One Of The Crowd

The Internet. A place where one can find almost anything in the world. A gigantic source of knowledge, a way to share power and send information across all the corners of the world. A chance for the people of the world to come together, while remaining apart - for them to unite, and improve and prosper.

This is the tool that so many of us are lucky to have at our fingertips. Yet how do most of use it? Almost certainly, the majority of users use it to communicate with people that they see every single day. Facebook. MSN Messenger. Myspace. All of these sites are extremely popular - yet they are the opposite of what the internet should be about. Its like going to France to sample the cuisine, and ordering a Domino's Pizza.

Google, a hugely powerful search engine, can give us access to a mass of information that we could access nowhere else. Yet what words feature in the current fastest rising searches on the engine? Facebook. Myspace. Badoo. All social networking sites. These sites claim to be linking people across the world - they don't. They just provide another way of talking to your friends - friends that, probably, fit snugly into your social clique, rather than people who might broaden your horizons.
We could talk to people in Tibet, in Zimbabwe. We talk to people from out offices and schools.

At its best, the internet can bring the world together. At its worst, it can provide terrorists with a recluse. But the way we treat it, its just another phonebook.

I'm one of the Harry Potter generation.

This statement would have made no sense a few years ago, but with the recent phenomenom of the Harry Potter series, it has a clear meaning. The "Harry Potter Generation" can be described as those children who grew up literally alongside the famous wizarding hero. The first book was published when I was 7 years old, and I read the two when I was nine. Hooked, I waited impatiently for the next one to come out - and so it continued. For nine years I grew, and so did Harry Potter.

If you have not read the books then perhaps you cannot understand what I mean when I say that Harry "grew". However, followers of the series will understand this term - with each book, Harry became stronger, older, more mature, and his adversaries more and more serious. When I was nine, he was eleven, battling dangerous plants and putting on the Sorting Hat, and then he was twelve, and this time his friends were in danger. (In the summer before going to secondary school I waited, secretly hoping that I might get a letter from Hogwarts). As I grew, Voldemort returned, and then, at the age of 16, Harry was 17 alongside me, and desperately fighting for his life and the lives of humanity.

That, for me, was the magic of Harry Potter. If I ever had an imaginary friend, then this was him - a boy could do anything he wanted - and yet was so similar in many ways to ordinary children. But, sadly, this can not be repeated for other children. They will start reading, at the age of, say, eight, but then there will not be the year gaps between the books for them to mature like Harry did during his years. They will read about his fight against Voldemort at the age of 9 or 10 - and by this time, unfortunately the books are too complex and subtle for a child to really understand and appreciate the story.

The Harry Potter generation has grown up now - like Harry has. I feel sad that the real magic cannot be repeated for my children - I will encourage them to read the series, of course, but I can't stop them diving into the series and it seems a shame that they will never had the truely magical experience that Rowling created for me.

{My first post on Blog.co.uk. In fact, my first post on my first blog. It's uphill from here}

Standing at the train station this afternoon, the weather was excelling itself. Rain, huge fat drops of it, poured down from the blocked up drains and dripped on anyone unlucky enough to have forgotten there umbrella - or who couldn't squeeze under the canopy with the rest of the sodden commuters. And yet it was not the rain that was bothering me today.

"You'd think it was fairly easy to understand" I thought furiously to myself. "Its a sign which can be found throughout the country. A picture of a smoking cigarette, and a thick bold red strike straight through the middle. Only an idiot couldn't understand that, even without the writing which says "Smoking in this vicinity is against the law"."

Apparently however, the balding man standing near me was not only completely inconsiderate but also illiterate - because he dragged away at his cigarette happily, blowing the smoke into myself. Glancing around at the people next to me, I saw a blonde woman catch my eye and give a disgusted expression. So it wasn't just me imagining that giving other people cancer was a teensie bit selfish.

Inside I was having an internal battle. Should I say something? I mean, I was in the right here. This guy was breaking the law - and it was revolting. I thought through the possibilities in my head - "Excuse me, you do realise its a no smoking area?" I could say, and glance pointedly at the sign three feet from his head. Or perhaps "Would you mind? People are trying to breathe here." In fact, I could think of hundreds of ways to tell the guy where to go. So, I am sure, could all the people around me. After a few minutes, many were shifting uncomfortabley. "Well go on then," I thought. "Why does noone say anything? Its 40 against one!". Yet the silence, (and the smoker), dragged on.

It's moments like these that make me despair at the human race. Really. If a bunch of London commuters can't even ask someone politely to refrain from breathing carcinogens over us, and instead resort to getting dripped on and soaked while he stays dry - if we cannot even make a stand about this one thing, then what does that really say about the majority of the human race. Are we cowards then? Are we just suits, walking and talking, and complaining - but never changing?

Of course, I'm not saying that there is noone who makes a stand. Activists and campaigners rally support and march and yell and wave banners at politicians and other campaigners every day. But these people are not normal. They are branded as something slightly odd. "Activist" is not a compliment - it's often spoken in that knowing tone of voice used by us who know the real meaning of that word - strange hair and weird clothes. It was all fine when we were 20, but now? Some people have lives to lead. Trains to catch. Speaking up against that man would have caused people to look at ME, as if I was the strange one. That of course is no excuse for not saying anything, no pretence that it is. It's this desire to be normal, anything but on the outside - even if the inside is wet and smoky and smelly.

There is a sort of feeling, I think, that its someone else should do it. That is what I found myself thinking. Come on, someone! Speak up! But why didn't I? I should have said something. Granted, its not like it really affected my health, but its the principle, and the wider implications that bothered me. I convinced myself that, as the man dropped his fag, squished it into the ground with his shoe and dashed out to get in the passenger seat of his car, that I was really about to say something. But the truth was I wasn't - he could have stood there for smoking a whole packet and I may well have stayed with buttoned lip. Where do we draw the line though? What if he had been swearing? Or graffiting? Cat-calling at women, perhaps? The truth is was that the line had been washed away long ago, because if you permit one sort of unacceptable behaviour, you permit it all.

Next time, I think to myself. Next time I'll say something. Next time I'll change things.

The worrying thing is, I'm not actually convinced that I will.