly had white space in my calendar. 

Not so much though, I started in Craigendarroch, and was soon in Carnoustie. then Darlington (I think) and back to Topsham, where I helped with a curiously apposite 'mass observation in times of war' session . Also some paperwork to do with the car. Changing the number plate ahead of its exchange. It's a  bit like a spy movie really. I think I've about 6 sets of multi-country plates stored in the garage. James Bond never had this problem with his rotating Aston Martin plates. I'm guessing he didn't have to worry about DVLA V5C part 4s and similar.

Then, back to London and to all points north again to pick up 'The Dress' which was to be used as part of 'The Wedding'.  Of course I wasn't allowed to 'see' the dress, which made handling it quite difficult.

But that was easy compared to 'The Wedding' a few days later, which was an absolute blast. Me as FoB - complete with speech. 

I even sat in our little car when it gave an error message about 'no Fob detected.' We worked it out. 

The setting was one of genteel country house which morphed at sunset into Ibiza rave, but then we did have plenty of showbiz types along, so even the DJ was surprised when it went from setting 5 to setting 11 in about a half-second. That was before the obligatory saxophone player appeared in true house style. 

A few days after the wedding we were sitting on the quayside in Topsham at Nello's Long Table, which is when about 450 tables for 6 people are placed end-to-end along the streets of the town and everyone parties together like we're in an Italian village.

Then we were off to Wales, for a few days away, actually in another Italianate village - Portmeirion along with a few other sun-drenched spots. Note the prefix to drenched. My other recollections of Wales (perhaps unfairly) don't have the prefix, settling for the simpler 'drenched'.

And then back in time for the next talk about some historical aspects of Exeter, followed by, yes, a faltering attempt to get a new novel started - Magenta, by Ed Adams.

And some may know that I've moved my (also halted) musings to Substack now - and yes, I've secretly archived the 20+ years of blogging, which still works but just not to the public at large.