Friends Disunited

Friends Reunited used to be a rather good little web site. It let you put up your own details and search for all those other snots you were at school with and see how their lives had turned out so much better than your own. Or not. If you got a message from someone, you could ignore it or choose to reply, and the world was full of heart-warming stories of long-lost friends and lovers who had found true happiness again.

Then it got bought up.

Now, you can no longer reply to a message. You have to be a full member, which costs “only” £7.50 a year. No problem. You simply Google the person who wants to get in touch and email them directly. But not if they have a somewhat common name. Especially not if some blessed athlete sports the same name.

Would the site, I wonder, lose that much money if it allowed people to communicate through the site -- no emails given out -- a couple of times? Or would people think hey, this is cool, I like this site, I’ll use it a bit and then maybe subscribe?

I may be a bit lucky in all this. My own name is sufficiently unpopular that I rank number one in a Google search of it. So people who want to find me generally can. And they do.

And now, in the hope that this page too gets Googled, Paul Vaughan, of Sydney Australia, late of William Ellis School in London, please don't think I'm ignoring you. But I’m blowed if I’m going to spend £7.50 to respond to your kind message.

And if any kind people are reading this and would care to link to this page, it might make life easier for anyone else who wants to Google Paul Vaughan, of Sydney Australia, late of William Ellis School in London.