Twitter Lists and How to Speed your Tweets!

Lists are a sorting tool to help you speed up your use of Twitter - here's how it works:-

Example of Timeline of those you follow:-

Name Relationship to You Interests determines which Lists you put them on

Mr A none learning English

Mr B brother family, sports

Miss C none learning English

Mrs D none Cooking

Mr E friend friends, keeps dogs, learning English

Mr F work colleague colleague, keeps dogs, writing

Miss G work colleague colleague, cinema

Mr H friend friends, sports

Mr I none sports

Sport TV none sports

BBC News none Learning English

Miss J sister family, cooking

If you only want to see those tweets to do with sports, you call up the list for sports. If you want to catch up with family quickly, or with work colleagues, or what is happening in the world of cinema, you call up the list for that interest, and the people on that list are the only ones that appear on your timeline. It works in a similar way to when you perform a search, only you have already selected the people who will appear by adding them to your lists. When you follow a person, you can select one or more lists to add them to. You can also just add them to lists without actually following them, so that your timeline is much simpler to read.

I hope this explanation is useful, but if it is not clear, please leave a comment and I will try and explain it more fully.

Happy Tweeting!

Friday-Frustration-Fish & Chips-Fifth Element!

Today I went shopping. I bought some shoes, but when I got them home to try them on they did not fit well. I visited my mother and we had lunch in the garden. In the afternoon my daughter and I went into town and took the shoes back to the shop. We had tea in a cafe - fish and chips! On the way home we telephoned my other daughter and arranged to call round to visit. We brought my grandson home with us and he will stay the night. We are all going to watch a movie together now - "The Fifth Element".

Progress!

Hi everyone!

I have got a quote for a furniture removal firm to bring me my daughter's old (but nearly new!) 3 piece suite to my house, take mine (also fairly good condition) to my brother's house and take his (past its best now) to be disposed of. So, musical suites and everyone will be happy!

I have booked for a skip to come to be filled with all the rubbish from the back yard (old broken furniture and stuff that was in the loft when we got here and don't want) so I can finally get the yard sorted with the rabbit runs for the good summer weather. This will give me somewhere to sit and read in the fresh air too! It also gives me an incentive to clear out of the house anything I don't use or want. Good stuff will go to anyone I know who wants it, or to charity shops, or for recycling, or last option, on thursday, in the SKIP and bye bye clutter forever (I hope).

This means... by the time the new football season starts, I will have got the house sorted, spring-cleaned and ready for decorating. It has been an awfully long wait since the replastering and installation of the new heating boiler in the kitchen and fire in the downstairs room. I feel like I have been living in a building site for months.. .maybe because it IS months!

I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Take care everyone.

Decisions...

I haven't been able to update my blogs or to be on Twitter much over the last week, due to health reasons, so I thought it would be easiest to make this entry to my blog to bring everyone up to date on the various things ongoing at present.

Japanese Language...

One month of studying completed. Our Sen-sei, Harumi-san, is an excellent teacher. So far we have covered Introductions, Offering and receiving business cards, Telephone numbers and Addresses, Time and Date, Days of the Week and Months of the Year, 30 Kanji (including 10 numerals), the Hiragana and Katakana. I am struggling a bit with the kana but I plan to have them well memorized by the end of this month.

So, decision number one is, how far do we plan to go with the language study? Eli and I have requested that our Sen-sei teach us up to GCSE level (aiming for grade A or B) in time for the exams in 12 month's time. Normally this workload would take two years, but we hope we can be ready sooner as we are having intensive private tuition. It is good to have a goal.

Health...

Without going into the gory details, I have fibromyalgia syndrome, angina and vertigo to deal with. I have discussed the situation at length with various doctors and it appears conventional medicine can do very little to help. I have therefore taken decision number two - to investigate alternative therapies which may be helpful in alleviating at least some of the symptoms, and perhaps improving my quality of life. Watch this space!

Family History Research.....

It seems I am at an impasse on this side of the water (Irish Sea) so decision number three is to take a trip to Ireland (both Eire and Northern Ireland) as soon as this can be arranged and as soon as I have all the information in place to ensure I can ask the right questions to get the answers I seek.

That's about it for the update tonight. I wish all my readers a very peaceful and pleasant weekend.

Here we go!

After three lessons, we have agreed with our Sensei, Harumi-san, that Eli and I will try to pass the GCSE exam next summer (2011) and, provided we get a reasonable grade, progress to the GCE 'A' Level exam the following year.

I am very positive about learning Japanese. So far I have managed to learn to recognise 30 kanji. I am still poor at writing them but I am practising hard. Eli and I prepare well for our lessons and practice together to help build on what we are learning. It is good to be able to do something interesting when I am stuck in the house so much at the moment.

Today is the last game of the League One football season, and our team (Carlisle United) are playing away against the league leaders, Norwich. I hope we win, because it would be very nice to go out on a high. However, Norwich are obviously the best side this year and it is a long journey too. Do your best, boys!

I am a bit down at having to miss the weekend assembly at Dumfries. Most of the congregation will be attending, and I feel very sad that I will not be able to see everyone. It is one of the three times in the year when I get a chance to see all my old friends, and it is such a nusiance to be unable to get there due to health issues. Plus, although I do get the information eventually, it is always wonderful to hear the entire program first hand, with everyone else.

I will give my friend Kathy a call later, and Joan, as they are both struggling with health problems and won't get there this weekend.

I will be starting a Japanese journal shortly, www.josiemccall-japanese.blogspot.com with English translation after each post. I hope my followers will enjoy that as well as reading my other blogs. The Blogs can be seen at (www.josiemccall- [please enter here the name of the blog you want to read] .blogspot.com) and you can put one of the following names:-

incoming - my personal journal (this blog)

japanese - my haiku in English with Japanese translations (being updated)

this will also include my new Japanese journal soon available

focus - my early writing (poetry and prose fragments)

innerdark - my first collection of poetry

solo - my second collection of poetry

toybox - my plays and screenplays

spiderweb - my short stories

stutter - my first collection of songs

throat - my second collection of songs (ongoing work in progress)

tilted world - my artwork and other writings

Thanks for looking. Please do feel free to comment on ANY of the blogs, they are all for public view and I welcome your thoughts and constructive criticism!

Beatrix Potter country - for Japanese visitors

There has been a great deal of misinformation and therefore misunderstanding of the recent reporting of a 'surcharge' demanded of Japanese visitors to the Lake District.

As I live in Cumbria, the Lake District is my 'back yard' in a manner of speaking. I have therefore decided to try to clarify the situation for the benefit of my Japanese friends.

Here is the article which appeared in our local newspaper explaining the situation:-

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/japanese-visitors-asked-to-give-5-each-towards-lake-district-upkeep-1.702955?referrerPath=news

If you can't get the page to load, don't worry, I have typed out the article below.

JAPANESE TOURISTS TO BE ASKED FOR FUNDS

(There is a photo below this headline with the byline:-

Fans: One in four visitors to Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm is Japanese - and they spend on average £700 per head during their stay)

(main article continues)

£5 donation bid for Lakes conservation

They love the Lake District thanks to Beatrix Potter - now they being asked to cough up to help with its conservation.

Under new plans, to be launched next week, Japanese visitors to the county are to be asked for a £5 donation to support conservation work. It follows fears that the annual stream of tourists isn't putting enough money into the upkeep of the picturesque region.

In return, they will be given a pin badge of Peter Rabbit, Potter's most famous creation.

It is hoped the scheme, by the Nuture Lakeland charity, could raise £25,000 - a - year towards the upkeep of footpaths and supporting wildlife projects.

However some local businesses fear that seeking to extract more money out of Japanese tourists - who already spend nearly £700 - per - head on average while in Britain - could risk alienating a key market.

Potter's books became popular in Japan during her lifetime, with tourism to the Lake District boosted further by the release of the 2007 film Miss Potter starring Renee Zellweger and partially filmed in Cumbria.

Today, one in four visitors to her Hill Top farm near Sawrey is Japanese, and they make up around 10,000 visitors a year to the Lake District, forming a key source of revenue for scores of local businesses.

But amid fears that they are not contributing towards the conservation of the Lake District as a whole, the 'visitor payback' scheme is being launched to get them to help out. Before they leave Japan, visitors on tours which will follow the Beatrix Potter tourist trail will be asked to make a £5 donation in return for a badge and a certificate.

The money will be shared between local conservation projects.

Junko Ishiwata, a Japanese tour guide now based in the Lake District, backed the idea.

"I think people would like to donate money after they see the scenery on offer here because we love nature." she said. "It obviously depends on what people want to do but I don't think £5 is very much to give when you think about how beautiful it is here."

Visitor payback shcemes are already used to raise money for several scenic parts of the country, including Loch Lomond and the Cotswolds, often run by local hoteliers.

Supporters say they are a good alternative to charging visitors to national parks, as happens in many countries, and the Beatrix Potter scheme could be extended to other nationalities.