Today I got cloned, swapped my imaginary dog for a fiercer breed, and helped a police officer.
Woke up 3.25. I tell the time by my phone these days as the winder on my watch went kaput last year and I can’t afford to get it fixed – couldn’t find anywhere open to get the thing fixed even if I wanted right now I suppose. But this means I don’t just get the time, I get social media updates too. Not the sort of thing you want in the middle of the night. Not these days.
For some reason Google in its infinite algorithmic wisdom had chosen to push me some item about fake news, to do with David Icke and a website called London Real. I must have watched something on that youtube channel at some point – vaguely remember an interview with Graham Hancock about Ayahuasca, which was interesting enough if you are into the whole Terence McKenna/DMT thing – but couldn’t work out why I was getting this notification. I clicked the link – it was 3.30am and I was desperate for more sleep, I thought it may help.
The presenter of London Real – a compact, well-built American with a precision grey crew cut – was stomping around an identikit corporate courtyard, mightily aggrieved, badmouthing the BBC. Apparently our national broadcaster had mentioned his interview in a news item the previous day – not by name, simply implication – and had told Google (and therefore youtube) to take it down. Fake news!
After about five minutes I had to turn him off. I needed soothing, reassuring tones, not his nasty nasal preaching.
I woke again at 6.00am. The clock on my phone never misses a second. This time I had half a dozen twitter direct messages alerting me that my twitter account had been hacked.
That was quite an alarm call.
I checked. @philkirby128 had already got 11 followers. He’d been busy. I did a rough calculation and reckoned at this rate the cloned Kirby would have over a hundred followers by the end of the day.
I was facing some serious social media competition from my copy and pasted alter ego.
A few followers of the real me had already dobbed in the double to twitter (thanks everyone!) Apparently the doppelganger is bad at grammar, which is how they knew it couldn’t be me. I reported the account too, and informed some of my more gullible followers (mentioning no names, but including one blood relative) to unfollow the fake me.
Strangely though I was quite happy to have been cloned. Elated almost. It’s the most exciting, positive, life affirming event that’s happened to me in months.
Somebody cares!
Someone gives enough of a shit to think it’s worth scraping my info and image of the internet and making up a tribute account. Isn’t that just lovely?
Obviously the person who did this was a fan (you know how some fans get well weird, and I think this person was definitely of that persuasion. I may need to think about upping my security. And stop posting pics of the street where I live, that’s a dead giveaway. Maybe change my daily Boris walk routine to something more random… What if @philkrby128 has been following me – following in the actual sense, not just on social media?… That creeps me out a little. I’d better pull down the office blinds, just to be on the safe side. And keep that pool cue beside the bed. Maybe I should get a bigger, stronger, meaner imaginary dog? I always liked the look of a Belgian Malinois, really fierce breed…Sorry Leibniz, but nobody is scared of a lurcher.)
The thing that perplexed me most about @philkirby128 was the number. Does it imply there are another 127 separate @philkirby’s out there, waiting to reveal themselves? Will they all look like me? Will they want to steal my followers? Will they live in Armley?… That is a terrifying proposition.
Hope I never get to find out.
All I did was the rest of the day was take a stroll around Armley. Stopped off at Tescos (the shop with the smallest queue outside, almost nobody), bought a bottle of orangeade and a double sized Mars Bar for Clancy (don’t judge, it’s what she asked for), two packets of sensibly priced paracetamol (less than two bloody quid less than what the last con merchant of a chemist charged me) and a box of fruit tea (Tescos own blend, mainly hibiscus, which is meant to be beneficial for hypertension, and tastes good too.) Did my good deed for the day, mentioning to a police officer waiting in the wrong queue that she could go before me at the self-service checkout, so positive karma points for me. She was very grateful – why there were four other coppers in Tescos out of a total twelve customers is a mystery… never see the fuzz in Fultons.
Listened to the news at lunchtime. More David Icke… something to do with 5g and electromagnetic waves giving us all the gripe. Can’t work out why the interview is meant to be banned from social media when it’s still available on the London Real website – yes, I did take a look, can’t resist anything that’s been censored, just makes me more curious. David Icke is not looking well. Maybe he lives under a 5g mast. Though it’s obviously been a strain on his health single-handedly taking on our lizard overlords. Personally could not see the point of the beeb ban, just brings him more attention. Though I could be wrong. I have a Huawei phone after all…
Looking forward to dinner. Clancy cooked spicy chick pea patties yesterday and I’m pretty sure there’s enough leftover for tonight. Very nice they were too. This isolation malarkey is a doddle so far.