Taking a Selfie

As a keen quizzer and Scrabble player I have always been interested in words, but I confess that until this week I had not realised that the Oxford Dictionary selects a 'Word of the Year'. On learning that it was 'Selfie' I admit to showing my age, and felt this warranted a look at said dictionary to find out the meaning of what quite clearly is one of those new 'trendy' words that have snuck their way into our vocabulary. One could argue of course that vocabulary, just like the culture and lifestyle it encapsulates, must move on. On discovering that it is the term used for capturing images of oneself on one's mobile 'phone, I was mindful of my first 'Box Brownie' that I received as a child, at that time with just black and white film, and oh the time spent winding it onto the spool, what a fiddly job it was, and then the days waiting, aside from the cost, of waiting to see what the pictures looked like; invariably not as one might have hoped. I still have, a number of those early images. Then we saw the advent, and short lived romance, of the Polaroid 'instant' cameras, where after a short wait we could see the image appear, ready to hand to the subject in question. Moving with the times, and digital cameras, easy to use, no film required, one of which I have owned for sometime. As regular readers will realise, I keep it in my handbag at all times (along with my passport and toothbrush, but that is a story for another time), ready and waiting for the next news item. So we come to the present frenzy for the instant self-satisfaction provided by the constant recording of every minute detail of our daily lives, mundane or not, morning noon and night, whether by Facebook, Twitter or taking a 'selfie'. I can honestly say that with one exception, some thirty years ago, I have never taken a picture of myself. On recounting this whilst having my hair done at Hebron's in Ilminster the young staff there started to laugh, hardly believing I'd never done such a thing and, as this image shows, I'm clearly not very competent at it. What worries me most, and we see it from time to time in sordid news stories gobbled up by the tabloid press, is that with this instant 'sharing' these images could well return later in life to haunt the future lives and careers of those that snap away with such abandon. Despite the fact that most will agree that pictures of me are not always very flattering, I don't expect to be taking any more 'selfies' again anytime in the near future.