On advertising

I am thrilled with my new Apple i-phone. I don't like to say it too loudly, because Edwin has been pushing me to get one for years and I don't want him to think he is right too soon. It is fast, clean, and I love the facial recognition feature to unlock it. True, its keyboard lacks the row of numbers above the alphabet, but this is a minor inconvenience. Interestingly, 67% of views for this blog are from Apple devices (with 52% the i-phone); 20% are Android; only 10% are viewed from Windows.
But the main virtue of the i-phone is it doesn't support intrusive advertising.

Google will not like this post, but - I hate advertising. I don't like it on TV, though it would be hypocritical to say I only watch BBC. I don't like it when I do searches, but accept it as the price of good content and for ease of searching. My favourite site is Wikipedia; I would gladly pay a yearly rental for that site, and I send them money each year when they put their appeal out. But where advertising really cheesed me off was on my Galaxy phone.

Even before it exploded in my pocket, I was fed up with it to the point where I wanted to throw it at the dealers who sold it me. It was not a free phone. I paid good money for it, through the rental contract with EE, and a large fee every month to rent their system for calls and data. I therefore expect a clean service; but instead, I kept getting adverts thrown in my face. Full page adverts! Covering the screen after I picked it up and started to text or dial! Adverts that insisted I wait a few seconds, with a countdown before I can clear them! Adverts about irrelevant rubbish that I can't even read because I am so mad with them!! I do not expect to pay for the privilege of getting adverts!!!

Ann says I should write about my "feelings", and not keep making jokes and pretending all is well. It is not easy. I have never delved far into the dark pit of emotions. She keeps feeling shudders of shock as the news hits her in waves; I seem to have put it from my mind, and don't like to dwell on it. I suppose if anything, my emotions are of anger and apprehension - I resent having a black curtain hung before me through which I must pass. I enjoy life, and had hoped for a few more good years - there are so many things I still wish to do.
The apprehension arises from the thought of the cystectomy. I spent 6 months as surgical houseman on a GU unit. As a houseman, we didn't do much important stuff - just assisting the surgeon by holding retractors while the nurses wiped his brow. But I did see the severity of the ops, and the attempts to fashion a piece of bowel into a false bladder draing to a bag on the abdominal wall. I witnessed the failures too, where the bowel became infected, or did not graft, and needed another urgent procedure. Also, the cases of the poor men (were they always men?) with aggresive cancers, too late to halt, racing through their bodies to claim the ultimate victory.

I don't suppose my feelings will help anyone else much, but the Macmillan cancer site offers brillient support, and is Ann's first port of call when she has questions. So if anyone reading this wants to bring me their feelings, at least I'll be happy to share them, and maybe they will resonate with my own feelings and help me better to express them.