Yours Anonymously

The other day one of the few people I'd told about this site said, "If you name me in your blog I will never speak to you again!".

This happens to be one of my favourite people, and it got me thinking.  Other people are considerably more protective of their privacy than I am, and my not remembering this has got me into trouble before!

I have checked the issue with another close friend, who was actually the biggest motivator and inspiration behind my doing this at all. Let's call her Miriam.  She used to be a policewoman, and she was optimistic about all the confidentiality issues that I might find myself facing.  She pointed out how much comes up just from Googling someone, and then sent me a list of over 30 sites which can be used to track down every one of your most private moments.  It's scary really that with all the benefits the internet brings, you can kiss goodbye to your privacy.

Someone else mentioned one of my favourite columnists and authors - Lucy Pinney, who wrote "A Country Wife". They said that she had stopped writing because, as a result of her column, she's got no friends left to write about.  I will probably call her to find out if this really is the case.  So sad, as she is a far better writer than I am.

On the other hand I really, truly, do not want to piss off my mates and loved ones.  So I am going to go through all the blogs I have written and work out some formula to blank out their faces.  I hope it works!