So Long Tweety Bird
In which I move on from that place, and find a brace of cool sixties drummers.
Back in the long-ago days of 2009, I signed up for a new online platform to try my hand at this thing called micro-blogging.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the early days of Twitter was the 140-character limit, It taught me about writing more concisely. At conferences I used to recommend it to other folks in the content industry as a way to develop and hone that skill. - In some ways, I was disappointed when they decided to double the count.
And of course that initial sense of community building as I found old friends from far and wide, and made many more new ones over the years.
Twitter also helped my writing career. I ended up on writing panels at events such as SXSW to talk about it, and thanks to a post on Twitter I pitched and landed my first prose short-story sale, later on it led to media interviews, podcast guest invitations, and eventually to developing and producing my own podcast shows.
Checking Twitter and posting on it became part of my regular breakfast routine for many years. But since the change in ownership I had noticed my engagement dropping off. Yet it remained a valuable tool in promoting my books and podcast shows, as well as staying in contact with friends around the world.
Over my 16 years on Twitter I had worked at managing and curating my feeds to make sure that I had the online experience I wanted and kept most of the growing vitriol hidden. But now with the changes in algorithms, the way blocking works, and other changes, it has become almost impossible to maintain that. In recent months I’ve ended up having to block and report more frequently than ever, and it doesn’t seem to work as I’m still confronted with ads and posts I don’t wish to read.
Despite all this, with a new book forthcoming, and some other upcoming projects to promote, I was determined to hang on.
Until it was announced that as of today (Friday, November 15th, 2024) all your Twitter content would be fed to the company’s AI learning module by default with no way to opt-out. If you’ve read my recent post on the rush to implement AI, “Am I The AI Luddite?” you’ll know how I feel about that.
There was also things in the revised Terms & Conditions that I wasn’t happy about either.
So after a lot of consideration, thanks to the changing nature of its interactions, along with upcoming technical and terms of use changes I, like many others, decided to move on. Last night I cleared out my accounts and deactivated them. Removed the app from my phone, and I am now Twitter-free.
I will be honest it’s a mixed feeling. It’s been a part of my online life, and writing career, for over a decade and a half. It’s going to take a little adjusting.
However I’m still all over the other social platforms where you can find me as @alanjporter - I'm mainly active on BlueSky, Threads, Instagram, and Facebook for those who may want to connect elsewhere.
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For those wondering about the results of The Big Decision last week , I can now reveal how the dilemma has been resolved.
Nightstand - F1 Racing Confidential - Giles Richards (one of those three library books).
Nightstand - The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
Livingroom - Moon Over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch
Office - The Quarrymen - Hunter Davis (a regular source for Beatles podcast research)
Kindle - Star Trek: The Next Generation: Chains of Command - W.A. McCay & E.L. Flood (this is a bit of a cheat as I already had this downloaded - but now I’ve made a start reading it.)
Alan
Other Stuff
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Brabazon Bits
As I mentioned in the last newsletter I recently completed my pick of photos to be included in the Brabazon book and sent the files to the publishers. I tried to make sure I picked a selection that mirrored the narrative thread of the book. Well after having to do a couple of file type conversions to make sure everything was a JPG image, I received a note letting me know that all had been approved and passed on to the production team.
Another step closer to publication.
If everything goes to schedule “Bristol Brabazon: The Ocean Liner of the Skies and its Ongoing Legacy” will be published on 30 MAY, 2025 in the UK and 30 JULY, 2025 in the US.
It’s also available for pre-order on both Amazon UK and Amazon US sites.
Word Slinging
If you are in the Baltimore / Washington DC / Delaware / Southern PA area tomorrow (16th November) come check out the Books & Brews event at the Union Street Brewery
I’ll be there from 11:00am until 2:30pm with some of the historical short-story anthologies that have my words in them.
Not much progress on The Musketeers story this week, although I do have the opening scene, and the villains intro done. It’s about time I needed some sword-swinging action, so working on that at the moment.
On a similar pulp-adventure note, I found out that the Western anthology that has a couple of Wild Bill Hickok short stories I wrote a while back is now in production with an artist working on the cover and accompanying interior illustrations. So hopefully that will be something else to look forward to seeing in print in 2025.
Podcast Procastinations
While doing the research on the script for the next episode of the FORGOTTEN BEATLES podcast I came across this gem of sixties drummer craziness. The YouTube title is incorrect: this is a clip from a 1964 movie called "Gonks Go Beat," but what I love is that it features the two different session drummers who played on Beatles recordings.
Andy White, who played on the recording of The Beatles first single instead of Ringo in 1962.
Bobby Graham, who covered for Ringo on a recording session for the Beatles BBC radio show "Pop Goes The Beatles" in 1963
Oh yeah, and Cream's Ginger Baker is also in there…
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2024 - “F1 Racing Confidential” by Giles Richards.
It may look on the surface that motor racing is a solitary sport of driver vs driver, but in fact, it is a team sport with every driver and car supported by a network of highly skilled specialists on the pit wall, in the garage, and back at the team factories.
In F1 as well as the drivers, the team is often represented on TV by a few other high-profile roles such as Team Principal, Race Engineer, and maybe Strategist. But what of the others?
Here Richards shines the spotlight on 19 different roles within a typical F1 team providing a profile of a practitioner with each.
It works well as an illustration of the complexity of how F1 operates, and the vital contributions of those behind the scenes. Yet the very nature of each essay; anecdotal opening, role, how I got to F1 story, recent contributions, results in a somewhat (pardon the pun) formulaic read.
Our online bookstore at Bookshop.org is fully up to date with the books read so far in 2024, so you can pick up copies of any that interest you, while also helping out local independent bookstores.
Weekly Web Round-Up
Forest Comics & Books - This week we added a few Batman-themed Funkos alongside the Doctor Who ones. And look out for some Batmobiles of all shapes and sizes over the coming days.
Batman On The Cover - The journey through Batman’s comics publishing history continues as we move into September 1969 with new issues of Detective Comics, Batman, Justice League of America, and World’s Finest published by DC Comics
Although Neal Adams had one of his signature action-orientated illustrations this month on Justice League, I decided to pick something atypical of Adams’ style, yet one that still packs a punch (albeit more emotional than physical.) The cover of Detective Comics #391 is a textbook example of visual storytelling as Adams uses a classic high school yearbook layout to tell of a girl’s hopes for the future and its dark ending all in just three images.
Where on the Web is Alan?
You can now find links to all the places you can find me online, websites, newsletters, social media, and more in a single LINKS page on my personal website.
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter
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