WHY MUST THEY ALWAYS CHANGE THINGS?

“Chunner... chunner... Blogger upgrade... Chunner... chunner... Me no likey... Am I always so resistant to change...? Discuss...”

“When's it happening?”

“Well, I got transmogrified today, but I kind of guessed that young professionals like yourself probably clicked the link months ago and I was the last of the 78 r.p.m. brigade left in the world... You know me, always reluctant to change... I mean it seems straightforward enough, but everything's in a different place to where I'm used to and I really no likey that sort of thing... Hence... Still no "timeline" hereabouts... (although I'm sure that's "imminent" too...).”

“If I did then I missed it...”

“Oh, I'm sure forward-thinking young bucks like yourself have been working on "new-style" blogger for months now so you probably wouldn't even notice the final rollover when it occurred because you'd already embraced the future. It's just old "stick-in-the-muds" like me who try to hang on to what's familiar for far too long... so unless your latest posting contains much that adds up to utter confusion, I'll assume that you're probably quite safe...”

You might not have noticed much in the big wide world at large, but here in BlogWorld, behind the scenes, huge changes have been afoot and, in all honesty, I really haven’t enjoyed them very much.

You see, the simple daily pleasure of rattling out a few words for the general amusement and/or entertainment of whatever passing stranger might come across them has had something called a “new interface” foisted upon it. This is supposed to be far clearer, simpler and ultimately far “better” than the old style one in much the same way as a plastic and chrome Datsun Cherry was considered far superior to the oak veneer and leather of a stately old Rolls Royce.

It’s the kind of idiot thinking that shifts a major news programme two hundred miles away from where all the government and other entertainment industries are, but I shouldn’t keep returning to that familiar old story... That ship has (unfortunately) sailed...

Oh, I’m sure many, many people claim to “love” it and will embrace the change as it makes it, allegedly, far, far easier to work with, but for those of us rather too familiar with the old ways, it really doesn’t seem to make all that much sense.

And not due to my usual resistance to change, either, the bloody thing’s just that little bit more horrible, that little bit more bland and homogenous, and parts of it really don’t work all that well. Certain operating systems are now “no longer supported” which means that some bloggers who were perfectly happy with the way things were are now no longer inside the loop and must be forced to change in order to adapt and survive.

That said, my “state-of-the-art” relatively new telephonic device named after a soft fruit really doesn’t seem to like it at all, so maybe those rinky-dinky little designers have forgotten a few things along the way in their hurry to embrace the future.

Some people would call that “evolution” or the “survival of the fittest”, but change for change’s sake is never a good reason for making the change in the first place, really.

Some aspects are now more “instinctive” which means that you click on a picture instead of a word in a box which to my mind is pandering ever more towards an ultimate general level of public illiteracy that those of us who consider ourselves just the slightest bit prone towards being thought of as word-wranglers might find just the teeniest bit offensive, but then any insistence upon embracing the so-called “old” or “traditional” ways is now starting to look as if it might get a bit ugly.

A few days ago I was presented with a link to a “hilarious” image of a row of people reading on the tube with their various devices and I was supposed to find it amusing that the man on the end was reading a book.

Oh yes, very funny, all very 2012…

What really ticked me off about it, however, was the long list of “I reckons” attached to it which somehow seemed to imply that the chap actually reading the “book” was somehow “retarded” in some way, whether fiscal or otherwise, as if there was something fundamentally “wrong” with him for blatantly displaying such an object in public.

I did wonder whether the great and the good of those making up the passengers of the London Underground were now likely to start bullying and taunting anyone found reading something so very “retro”, who would then be laughed at and pointed at for their “eccentric” habits, and people like myself who regularly slip a paperback into our pockets on long journeys are likely to try and hide it away from public view for fear of being mocked and shunned.

Meanwhile... Designers, eh…? Tssk! They just love to change things…

It’s a brave new world, boys and girls, and don’t you lust love it...?