Disappearing Act

I wasn't sure how I would tackle this topic. I was favouring a piece about the mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie in December 1926. But then last week I got locked out of Facebook for days, and I knew I had my angle.

I've no idea why I was locked out. One day Facebook was working fine, the next when I put in my id and password (I was using my laptop by the way) I got a screen I'd never seen before, telling me that an access code was being sent to my WhatsApp account. I checked regularly for half an hour but nothing arrived. I tried logging into Facebook on my iPhone only to meet the same screen, promising a code to my WhatsApp account but again nothing arrived. I logged off from all applications, switched off laptop and phone, rebooted my router and tried once more a few hours later. Same issue, still no access.

I'm a patient sort of guy and I knew from my daily BBC newsfeed that Facebook was experiencing some problems with all the applications on its Meta platform, so I decided to leave it until the next day to try again. I met exactly the same result, or more accurately, lack of result. This time when the promised code didn't arrive to my WhatsApp account I logged off and on again and took Facebook's 'Try Another Way' option. The alternative they promised me was to send an SMS code to my iPhone... and guess what? Nothing arrived. 

Naively I thought I might have been locked out of my account for 24 or 48 hours. I've heard of this happening, but I believed people usually got some notification as to the reason for it happening. All I had was a faceless nothing.

However, when Facebook failed to rise again on the third day, I must admit I began to feel like a character in some absurd existential Kafkaesque nightmare who doesn't know what he's done wrong, doesn't have any way of contacting the authority responsible for excommunicating him, and has no idea if this state of affairs is temporary or permanent. I was trying, and failing, to deal with Facelessbook!

from Franz Kafka's sketchbook (1901-1907) courtesy National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

I know the use of the platform is not as common or fashionable as it once was, but I do use it regularly to communicate with my 1,400 Facebook friends on a personal level as well as acting as supporters' liaison officer for Blackpool FC and as admin for a few Facebook groups, including Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society, Fans United and Love My Greece. 

In fact I've been using it more, if anything, since I withdrew from Twitter/X (now Musk has made that such a toxic platform), so being 'disappeared' from social media was quite a serious issue. 

In a further bizarre twist, after I couldn't access my account for a few days I began getting emails from Facebook telling me that X people had liked certain posts, Y people had commented on others and that I had various messages waiting from Z friends - as though Facebook thought that I was neglecting it, and was sending me gentle reminders not to forsake it - while still promising, every time I tried to log in, to send me an access code which simply never arrived!

On the evening of the third day, I decided to go the route of re-validating who I was. This involved logging onto a separate Meta application and uploading as proof of identity a scan of either my passport or my driving licence. I opted for the latter. It came back and told me that my ID could not be verified.

Of course I thought this was completely bonkers and began to contemplate the possibility of having to set up a brand new Facebook account from scratch for personal use - but then I didn't know where that would leave the groups and pages for which the 'disappeared'  Steve Rowland is supposedly responsible, and I even foresaw the possibility of being told I couldn't set up a new Steve Rowland account because one already existed.

I decided to give it one more day - and lo and behold on the fourth day when I tried to log onto Facebook I received the following screen:

All I had to do was click on 'Yes, This Was Me'  who had sent them ID, you remember, the one that they said could not be verified), and I was back into all my accounts like nothing had happened, with no further explanation. 

Had some fiendish interloper really tried to log into my account? What made them think it wasn't me? Had they really locked my account? If so, why did they say (on several occasions) they were sending me access codes which never arrived, and why did they keep on emailing me about comments and messages they thought I would like to see? Finally, why did they tell me they could not verify the ID I sent them only to ask a day later if it was genuinely from me? None of it makes any sense, nor does it fill me with confidence that their security software actually hangs together. But what can you do (apart from write a blog about it)?

 

Those of you who know anything about Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and have maybe read any of his small but influential body of work (he destroyed 90% of what he wrote), will have understood why I used the term Kafkaesque in relation to my recent Facebook experience. His novels and short stories are pervaded by a sense of alienation and the absurd, of typically isolated, bemused and often terrified protagonists facing bizarre predicaments, often at the hands of some remote and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic power.

Of course I personally wasn't terrified by this recent disappearing act, because it posed no real existential threat, but it was mighty annoying. At least it gave me the idea for this poem as I wondered how Kafka might have handled the situation. Maybe the title is the best thing about it. Think of it as a first sketch that I might work up into something more substantial in due course, given time.  

Franz Kafka's Facebook Meltdown

This is not felicitous.

I only do Facebook 

to prove to myself

that I still exist but you have

plucked my wings

and my words go nowhere.

What was my misdemeanour,

the ugly truth of which I alone

am unaware? I sense cold flames

beneath the floorboards and

my empty hours feed paranoia.

Is this cyber Metastasis

or a singular targeted and

punitive privation? If so.

to whom may I make my appeal?

Is anyone investigating my case?

Vengeance is mine, says the void.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Babies - Polly Garter & Jelly Babies

“Me, Polly Garter, under the washing line, giving the breast in the garden to my bonny new baby. Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies. And where’s their fathers live, my love? Over the hills and far away. You’re looking up at me now. I know what you’re thinking, you poor little milky creature. You’re thinking, you’re no better than you should be, Polly, and that’s good enough for me. Oh, isn’t life a terrible thing, thank God?”

From Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.

If my memory serves me right, we were in the 4th year of secondary school, modern day Year 10, reading Under Milk Wood in English, sort of acting out the play in class, which was really just reading out loud from our desks. I was delighted to be Polly Garter, though I can’t sing and I can’t do a Welsh accent. She’s feisty, flaunty, flighty and a bit naughty, the talk of the wash-house and I love her. It was hard to read aloud, willing myself not to blush at the mention of ‘breast’ while the boys made stifled sniggers and whispered comments. We were that silly age. Well, the boys were. I liked the image of Polly and her babies, though not the absent fathers. I liked the idea of a family full of children.

We get what we’re given and a big family was not on the cards for me. Now, with four grandchildren, the family might be as big as it is going to get until the next generation. I don’t intend to tempt providence here. It’s lovely, and great to have fun times when they are all here together. It can be hard work if they’re squabbling, or if someone needs to be sent out of the room, but that’s kids. They are all wonderful with their own personalities and I love having them around me. Echoes of Polly. Babies arrived close together, which put our travel plans on hold for about four years, then Covid lockdown meant cancelling the booked trip to the Channel Islands. We’ll try again, before we forget what we were doing and old age takes over.

Ah, just to mention Jelly Babies. Nasty things that made one of my children so sick, they can’t look at them even decades later. It’s not an allergy or anything serious, just eaten too many. I don’t know how many packets and they didn’t come from me. I don’t give sweets, only chocolate, and never fizzy drinks. My grandchildren take delight in telling me if they’ve had something on my banned list. Little darlings.

My poem,

The time came to dismantle the cot.
There’s no more babies, I’ve had my lot.
Infant things vanished without a trace,
A three foot single now fills the space.
A house of laughter, a home of joy
For a lovely girl and a cherished boy.
The children took over with their stuff,
Of books and toys, more than enough.
Years come and go as time flies too fast,
A quiet house, empty nest, at last.
Soon, grandchildren filled the vacant spot,
Took turns to sleep in the rebuilt cot.
Gorgeous babies, one, two, three and four,
I think that’s it now, there won’t be more.
The single divan is back in place,
But it is moveable, just in case.

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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