Rolanda, Mayor of Bucket

According to academic research in the news this week the internet and social media is actually a cause of depression. Just the mere thought of Foursquare (which sounds uncannily like the useless piece of flesh at the end of a penis) depresses me without even having to go on it, so I concur. The internet is now clogged-up with people in sensible shoes selflessly updating us on their latest frapuccino and fajita discoveries. Who said the age of exploration and new frontiers was dead. Bully for them. I really do mean that. A bully for them. Please.

The huge issue we face is that the world is largely populated by idiots with unspeakably bad taste. Anyone with any sense of style has discretion. If you should happen upon some refuge from the blathering masses the last thing one wants to do is share it so they can clutter up the space telling even more idiots to come and join in the scrum.

A first and last visit to Foursquare lasted no more than ten seconds. Being informed that someone called Jeff in Beaverton (I kid you not) had unlocked the Bender badge told me all I needed to know. If the research is proven to be true it’s only a matter of time before we get endorsements of padded cells and suicide spots and I defy anyone to become Mayor of Beachey Head.

Far more interesting are real people who have greater depth than becoming the Sheriff of Nandos in Uxbridge. I know at least a dozen Presidents of Village East but we don’t go round shouting about it (though I concede Wilcock and Gloria may go around shouting in it) . Nor do we feel the need to proclaim that we are in Belushi’s on Borough High St. Really, we don’t. Like life in Wolverhampton, it shouldn’t happen but it does. It did last night and I don’t see myself becoming a Sheriff of that establishment – not even with the temptation of Dane Bowers DJ’ing there in a fortnight. Actually, that could be worth seeing. Not hearing, but definitely seeing.

It was here a newly single and excitable colleague was chatting up a bewildered American tourist at the end of a lively Cow PR bonding session (which included a group rendition of Glitter’s ‘I’m the Leader of the Gang’ on Bermondsey High St). Having avoided any offer of B52′s and tequila slammers due to a meeting this morning with a Trinidadian chef, I was in a far better position that most and was surprised when he responded to my question of how it was going by his reply that he couldn’t see her. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘I mean I can’t see!’ he replied. If there’s beer goggles, then he had the slammer shades.

The same colleague mentioned matter of factly earlier in the week as I was trying to write a new biz document ‘I had a pet rat at university…it lived in a KFC bucket…its name was Rolanda’. Where do you go from there? And, more to the point, did Rolanda update her status to become Mayor?