Suburban Afro

Some Woman Called Claire Worthington Moaning About Her Hair

SUBURBAN AFRO POSTS

UNEXPECTED EGO BOOST

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Last week, a little girl in my local supermarket loudly declared that I had super amazing hair. Naturally I said thank you and beamed for the rest of the day.

I generally tell people to ignore comments from strangers about their appearance, but this is a special sub-category of comments from strangers and should absolutely be taken on board. Friends and family will often tell you that you look nice, even if you look a bit rough. Do you know who doesn’t tell you that you look nice when you don’t? Little girls in supermarkets, that you have never met before!

I pay a lot less attention to my appearance these days than I probably should. I’ve never been particularly high maintenance, but whatever standard I used to aim for has been drastically lowered, even on special occasions. It’s a combination of working from home, being a web developer, being older, being quite lazy and probably a long list of other things. Spending more time on my appearance doesn’t have any obvious benefit, so I tend not to. I’d like to say that I have big plans to change this, but I like you far too much to lie to you.

I’ve been getting my hair braided on and off since I was 13 and these days braiding my hair is mostly about how practical it is. Not only is braiding practical, but it also fits my budget and elevates my look with minimal effort (after the initial braiding session) During lockdown I finally mastered braiding my own hair. I’m still not the best at it, but I can now braid my hair to a decent standard (just don’t look too close)

Somewhere on this site I’ve probably already told you that I wasted my childhood wishing I had long blonde hair. I obviously don’t have long, blonde hair genes, so braids are an easy way to change the colour of your hair without the chemicals. Over the years I’ve been a blonde, a brunette and probably every other colour of the rainbow. Blue hair is cool, but if you ever want to impress a little kid, pink mermaid hair is definitely the way to go.

AFRO HAIR & HAIRDRESSING

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Today it was announced that the treatment and styling of afro and texturised hair would be included as part of the standing training for all hairdressers in the UK. On the face of it, this announcement doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is.

It’s a big deal because having afro hair has always made those of us who have it an “other’ It isn’t intentional, it’s just a thing. A thing that until recently, a lot of Black British women didn’t even question. A thing that was a big deal, that none of us really paid attention to. It is a big deal that in a multicultural society, made up of people with ancestors from all over the world, it was only just decided, that none European hair should be included in the training routinely given to new hairdressers throughout the country. It’s a big deal because it is making some of us question, why this has taken so long.

Before today, anybody wanting to cater for black clients, had to obtain their hairdressing qualifications and train separately to learn what they needed for clientele with African or Caribbean heritage. This means that it’s generally more expensive for people to learn how to deal with our hair and it gives certain salons a “free license” to charge more for delivering specialist services.

Being able to get your hair styled or even just trimmed at one of my local salons is a privilege I don’t have. It’s not a big deal, but it is a problem when you start to look at it through the lens of inclusion. I live in a village with nine hairdressers and five or six barbers, but I have to go elsewhere if I want my hair done. It’s not the end of the world and trust me, the last thing I want is for every single salon to suddenly start offering services, that they’re not skilled in, but what message does that give to people with the same hair as me? We need to go to specialist places, because our natural hair has never been considered “regular” enough, to even be included as part of the standard training and qualifications for hairdressers.

It isn’t only hairdressing services, there is also an issue with haircare products and cosmetics. I’ve spent my entire life unable to buy a bottle of shampoo or any cosmetics from my local Asda, Tesco or Sainsburys. A few years ago SuperDrug made a commercial decision to stock afro hair products, which meant that for the first time, I didn’t have to travel to another town to buy shampoo, conditioner or any of the other products that my hair simply can’t manage without.

I have often joked about having to make a 30 mile round trip every time I run out of shampoo, but once you stop laughing, you realise that it isn’t funny. Having a car and some knowledge about what my hair needs (most of which came from a long painful process of trial and error) means that throughout the 25 years that I’ve lived in Stockport, I have been able to travel into Manchester and buy what I need for myself and my children. How much of my life have I wasted driving to and from Longsight, Hulme and more recently Gorton when I need something, meanwhile my friends and neighbours have always been able to grab what they needed whilst they were in Asda, doing their weekly food shop?

These days my television screen and social media feeds are full of cosmetic brands, proudly declaring that they can provide foundations, concealers and an assortment of other cosmetic base products for every skin tone. On the one hand that looks like progress, but on the other, I want to know what took them so long.

All the big brand cosmetic household names are older than me. Why have they suddenly decided that I deserve their products? Did RiRi cause this by making it a point of difference for the Fenty brand?

I am almost fifty years old and I have been right here all that time. Stood right here with my beautiful brown skin and money to spend, so why is it only now that they can offer me a range of foundations?

I’m pretty old and unlike the teenagers of today with their Mac lip palettes and contouring skills, I started my make up journey with budget brands. I’m not ashamed to say that I had my ugly cheap eyeshadow, drying pink lipstick and blue mascara phase. It’s how schoolies learnt back in the eighties. No matter how bad the thickly applied, cornflower blue eyeshadow and clumpy electric blue mascara looked, the worst part of my early attempts at make up artistry (if I dare call it that) was always the cheap, terrible, badly applied, 10 shades too pale foundation. Over time my skills improved, but the choice of budget foundations didn’t. Luckily my skin was always pretty good, but what about the brown skinned teenage girls who needed that coverage and weren’t at a stage in their lives where they could upgrade?

Haircare and make up sounds petty and frivolous, but it isn’t. Caring how we look isn’t petty or frivolous. It is self esteem. It is forming our adult personalities. It is a rite of passage. It is belonging.

The 2020 Christmas tv ad campaigns caused uproar because some people were disgusted at the number of black faces on their TV screens. How dare Sainsbury’s show families, who weren’t white, eating food! How dare they! “You’re all just copying America because of one bloke” [insert additional racist bullshit here] On the one hand it’s great that there is more diversity in advertising, but on the other, it’s the same old question, what took you so long? People with brown skin have always eaten food and we usually buy it from supermarkets.

Representation matters and during my childhood, representation really wasn’t important (apparently) Black people certainly existed, but you wouldn’t see black families on adverts or anybody with brown skin advertising beauty products. If television adverts had gradually become more inclusive over time, then the obvious and performative nature of so many brands, suddenly including black people in their advertising, might not have triggered the disgusting wave of toxicity. (Who am I kidding, of course it would!)

I’m glad to see the new changes to hairdressing courses and I’m glad that there is more diversity on television, but now that these processes have finally started, let’s not treat this as a tick box exercise. Let’s look for other opportunities to be inclusive. Let’s be genuinely diverse, without the temporary, performative nonsense. It’s ok that we’re different, but that shouldn’t mean that I have to be excluded.

RONA AND THE FRO. MY HAIR ADVENTURES DURING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

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I generally change my hair every few months and these days that almost always involves some form of hair extension.

I’ve had my hair braided on and off since I was about 14 years of age and every few years, usually when I’m low on funds, I wish that I knew how to braid my own hair. I have never felt this more than I have over the last few months.

We’re currently living through a global epidemic, and during the full lockdown there were zero opportunities for me to toddle off to a salon to get my hair done. (That also included sitting in somebody else’s front room, where lots of my previous hair sessions have taken place) The whole of the United Kingdom was on lockdown, so the only people I was allowed within two metres of were those that live in my house.

I rarely redo my hair as promptly as I should. If a stylist says that I need to come back in six weeks, I automatically translate that into three months and strut my way out of the salon with full Beyonce style swagger. At the start of lockdown all those weeks ago I had a weave which was probably due for removal a couple of weeks into the Covid-19 crisis. So rather than risk leaving it in for the duration, with no idea how long that was going to be, I took it out.

My relationship with my hair is now at a stage where I’m happy to hang out with my afro for a while, but taking my extensions out with no idea when I’d be able to have them put back in was a pretty bold move. This year alone I’ve had pink braids, blue braids, a red weave and regular brief visits from the fro. Some natural hair advocates would have you believe that I’m not me if I have hair extensions or any form of chemical treatment. I actually believe that I’m not me without them. I’m finally at a stage where I’m happy to say good bye to the relaxers and curly perms, but I have no intention of ever giving up my hair extensions. Not because I hate my natural hair or because I’m desperately trying to convince the world that waist length blue hair is part of my genetic make up. Hair extensions make my life easier. There are lots of steps to looking after my hair properly, hair extensions allow me to shortcut a few of these most days. I get up in the morning and my main hair styling decision is as follows: Shall I put a bobble in or not?

The convenience of having my hair in extensions cannot be expressed strongly enough. I once spent 18 hours having my hair braided but over the time that I kept them in that would still have saved me a considerable amount of styling time. There is one overriding factor in the “grown from my scalp versus bought from the shop” debate, which is is that I personally believe that I look better with them in. Discussion closed.

So now that I’ve set the scene for how much I love my hair extensions and positioned it against a backdrop of having no hope of getting them redone, it’s time to move onto how I resolved my problem. The short version is a trip to Superdrug for afro appropriate shampoo, conditioner and hair treatments, a lot of YouTube, a bit of online shopping and me finally managing to plait my own hair. [Insert video of cheering crowds]

My new skills don’t mean that I’ll be abandoning the salons indefinitely, but they do give me options. I live in a village with at at least 9 salons and none of them specialise in afro hair, so sorting out the fro is always an event. If you’ve ever found yourself making a desperate Facebook post asking for recommendations because your stylist is unavailable and having to sift out the one genuine suggestion from the “just get the clippers out” joke responses, you’ll appreciate just how much my basic plaiting skills are going to change my life.

I’ve wanted to be able to plait my own hair since I was in my late teens and as I hurtle ever closer to my half century, thanks to the pandemic, I’ve finally learnt how. Yay me! I’m not the only one that has suddenly found herself in a position where they’ve had to make the jump from understanding the theory to actually developing hands on skills. One of my friends now has a full Facebook timeline of hairdos she’s done for herself and her family.

Quality wise there is absolutely no competition between me and any of the people I have ever paid to braid my hair but I’m proud of myself none the less. Last night for the third time since the global crisis started, I braided my own hair. Now that I’ve mastered that, I think it might be time to turn my attention to improving my DIY skills, because that kitchen isn’t going to tile itself!

EXPERIMENTING

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The whole point of this site was supposed to be as a development site where I could test out new things without causing havoc with my “real” websites.

What has actually happened is that I created the site and once in a blue moon, I use it to test out a plug in before I use it somewhere else.

I am a massive fan of the phrase “Do as I say and not as I do” I strongly believe that if you want to get better at something that you need to practice until you get good at it. Unfortunately I tend to do the complete opposite and have got into the habit of learning things on the fly, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it does mean that I’m prone to only doing things I already know how to do or trying to learn how to do things when I really don’t have the time (or patience) to learn how to do things. 

So today I’m making a conscious effort to try out Elementor here on my development site before I actually want to use it elsewhere. 

Not sure how I’m feeling about it yet, I’ve had lots of bad experiences with page builders  in the past, some of that is down to them and some of it is clearly down to me. 

So here goes.

If nothing else this little 10 minute exercise has reminded me of how difficult it is to build websites when you don’t really have anything to say or any plan on how you’re going to say it. 

Overall I’d say that this is a useful little tool but I should probably decide on something real to use it for. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ELECTRIC BLUE SUBURBAN AFRO

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In the last few months I’ve had three very different hairstyles. I had my natural hair for a while and kept it for much longer than intended due to budgetary constraints.

Having spent a couple of months with my shoulder length at a push afro I decided to make sure that the update was noticeably different so I went full pink hombre waist length mermaid braids. I was still on a budget so after a few whiney Facebook posts my sister took pity on me and did it for me. The fact that it took her several hours is truly a sign that firstly my sister definitely loves me and secondly that as a black woman, she realises just how big a deal it is for me when I’m unhappy with my hair. The mermaid hair was definitely a hit, especially with little children between the ages of 3 and 6.

When I was in my teens and twenties, my hair was one of the ways I used to stand out, as I got older I started to blend in a little more and then deliberately becoming more noticeable seemed like a big step. For some reason once we reach a certain age a lot of women start to censor ourselves into a form of age appropriate clothing and style in general. In my case this was definitely fuelled by changing size and shape.

The time I spent sulking about my frumpy appearance became the catalyst to dare to stand out again and it definitely worked. Long pink braids are very hard to ignore so I stand out by default, so when it was time to redo the braids I had a decision to make.

The youngest member of my family definitely seemed to like the bright pink hair and I didn’t mind making friends with little girls in supermarkets so I decided to stick with being noticeable. The downside to the pink braids was that they were very heavy because frankly there was a LOT of hair so I decided to go curly instead and just for variety I went with electric blue instead of pink. It’s still a hit with small children, but most of the compliments seem to come from adults this time, so I might go back to pink. It’s not a huge problem but I’d rather not facilitate elderly ladies stroking my head during the carol service!

I’ll let you know when I make my mind up

Merry Christmas

I WISH I HAD HAIR LIKE YOURS. MEMORIES OF TCB AND PLANNING MY NEXT HAIRDO

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People often say to me that they wish they had hair like mine. I could finish this blog post with three words and an exclamation mark i.e.

“No you don’t!”

but where’s the fun in that?

It’s a fact of life that people always want things that they can’t have and nothing illustrates this more than hair. Brunettes that want to be blondes, the curly haired girls that reach for the straighteners every morning and I don’t know any woman my age that hasn’t had at least one perm.

As a child I wanted nothing more than long blonde hair. I spent a LOT of my childhood daydreaming about having long blonde hair. I was happy to consider other colours, but the non-negotiable aspects were that it had to be long and straight. On one hand I was probably influenced by the lack of representation at that time, but realistically it almost certainly had a lot more to do with things that were far more about me and my personal priorities such as the fact that afros don’t move (watch any 1970s advert to find out how popular swishing your hair about was at that time) The other highly motivating factor behind my obsession with long straight hair was that having your mum go through your hair with an afro comb was absolutely no fun. In fact it was the opposite of fun. It was often genuinely painful and the longer you got away with not having it combed, the worse it was when you did.

Having daydreamed and combed-dodged my way through primary school and the first few years of secondary school. I eventually decided to start caring how my hair looked. It was clear by this point that I wasn’t going to wake up one morning with long straight hair so I started experimenting.

At some point in the fourth year (old school for year 10) I joined the TCB crew and had a wet look perm. It was the late 1980s and wet look perms were very popular. If you’re not familiar with the concept of the wet look perm it essentially involved having your hair permed and then applying specialised hair products to make it look wet and curly.

The perm looked good, but frankly there was a lot of work involved. Actually getting the perm wasn’t a problem. Fairly standard, the thing I wasn’t entirely prepared for was the sheer volume of product.

TCB was (and possibly still is) a huge brand and once you committed to the perm your house was suddenly filled with beige coloured bottles containing lotions and potions dedicated to maintaining the perm. There was a special shampoo, there was a special conditioner, there was a special moisturiser, there was a special activator but the main thing I remember is that there was sleeping in a shower cap because the wet look perm didn’t just look wet – it was wet.

The hair products would end up on my face and it was all just too much. I went from barely combing my afro to having to do a whole routine every morning and always ending up with TCB hair products on my face. I have no intention of ever reliving any of that. 14 year old me wasn’t particularly skilled when it came to haircare, so it’s entirely possible that my lack of technique contributed to the problem.

Having abandoned the idea of ever rejoining the TCB crew I recently decided to go back to braids. The thing with hair is that it’s a personal thing and people don’t always see the work that goes into the hairstyle we actually show to the world. I see amazing braid styles but frankly don’t have the patience for some of them. For the right hairdo I’m happy to sit in one spot for a long time, but my days of sitting in one spot for a double digit amount of hours is a thing of the past. The longest I have ever spent having my hair done was 18 hours (yes you read that correctly) and it was great, but not great enough that I’d consider doing it again.

Braiding can be hard to time effectively and once you’ve started there’s no going back. If the person braiding your hair talks more than they plait, then it might take a while or if they make the individual braids really small then you’re probably in for a long wait. Luckily this time I managed to get my fro under control in under four hours, at a reasonable cost and without excruciating pain which has made me extremely happy.

I’m already in the process of deciding what to do with mine next and nothing’s grabbing me at the moment. Other than the financial side of things I have almost unlimited options, which might be part of the problem.

Watch this space, I’m off to Pinterest for inspiration.

CHRISTMAS REFLECTIONS 2018

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Sitting here in the period between Christmas and New Year, the place in time where I congratulate myself for pulling off miracles as the Christmas fairy and ask myself some serious questions about what my goals are for the year ahead.

I stopped generating official resolutions and outrageous lists of improvements years ago and most of the goals amount to me being less of an idiot than I was the year before.

Although there were, as always, things throughout the year that could have gone better, overall 2018 went really well for me.

  • I went to Westminster twice as part of an All Party Parliamentary Group
  • I graduated from university and now have a Post Graduate Diploma
  • I organised a conference
  • I helped organise another conference
  • I spent most of the year working as part of a small team at Manchester Metropolitan University which was amazing and gave me the opportunity to learn lots of new skills.

All of the above was on top of running my business and not dropping the ball on any of my Mum stuff, so all in all I’d say that 2018 was fairly successful. I’ve been happy, healthy and financially viable all year and most importantly I’ve learnt to appreciate those things. 2018 for me has been 99% drama free but some of my friends haven’t been that lucky and as we creep closer to 2019 here’s hoping that next year is kinder to those people.

As far as my hair is concerned I’m still rocking the blonde hombre look, but not for much longer as it’s time to start planning my next hairdo, which is guaranteed to be something different due to budgetary constraints. My genes mean that long flowing locks don’t come for free, so if I want long blonde hair, then I need to put my money where my mouth is.

I haven’t fully decided what the next look will be but as my choices are linked to my finances, if I want to do anything elaborate it will be expensive and since I’m self employed that means I need to get some more work in. (Get in touch if you’d like a quote or a non-obligation chat)

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and gorgeous hairdos to you all.

USING MY AFRO TO ILLUSTRATE SUCCESS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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If you know me offline, you’ll be well aware that my hair changes on a regular basis. If you know me online then you’ll probably know that I post a random selection of content on different platforms from time to time and that most of that content gets a minimal response. Most of the things I post get no response whatsoever (unless you count spam), nor should they, most of it isn’t worth responding to. The majority of my posts aren’t for any form of commercial gain so it doesn’t matter, but from time to time my afro highlights the basics of how to be successful on social media.

First things first, the only way to guarantee how many people will see your posts on social media is to pay the social media companies to show them to a specific number of people. If you really want people to see your Facebook posts, tweets or Instagram posts then you have to pay Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Ignore what an assortment of random people will tell you, that folks is a cold hard fact.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering what any of this has to do with my hair and when we’re getting to get onto social media and the lessons my hair can teach you. Posting things on the internet does not mean that anybody will see it. Some people will see it, lots of people might see it, but if you need people to definitely see it, it will probably cost you money.  OK now that we have that out of the way, lets get back to my hair!

I have occasional spikes in the popularity of my online posts. I recently changed my hair and posted a picture on Facebook. That post generated 108 likes, which is considerably more than most of the things I post. The last big spike was my graduation and the time before that, was the last time I changed my hair and posted a picture on Facebook.

First rule of social media – choose the right audience. My personal audience on Facebook is made up of my family and friends. There are very few people on this earth who care how my hair looks, but of the tiny percentage of this planet’s inhabitants that do care, almost all of them are in my Facebook friends list.

I have very few hard and fast rules in my life, one of them is that I won’t be Facebook friends with people that I don’t know in real life and wouldn’t be willing to spend a couple of hours in a pub / coffee shop with. It’s a pretty simple rule, but it works for me and means that everybody on my Facebook friends list is a genuine friend / relative that I actually like. There are a few people on there that I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a lift with, but there isn’t anybody that I don’t like and that as far as I know doesn’t like me. This means that when I post things on my Facebook wall I’m sharing things with people who have a genuine relationship with me. The perfect audience. It’s highly unlikely that your business will find an audience as devoted as my friends and family but the key point is to steer well clear of the scatter gun approach.

There is a popular expression in digital marketing “Content is King” which has since been updated to include a secondary phrase “but Engagement is Queen” Creating interesting content is the starting point. It should go without saying that what you post, needs to be of interest to your audience. Boring irrelevant content is always a bad idea. If it doesn’t pass the “so what” test then it probably needs a rethink. “Claire’s new hairdo” passes the test of being at least mildly interesting to my selected audience. My relationship with “my audience” means that they are willing to engage with me online. Which in real life, means that when some of my friends see the picture of my new hairdo, that they “do something”, they click the like button, they comment, they post emojis and gifs, all of which signals to Facebook that this post is of interest. Once Facebook decides that my post is of interest, they show it to more of my Facebook friends and those friends engage with the post by liking and commenting etc.

As a web developer, I primarily work with small businesses, most of whom are using social media as a part of their business and most of whom are not seeing results. A lot of this is due to confusion about how Facebook works, especially for small businesses. If 100 people like your Facebook page, that does not mean those 100 people will see everything you post. The fact that Facebook is “free” leads people to think that it’s cheap way to market their business and it can be, but if you need 100 people to see your posts then the only way to guarantee that is to pay Facebook to show your posts to 100 people and more importantly, to pay Facebook to show your posts to the right 100 people. There is a lot of misinformation about Facebook and how it works, but as most of that has nothing to do with my hair, I’ll leave that for another day.

 

VILLAGE WEB COMPANY

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Village Web Company is the name of my business. I primarily build websites for small local businesses but I also offer help with social media, digital marketing, SEO or anything that involves a computer. My customers vary a lot and I’m lucky enough to have built websites for shops, charities and even a junior football team. Being a small business I understand the pressures they’re under and whenever I can, I try to steer them in the right direction and most of them take my advice – eventually!

When I originally set up my business I traded under the name WorthyOnTheWeb as that’s how I’m generally known online, but after a while I decided to rebrand as the Village Web Company. I wanted something that sounded more professional and that didn’t necessarily limit the business into simply being a solo pursuit. It was hard to imagine my felt tip pen sketches and personal nickname being used for any employees I might have one day.

After a lot extremely poor quality DIY branding, I eventually engaged somebody to redesign my logo. As part of the rebrand, I also purchased some digital artwork. The decision to buy the Village Web Company artwork was probably one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made. I’m not a graphic designer and although I’ve managed to master most of the tools, it still takes me longer than I’d like and I’m not always happy with the end result. For a very reasonable amount I bought the image, including a commercial licence. In less than an hour I was able to download the image, edit the skintone, upload the finished result to my website and order my business cards. It would have taken me at least a day to create that image from scratch, it wouldn’t have been an original idea and the end result wouldn’t have been as professional. Artists add little touches that the rest of us don’t and there are times when it’s worth paying for that expertise.

I create the artwork for the Suburban Afro website myself, primarily as a way to improve my skills and I developed the cartoon me, with some inspiration from a number of Illustrator tutorials I found online. I’m happy to pick and choose when I create my own artwork and when I support other artists by paying for their work, it all depends on the project. It took me a long time to get the hang of the pen tool so I’d hate to lose the skills I worked so hard for.

 

 

WORTHYONTHEWEB

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Although this website is dedicated to complaining about my hair, along with the occasional epiphany about actually having nothing to complain about, online I’m generally better known as WorthyOnTheWeb. I build websites for a living and SuburbanAfro was a project I started because I wanted to experiment with some WordPress themes and wanted a blog to play with. I have several personal websites and blogs dotted around the internet, most of which need to be updated including the WorthyOnTheWeb website.

WorthyOnTheWeb was a “temporary” name I came up with for a Twitter account I set up in 2010. When I first started working in digital I was advised to get on Twitter, which turned out to be great advice. It’s a brilliant source of information, contacts and inspiration for anybody working in web development or digital marketing. I already had an existing Twitter account which I set up in 2008 when somebody I barely knew fell for the “invite all your contacts to join Twitter” ruse regularly employed by the platform but I decided to start a new account with the intention of separating my personal and professional social media. Aside from the extra work of maintaining an additional personal account, it just feels more authentic to maintain a single presence most of the time. I’m already responsible for managing a number of branded social media accounts, so multiple personal accounts is a step too far. As a sole trader it’s hard enough to separate yourself from your business, especially if you are the only employee. When I started my own web development business I decided to use WorthyOnTheWeb for my business name, used some had drawn cartoon artwork and created a blog designed for small business owners without a digital background.

I eventually decided to rebrand my business as Village Web Company and maintain the domain as a personal site. I have a few ideas but my to do list is quite long at the moment so it might take a while before I get around to updating it.

My original Twitter account is still there and occasionally retweets things, the Suburban Afro Twitter account exists mainly to publicise blog posts (and test out social media tools) so if you are genuinely interested in the random thoughts I tweet on the train or the things I care enough about to publicly comment on, then feel free to follow me on Twitter as WorthyOnTheWeb.