Can't Blog. Vietnam.

I'm never lost for words. I've always got something to say. However, next week I'm off to Vietnam so I intend to be living, rather than writing! The weather ranges from 25-32 and it's humid.

Better than last year. I went off with such enthusiasm. My partner had organised a dentist for himself (it is so cheap over there... And great clinics too!) but I had plans! I was going to site see everything!

Since we were staying in Denang, I wanted to go on the Hue Citadel tour which uses authentic trains with singers and lute players on board! My sister had gone the year before and said it was a must! So off we go... The train boards and it curves its way up through the mountains. There is actually a cliff on one side, and the views! Ocean. Beautiful clear ocean! 

Well, that was what it was supposed to be like.

Instead, we were pelted by rain. So much of the trip, you couldn't see out of the windows as it was slanting! Pounding so much it became dangerous, so they cancelled the trip back. 

We were staying overnight at this little groovy hotel in this tiny town, which we couldn't see because of the rain. Even if you put a rain proof poncho on, you couldn't see a foot in front of you. 

The next morning, we had to get a ride back to Danang. And so, we get into the back seat of a station wagon the girl on the front desk had arranged for us and within five minutes were hail Mary-ing! He drove like a bloody maniac. Through the slanted rain, going about 100 miles per hour. I don't know if anyone has been to Vietnam or not, but there are no highways! Just skinny roads!

I put translator on my phone and asked him to slow down as I was feeling sick. He did for about 5 minutes and then back up to what he was going! At the end of the trip, we were white. 

Suffice to say I enjoyed the first 2 days, after that, I was never going back to Vietnam again!!!

So I am giving it another chance. Two weeks of sun and pool.

This Is What Happens - Everything Becomes a Spectacle...

A formal dinner filled with politicians, journalists, cameras, and speeches is meant to look like control. It’s meant to project order, importance, and a sense that everything is exactly where it should be. Then someone brings a gun, and all of that collapses instantly. Who are we kidding. They all would be packing a pistol!

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a gunman forced his way toward one of the most heavily guarded events in the United States, firing shots and triggering panic as people scrambled for cover and security rushed officials out.

The target wasn’t random. Authorities believe he was aiming for Donald Trump (good on him I say).

Within seconds, the entire performance was stripped back to what it really was - just a room full of people reacting to something they couldn’t control. This is the part people will miss. They’ll argue politics, assign blame, pick sides, and push whatever narrative suits them. But this wasn’t just about one man. It was about the environment that made something like this feel almost inevitable.

Look at what that event actually is. A room packed with power, media, ego, and attention, all feeding off each other. Politicians performing for journalists. Journalists performing for the public. Everyone pretending it’s about democracy while quietly enjoying the spotlight that comes with it. It’s theatre, carefully staged and endlessly repeated.

And when everything becomes theatre, reality doesn’t just interrupt - it tears through it.

That contrast is the story. One moment it’s speeches and jokes. The next its fear, confusion, people hiding under tables in formal wear. It’s absurd, but it’s also revealing. It shows how thin the line is between the image of control and the reality underneath it.

The uncomfortable part is that this doesn’t shock people the way it should anymore. That’s the real problem. Not just that it happened, but that it fits so easily into the cycle. Outrage. Coverage. Debate. Repeat.

They’ll talk about security failures, about who is responsible. But the deeper issue sits underneath that. You cannot keep turning politics into spectacle, outrage into currency, and attention into the goal, and expect it to stay contained. Eventually it spills over.

That’s what this was. Not just a crime. A consequence of something that has been building for a long time.

And the worst part is how predictable the aftermath will be. Endless discussion, endless analysis, and then a slow drift back into the same patterns that created the conditions in the first place.

Everyone will talk about it.

No one will learn from it.

Day of Rest

Today I'm off to Melbourne to do the step Mum thing! 

I'm sure I can have a day of rest. If it's good enough for Jesus, I guess it's good enough for me!

Social Media Isn’t Toxic. You Are!

Oh, it's a sad time to be alive as a human. We have information coming at us from every angle, every way it can come at you. And most of it is negative... Why? Because that is the way people keep coming back. It's like looking at an accident - people can't help themselves.

But everyone loves blaming social media. The apps, the algorithm, the “environment.” It’s always something external, something out of their control. But at some point, you have to admit what’s actually happening. It’s not the app dragging your ass back. It’s you opening it again. And again. And again. Refreshing the same feed 47 times a day and calling it “just checking something.”

The truth is uncomfortable because it’s simple. Social media doesn’t force anything on you. It responds. It gives you more of whatever you react to. You pause on outrage; it gives you more outrage. You compare yourself to strangers, it lines up more strangers. It’s not random. It’s a mirror that keeps adjusting to whatever you feed it.

And you keep feeding it.

That’s the part no one wants to sit with. It’s easier to say the platform is toxic than to admit you keep going back to things that make you feel worse. You engage with it, you react to it, and then you complain about how bad it is, like you weren’t part of the process.

You weren’t trapped.

You were involved.

People act like they’ve lost control, but most of the time it’s just habit dressed up as helplessness. You pick it up without thinking, scroll without noticing, and then wonder why you feel flat, irritated, or slightly off. It’s not complicated. You’ve spent the last half hour consuming things designed to get a reaction out of you.

Of course you feel like that.

And then comes the best part. Closing the app and saying, “God, that place is toxic,” as if you weren’t just actively participating in it five seconds ago. Even though you had to scroll at the dining table instead of talking to your partner. How many times have you been to a restaurant and watched people on their phones? Not speaking.

Social media isn’t the problem. It’s just very good at giving you what you respond to. The more honest question is why you keep responding to the same things and expecting a different result.

That’s where it gets a bit uncomfortable.

Because at some point, your feed starts to look a lot like you.

Not who you think you are.

Who you actually engage like.

And that’s harder to blame on an algorithm.

Authenticity Is the New Lie

“I’m just being real.”

With lighting, editing, and twenty-three takes.

Being “real” used to mean something. It meant unfiltered, unplanned, a bit rough around the edges. Now it means carefully controlled dishonesty, delivered in a way that feels natural but absolutely isn’t. The lighting is right, the angle is tested, and whatever you’re seeing has already been chosen as the version worth showing.

That’s not authenticity. That’s production.

The strange part is how convincing it is. People watch these moments and think they’re seeing something raw, something genuine, when in reality, they’re seeing something shaped just enough to feel real without actually being it. A bad day gets edited. A vulnerable moment gets framed. Even silence gets curated, so it lands the right way.

Nothing is accidental anymore.

And that’s where it flips. Because once “real” becomes something you perform, it stops being real at all. It becomes another version of the same thing - content designed to connect, not because it’s honest, but because it works.

You can feel it if you pay attention. That slight polish underneath everything. The sense that the person talking is aware of how it looks while they’re doing it. It’s not fake in the obvious way. It’s just managed.

And people still buy it. Not because they’re naïve, but because they want to. It’s easier to engage with something that feels authentic than to question whether it actually is. So, the cycle keeps going. More “real” moments, more engagement, more reward for getting the tone exactly right.

Until being authentic becomes a skill set.

Which is probably the clearest sign it isn’t anymore.