This week I went through the incredibly humbling task of slowly and painstakingly updating, correcting and pruning our mailing list. It’s a long story. You don’t have to tell. Honestly, the job’s probably not done yet. Some of you have been missing us through no fault of your own. Some of you need to learn about your spam filters. Others of you, up until recently, had tried to escape us and I probably re-added you mercilessly as I switched services and uploaded from backups.
I’m a horrible rob, it’s true.
But going through and making sure I’ve not re-added names that HAVE decided to leave the mailing list means that a task that’s usually hidden away from my easily bruised ego’s eyes is placed in front of me in harsh black and white.
The upDates have been a coherent list for almost 25 years, but it has been quite literally decimated by social media as people choose to Follow and Like, Subscribe and Finger, rather than receive emails. I understand the reasoning for this, but every time we allow a Myspace, a Facebook, an Instagram, a Twitter, come betwixt us and you means that if that platform dies before your Love of us does, or if that platform decides they can get more money out of our ads than our interactions, or if that platform is purchased by a megalomaniacal Bond villain to be transformed into a personal platform of ego and evil, we lose you.
Don’t let anyone come between us. Stay with us here. In the warm. Next to our cat. Eating little cakes and rewatching the Lord of the Rings.
Shhh. You’ll wake up the cave troll.