I am a monthly subscriber to Marie Claire magazine, it started off as a birthday present from my Mum years ago and bless her, she keeps renewing it every year as ‘a little something to provide quality me time’. I first received it before I became a Mum and was able to sit and read it cover to cover then place it down in perfect condition on my coffee table. Over the years that has inevitably changed. I no longer read it cover to cover but in more sporadic 5 minutes to myself moments. It is normally read in the bath, so is often water-logged and is shoved in the magazine/toiletries rack in the bathroom and ends up too dog-eared to finish by the time the next one arrives. But I still relish it’s arrival, as it allows me to read articles and check out latest fashion trends like a normal woman.

This month’s issue was delivered by the Postman actually knocking at my door, who passed it to me packaged in bubble wrap as if he was delivering some covet papers in a scene from a spy film. As me and my daughter ripped it open in anticipation of a free gift I found just a much thicker version of the magazine instead. I turned the first few pages to see why it was so heavy and was met with a D&G advertisement on a really thick page. I inspected the back of the page and picked at it expecting to find a perfume dispenser but discovered some wires, how weird. I turned back and then noticed a little tv screen on the page and as I laid the book flat a television advert started to appear on the screen complete with music. Me and my daughter watched wide-mouthed in disbelief, actually I was wide-mouthed, my daughter was very nonchalant about it saying ‘look Mummy a tv in your magazine’, to which I replied slowly spelling out the words, ‘there-is-a-tv-in-a-magazine’ sounding like Metal Mickey (80s robot children’s programme for younger readers). The quality of the picture was perfect and the oh-so-beautiful models, decked out in black and white, breathlessly pouted and danced to the sultry tones of a french singer.

Now I know this is hardly Blade Runner but I was completely astounded by this revolutionary new way of advertising. We are all so used to how quickly technology is changing. Our smart phones have so much capability it has become completely normal to check our emails, update our Facebook status and purchase something on Ebay within 5 minutes by just using our mobiles. I am desperate to keep up-to-date on modern technology, even though that statement alone makes me sound incompetent!

I recently wrote the blog entry, Finding Our Blind Spot, about a Blind Football Paralympic event me and my eldest son went to for Mumsnet. Part of the requirements were to talk about it on Twitter to give it some publicity by using various hashtags ## to discuss the topic. I didn’t have a clue how to do this, I had to read other people’s posts and then had a bash at it myself. And with Twitter you only have a very short window to write your comment, something I am not very good at it seems. I like to waffle about things and use detail to explain myself, I really didn’t feel comfortable using Twitter speak to get my point across, but you have to reduce your comments to fit them in. For instance, my tweet (get me!) could say: A?4U instead of a question for you, or my particular favourite, A3 which means Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere. Everything is abbreviated which is intentional to encourage a fast bulletin board style of conversation. But what is the rush?

I am branching out into the world of Freelance Writing, Twitter, Facebook, etc are a necessity for me to get to grips with if I want to be heard and be noticed. However, no matter how ‘down with the kids’ I get, I will always be picking up my kids on ‘talking properly’ and absolutely no text/twitter speak is allowed to appear in any of their homework or mine for that matter!