I just answered a call on my mobile from the dreaded Private Number, stupid, I know. Fully expecting to hear the usual “Am I speaking to Mr. Steve Crane?”, I was suprised to hear “Am I speaking to the owner of zero eight three …” instead.

So cold callers no longer even have the decency to try any form of targeting, not even to find out who the number belongs to. That’s just rude and extremely annoying. I have had enough and will no longer answer calls from private numbers. If they choose to leave a voicemail I may return their call, or I may not.

I am also going to change my voicemail message from “Leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you”, to “Leave your name, number and the reason for your call and I may get get back to you”.

Occasionaly I receive notification that someone has started following me on Twitter or has befriended me on some other social media service; but on visiting their profile I find that their updates are protected and I need to request permission to see them.

While I accept that people may want to keep their updates private I don’t understand the rationale behind it. Why would you want to join a microblogging service like Twitter, yet not make what you’re publishing public? If you’re using it to broadcast something not quite legal, why draw attention to yourself by creating a profile at all? If you’re simply paranoid about privacy, then perhaps you should reconsider your involement in social media and stick to something more private, like e-mail.

The point I want to make relates to not being able to see updates from someone that has followed or befriended me. My feelings are that the act of you following or befriending me should implicitly, and automatically, grant me the rights to follow or befriend you without me needing to ask you for additional permission to do so.

I have to thank the staff of the voting station at Charles Morkel Stadium in Strand for the assistance they gave my wife yesterday.

Seeing no need to rush to vote (stations were open for fourteen hours after all) we went along some time after 1pm. Sure enough there wasn’t much of a queue; perhaps 10 or twenty in the queue, so we quickly reached the door. Mela’s ankle is in a cast and she is on crutches and as soon as her ID was scanned she was whisked of into the hall and given a chair. Everything was done for her; the staff took her ID to have her crossed off the roll and brought the ink over to mark her thumb. A voting booth was carried over from the other side of the hall and put down right in front of her so she could make her mark from the chair. Finally her folded ballots were taken and placed in the box for her. She was rather chuffed with it all.