Damn technology.
I mean obviously yay! Big Yay! For social media and losing years of my life staring at wedding photos of people I don't even know, or holiday snaps of ex work colleagues that make me feel green with envy - and yay for the pressure to be hilarious in 140 letters and all on twitter - but my god the rest of the stuff is all gobbledegook to me.
For ages I've been wanting to get amongst the agony aunt thang - having been a Life Coach, Relationship show presenter, Samaritan, teen dating show presenter, all round advice queen to buddies and someone who has had a fair few knocks in life - I feel I'm up for the job. But they aren't the kind of jobs that you can find in the dole queue... So decided to create the role for myself - on my blog.
There were two problems to this - no.1 Crummy Mummy has rarely been seen. Now folk will know who I am - or at least that my roots need done and the spot that has been brewing the whole of xmas is soon to rear it's yellow head... Plus you can read a lot into how someone writes - but when you SEE them - warts and all (and their messy house) and hear their annoying Irish nasal twang - you can get a whole new picture. Is that a good or a bad thing? Only you can decide.
No. 2 I am technologically backward and every way. At work they played a trick on me once that the new Exec producer liked his scripts formatted in a special way and they didn't tell me how to do it. I sweated for what felt like hours until they all pissed themselves and then showed me how. And by 'showing me how' I mean they did it for me and I continued to ask them to do it forever more. Meanwhile two brilliant ladeez I work with - both helpfully called Jen - have at last taught me how to use the scanning machine. They spoke to me like I do to my two year old - and had the patience of Saints... So when I decided I wanted to record the problems and answers - I had NO IDEA how to do this.
Cue - Sinead - a jovial, smart superwhizz at all things techno. She offered her services for free (madwoman!) and I bit her arm off. So on a dry Sunday prior to Xmas she had a look at all things Blogger (cursed manys a time that the new updated format is INFINITELY harder to navigate - some things not working at all - than the old one. Her fav saying 'why do they update technology only to make it less user friendly?' Quite.). Anyway - we fiddled for ages and then she suggested (as had another friend) that the problem page should be a video and not another blog page.
So she set me up with www.youtube.com/crummymummytv And then she put it on this here blog. But of course it wasn't that straightforward. While her two kids and my two ran around creating mayhem and her kind Husband played unwitting creche manager - she calmly sorted things so you would in fact not have to watch 4 bloody you tube videos of bizarre things under my face... It aint a good look having a cow's arse give birth as I am talking about relationship stress... She also sorted all the dimensions so you could actually see ALL, not half my face. Maybe that is a bad thing...
Then came the hard part - teaching me how to video myself! My life in telly has always been about lovely make up artists and fab camera men putting on 'gels' (both to face and camera lights) to make me look better. This was me, some daylight and the warts and all look... I am totally happy with that - as long as I could steady the damn i-pad. Without it crashing to the ground and Husband divorcing me. At first I stared straight at the middle of the i pad - so I looked slightly unhinged in the test videos - then Sinead kindly pointed out where the camera lens was - a good start would be to look down it I guess....
Then the even harder part - telling me how to upload and order and all that jazz. Sinead - a woman of serenity clearly - spoke in a calm, understanding voice, without ever having to resort to sending me to the naughty step. So - Ta dah! Tis done. The first one anyway. Be great to hear what you think. (Please let more than one person comment in this post - please!!!) If you have any thoughts - please please let me - know, I can only make this better if you tell me what you think, and if Sinead does some fiddling for me again. We'll be fine tuning it over the next few months. I genuinely want to help folk - and I do know that a problem shared is one halved - and I promise not to judge. Now you have seen me in all my glory you know that this aint the kind of broad who should be judging anyone!
So thanks to Sinead, I owe you manys a drink lady.And you ever patient husband James.
Looking forward to sharing more stuff - all in the agony aunt vain. If you want to drop me a line - is crummymummy@gmail.com Or you could could send a link to a video of your own.
It is a new year - time to try some new things. Fingers crossed you like it. Happy Noo Years!
I mean obviously yay! Big Yay! For social media and losing years of my life staring at wedding photos of people I don't even know, or holiday snaps of ex work colleagues that make me feel green with envy - and yay for the pressure to be hilarious in 140 letters and all on twitter - but my god the rest of the stuff is all gobbledegook to me.
For ages I've been wanting to get amongst the agony aunt thang - having been a Life Coach, Relationship show presenter, Samaritan, teen dating show presenter, all round advice queen to buddies and someone who has had a fair few knocks in life - I feel I'm up for the job. But they aren't the kind of jobs that you can find in the dole queue... So decided to create the role for myself - on my blog.
There were two problems to this - no.1 Crummy Mummy has rarely been seen. Now folk will know who I am - or at least that my roots need done and the spot that has been brewing the whole of xmas is soon to rear it's yellow head... Plus you can read a lot into how someone writes - but when you SEE them - warts and all (and their messy house) and hear their annoying Irish nasal twang - you can get a whole new picture. Is that a good or a bad thing? Only you can decide.
No. 2 I am technologically backward and every way. At work they played a trick on me once that the new Exec producer liked his scripts formatted in a special way and they didn't tell me how to do it. I sweated for what felt like hours until they all pissed themselves and then showed me how. And by 'showing me how' I mean they did it for me and I continued to ask them to do it forever more. Meanwhile two brilliant ladeez I work with - both helpfully called Jen - have at last taught me how to use the scanning machine. They spoke to me like I do to my two year old - and had the patience of Saints... So when I decided I wanted to record the problems and answers - I had NO IDEA how to do this.
Cue - Sinead - a jovial, smart superwhizz at all things techno. She offered her services for free (madwoman!) and I bit her arm off. So on a dry Sunday prior to Xmas she had a look at all things Blogger (cursed manys a time that the new updated format is INFINITELY harder to navigate - some things not working at all - than the old one. Her fav saying 'why do they update technology only to make it less user friendly?' Quite.). Anyway - we fiddled for ages and then she suggested (as had another friend) that the problem page should be a video and not another blog page.
So she set me up with www.youtube.com/crummymummytv And then she put it on this here blog. But of course it wasn't that straightforward. While her two kids and my two ran around creating mayhem and her kind Husband played unwitting creche manager - she calmly sorted things so you would in fact not have to watch 4 bloody you tube videos of bizarre things under my face... It aint a good look having a cow's arse give birth as I am talking about relationship stress... She also sorted all the dimensions so you could actually see ALL, not half my face. Maybe that is a bad thing...
Then came the hard part - teaching me how to video myself! My life in telly has always been about lovely make up artists and fab camera men putting on 'gels' (both to face and camera lights) to make me look better. This was me, some daylight and the warts and all look... I am totally happy with that - as long as I could steady the damn i-pad. Without it crashing to the ground and Husband divorcing me. At first I stared straight at the middle of the i pad - so I looked slightly unhinged in the test videos - then Sinead kindly pointed out where the camera lens was - a good start would be to look down it I guess....
Then the even harder part - telling me how to upload and order and all that jazz. Sinead - a woman of serenity clearly - spoke in a calm, understanding voice, without ever having to resort to sending me to the naughty step. So - Ta dah! Tis done. The first one anyway. Be great to hear what you think. (Please let more than one person comment in this post - please!!!) If you have any thoughts - please please let me - know, I can only make this better if you tell me what you think, and if Sinead does some fiddling for me again. We'll be fine tuning it over the next few months. I genuinely want to help folk - and I do know that a problem shared is one halved - and I promise not to judge. Now you have seen me in all my glory you know that this aint the kind of broad who should be judging anyone!
So thanks to Sinead, I owe you manys a drink lady.And you ever patient husband James.
Looking forward to sharing more stuff - all in the agony aunt vain. If you want to drop me a line - is crummymummy@gmail.com Or you could could send a link to a video of your own.
It is a new year - time to try some new things. Fingers crossed you like it. Happy Noo Years!
2 comments:
Go for it S. looks good!
Same tiles as us (sad that I noticed this, need help).
A Mac x
I think you have a really natural way and tone and seem like you'd never judge anyone. I'd tell you anything and I doubt you would bat an eyelid - actually change that - I KNOW you would never bat an eyelid! I know you are a born agony aunt (I know CM, you see) who would only give her heartfelt, honest advice, not advice just designed to make you feel better or make her look good.. Go Crummy Mummy Who Shrinks!! xx
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