See you soon

Just a quick update, since there's packing to do. We're off to Madrid for a few days. It's somewhere I've always wanted to visit.

I decided yesterday to retire from My Tel. It's a bit of a vortex, sucking you in, taking over your life. Some of the threads get tedious and fractious, and it's especially galling to make what one thinks is a telling point and have the agenda-pushers carry on regardless. Oh yes, agenda pushers - they could be the subject of several posts in the way they operate, arriving on the scene like gentle little mice which then mutate into bug-eyed monsters.

Sorry if I'm getting carried away. My Tel is brilliant in principle, but deeply flawed and dysfunctional in the way it operates. There are threads at the moment with some navel-gazing on the subject, and one or two good ideas, but all it takes is for someone to cry "no censorship here" and everyone scurries for cover.

When I get back from Madrid, I'll give a brief report on main impressions, and then unveil a mischievous take on a certain type of individual one encounters a lot on holidays, but who lurks in workplaces and blogs as well. It's one I provisionally call "Caravan Man" (or Caravan Woman). They don't have a caravan, but seem to tow a lot of their parochial mindset with them wherever they ago. But the main problem is the way they appropriate and defend territory, indifferent to others with an equal claim. More about that later.

God, is that what a month of My Tel has done to me ?