No picture. Can’t be bothered. A bit rushed. SOZ.
I’ve seen a couple of people on Twitter – front page twats, other people I’ve stumbled across and mainly not people I know, like or follow thankfully – commenting on the situation in Egypt. Fair enough. Then they say things like “I was only there last year!” and it makes me want to pin them down and vomit in their face until one of us dies. Because that is a stupid, egocentric and utterly worthless thing to say.
Being somewhere a few hours before a major incident occurs: fair enough. You just missed it. If, for example, your flight landed at Moscow airport the other week and an hour after you’d jumped in a taxi outside the arrivals building it had been suicide bombed, then yes – that’s fair to comment on. Worry about, even. Call it a lucky escape, if you will.
Being somewhere a day or two – or even a week before a major incident occurs: okay then. I also think that’s fair enough – your experience of a place a week after you’ve left is still fresh in the memory. It’s not quite ‘oh my god I’m so lucky to have just missed it’ territory, but it is fair to point out you were just there the other day.
Being somewhere 19 years before a major incident occurs: fuck off. Okay, so people aren’t going wild with this kind of thing, I’m just applying my timing to that. I was in Egypt 19 years ago. A lucky escape! I WAS ONLY JUST THERE! Oh my god! Etc. If you were there a year ago, please shut up. Express your opinions on the revolution, tell us of your emotional attachment to the country and its people, make jokes about the president escaping in a flying pyramid BECAUSE IT’S STARGATE – but don’t belittle the situation by thinking you having been there once matters one iota. It matters not one iota. You were once in a place where some stuff has happened. That’s it. Your ego, your sense of self-preservation and whatever else may be telling you to cry “FIVE YEARS AGO I WAS ON THAT STREET!”, but please don’t. Just for me. I find it annoying.
I have nothing against the statements like ‘I went, it was nice, I am sad that it has been blown up’. That’s understandable and fair – you have a greater appreciation for a place on having been there. But to think it’s in some way important that you were there a month ago and now it’s been flooded/destroyed/filled with geese? No. that’s less your concern about the place, more your own fear of death/injury/being mildly inconvenienced by geese.*
Unless, of course, the place you were blew up, you were there a month ago and you left a “certain something” hidden away in the same place where the blow-up happened, and you may or may not have put some kind of month long timer on the CERTAIN SOMETHING. Possibly filled with geese. Then you probably have more of a vested interest in the situation.
N.B. I am aware that calling what people say ‘worthless’ is somewhat daft, given the name of this here blog. Also it’s needlessly aggressive. But so what? I AM RAGE-O 9000.
*I am aware this par just repeats my earlier points. I wrote it yesterday, but wanted to leave it in so I could keep something about geese in it.
worthless prattle makes the world go round 
I agree fully. Luckily the only bit of drama I can think of in a place I’ve been to actually happened while I was there, with the problems in Bangkok last year and my staying in a hotel a few blocks away from the main area it happened in.
It was probably the most exciting time of my short life so far.
It’s just part of the egocentricism that social media promotes. Everyone feels the need to comment on things; particularly things that are seen as “important”. The social web is great, but it doesn’t half encourage people to think the kind of vapid comments you’d make during a conversation down the pub are far more important than they actually are.