© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

– Personal writing

Read more about the article Farewell my lovely, the end of the affair

Farewell my lovely, the end of the affair

This week I posted some furniture items on Facebook Marketplace. It was very routine; something I'd done scores of times in the past. But something in the posts upset Facebook's bots and I got an email telling me that I had "violated its advertising policies". Which was clearly bullshit, but there is no way to talk to Facebook's bots. Within a minute I got another email telling me my account had been suspended. So in an instant my entire Facebook account was wiped, along with Messenger and all my contacts. Gone. Completely. I was now gone…

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Read more about the article The obscure art of orange wrappers

The obscure art of orange wrappers

In old children's books I used to read how oranges were once a favourite Christmas present. I guess that was in the northern hemisphere, in the colder countries where a juicy orange would have been a rare and welcome ambassador from the sunny south. That image struck me again on recent visit to Sweden where, in an antique shop, I found a couple of old school exercise books full of colourful labels. I asked the shopkeeper what the labels were and she told me they were pictures clipped from vintage orange wrappers. I was surprised. When…

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Read more about the article Did I tell you about that time?

Did I tell you about that time?

People tell me stories. Sometimes they make me laugh, or gawk or scratch my head. Usually they are just snippets and vignettes and I often think it's a shame not to share them with others. Here are a few I've heard recently. Most of the names have been changed. And don't ask me if the stories are true. I'm not fact-checking them. Angus and his new shirt. When he was a teenager Angus was a little bit wild. But in those days (the 1980s) wild boys were still just wild boys and nobody minded very much.…

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