Today's the Day of the African Child.
"The main celebration this year is taking place in the Gambian capital of Banjul. The theme of this year’s Day – orphans and vulnerable children – recalls the challenges faced by children who have lost one or both parents and by children who are disabled. In The Gambia alone, 55,000 children have lost one or both parents. Of these, an estimated 7,000 are orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS."
So said the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), but nobody seemed to have told the Gambians, unless officials in that small west African country, stretched along a river through Senegal, mislaid that "main" event.
Good Factory hands across the continent filed their stories, some moving but fittingly unsentimental, like the sad, amusing story of how "lost and found kids" advertisements are a daily spot on television in Equatorial Guinea, whose rich and wretched rulers wash their hands with oil. To find it funny, like I did, perhaps you have to be a little African and leave a guilty, bleeding heart behind.
Lauren's working day ended with an agreement some late, indeed non-existent, wedding invite cards were her priority, mine when someone reminded me I'm invited to a party I'd forgotten was so soon and said a firm "yes" when I enquired after the nature of some of the other guests.
It's too late, Stephen, it's tonight I want sex!
I have done since well before ten to 6 in the morning -- "Yes, Jessel, the big hand's on the etc." -- when the quiet, tender departure of the new musician neighbour's lover caught my ear while I was having quite other reveries. The opportunity arose when a woman who spends her days with flowers had the same idea, her mind still taken by a most impertinent suggestion that came to mine of late, best voiced with a winning smile. Sigh... We had other immediate things to do. Now I daren't again arrive at work cheerfully sleepless since I'm on my own tomorrow as circus master, air traffic controller or whatever it is I do with those stories...
What a foul world this would be if we only loved people like us.
People like those "mediaburners" don't just pick up the women, happily, agreeing that this place is here for the lot. It occurs to me that Joe might be up to it again, those pictures I mean.
He's found another "nightmare": 'The Most Depressing Product of the Day' (Book of Joe).
zzz
Networking, a hot topic of the week?
"Recent reports of the demise of Social Networking Applications (SNAs), voted 'technology of the year' by Business 2.0 just two years ago, are increasing."
Maybe so, Dave Pollard sees, citing a moan or five. Then he points out that SNAs remind him of
"Chamber of Commerce meetings, with consultants and agents outnumbering 'real' businesspeople, five sellers for every buyer. I belong to several SNAs but use them rarely, since my blog provides me with a more robust network than any SNA could ever hope to do."
Consultants, agents -- such job descriptions are among the few that automatically still bring the word "parasite" to mind. I've rarely met a consultant capable of giving me a comprehensible definition of what they do (perhaps I should go to more parties).
Dave's 'Rescuing Social Networks' (Saving the World) uses a term I've not heard before but sometimes think I am: a Simple Virtual Presence.
zzz
Ellie admitted she was shaking in her boots when I asked after her welfare. She knows about things like business, but to be called in as a pundit on the French economy -- it was a trap, luv, by that US Congress somebody! -- and find yourself on a panel with a former minister of it isn't my idea of fun.
If I was, it wouldn't be that of other people, I dread to think what I'd say, it wouldn't be wise.
The woman has style. She didn't seem shaky on explaining she was only just out of this grilling.
My dilemma, I said, was naked women.
I've had firm warnings and said myself the chances are I'll post no more ... for now. Only to find today that people lift these entries, whole. Even the words. This has been going on for more than a year, it seems, as proven by people who seem to think I'm part of the "digital media" at 'The Mediaburn Radio Weblog'.
They've been doing it since at least October 2003.
There are others.
"You should 'sell' your blog," said Eleanor, bless her!
"It is, after all, your work."
I wouldn't say that too loudly around the Factory, not when I'm in it.
O the mercenary beast, the capitalist! True, she's a freelance. But I said such an idea was against my principles and told her what I thought of the New York Times and why I've stopped linking to that paper.
How can you be an ex-muse, frequently logged under a Creative Commons licence, then say, "You should sell me"?
I must ask her and perhaps tell you what she says. How much would you pay for a Ellie-gram? Or a pound of Ellie?
The auction starts here.
10:26:55 PM 
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