Category Archives: bluesky

paul & marj

21 Tuesday Jan 2025

Posted by in bluesky, friends, sevilla, substack

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Over the years I’ve met many lovely people via Twitter and several I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting in person. Well this is my first Bluesky connection! I came across Paul @macrambles.bsky.social there a few weeks ago noticed his interest in local live music. So after I started up Bitesize Sevilla I got in touch to see if he wanted to write a guest post on the jazz scene in Sevilla and he was happy to contribute. Then on Sunday we met up for lunch with his wife Marj and Peter at ConTenedor (one of venues in his article) and we all had a lovely time.

It’s a great article, please go have a look and give it a “like”. Also sign up for a free subscription if you haven’t already, it all helps me with getting more visibility on the site. Look for other guest articles soon talking about travel, hotels, art, lifestyle and more.

Sevilla Jazz

adios twitter, hola substack!

02 Thursday Jan 2025

Posted by in articles, bluesky, sevilla, social media, substack, work, writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

substack

New year, new stuff going on. Yesterday I bid farewell to Twitter, or what’s left of it. I’d been cross posting with Bluesky for the past year and a half but until recently I was still interacting more on Twitter. That began to change when Bluesky suddenly exploded in November after the US election. I noticed that even with far fewer followers on Bluesky there was a lot more engagement, and I was meeting a lot of new and interesting people. So it felt like time to move on and yesterday I tweeted for what will probably be the last time.

It’s a bit sad as I have been there so long, first with my Azahar account (March 2007) and then Sevilla Tapas (February 2009), and I’ve had so many great experiences and met so many wonderful people, but it’s also a bit of a relief. Because it hasn’t been Twitter since it was turned into X and, well, it’s time to go.

Meanwhile, I finally took the plunge and published my first Substack post yesterday. I’ve been lurking for ages and I’m subscribed to several accounts there, but so far I haven’t been sure what to do there. And well, I’m still not sure what I’m doing, but I decided if I didn’t get started then I’d just keep putting it off.

Substack is a platform that people use to promote their writing and to also monetise their content. Most offer a basic free newsletter and then “premium content” if you pay a small monthly fee. This is what I’m still thinking about, what I want to write about and if any of it would be considered “premium” by anyone. BUT I do need to move forward with both writing and making a living, especially as I haven’t been able to do the food tours since last summer because of my KNEE.

My good friend Thane Prince, renowned cookbook author and food writer, gave me some encouragement back in November, saying I need to just go for it. When I expressed all the usual insecurities she said… “Doesn’t matter, you can write about Seville, Sherry, Spain. Don’t do yourself down. Charge a modest €6 a month, get 100 folk, job done.” She suggested I could use the next month or so to plan for a launch in January.

And then suddenly it was January and I hadn’t done any planning (!!!) other than in my head. And so that’s why yesterday I just said FUCK IT and went for it. It’s an introductory post but it has made me visible and also holds me responsible to keep my word. And so, if any of you have any idea of what you think I should write about… I’m all ears!

 

my first peugeot

22 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by in azahars kitchen, bluesky, casa azahar, homecooking

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

peugeot

Have I mentioned how much I love Bluesky? Just like how I used to love Twitter? Anyhow, hot on the heels of asking for advice about purchasing a new printer I went on to ask about pepper grinders. Why? Because I’d just been making dinner and got so frustrated with my old bunged-up one, like I basically do every day. I had pretty much given up on finding one that works properly, even buying a small mortar & pestle to do the job instead. Problem is that it’s a bit faffy, so it’s become a daily choice between either faff or frustration. Because I use A LOT of black pepper. All the time.

Anyhoo… got some very interesting suggestions, ranging from practical to preposterous, but the one name that kept coming up was Peugeot. Honestly, I had no idea they even made pepper grinders and it’s still puzzling to me why they do. So I had a look around. It was very tempting to go for the Paris Chef stainless steel carbon-finished one that had originally been recommended, but there was no way I could justify paying more for a pepper grinder than I just had for a printer (especially as I shouldn’t be making frivolous purchases at the moment anyhow!). So I opted for a more modest wooden model – another Black Friday Week special offer – that seems to have the same grinding mechanism, which is the important part. I mean, just look at that! It’s arriving today and I’m way more excited about this than a grown-ass woman should be. Sure hope it works.

a whole lotta bluesky

08 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by in bluesky, change, instagram, social media, twitter

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

bluesky 24

Wow, in the past 48 hours I suddenly have a whole whack of new followers on Bluesky. I think people are realising that the end of Twitter may be nigh, or at least that they no longer want to be a part of what is rapidly becoming a fascist driven social media platform. I mean, I know it seems that I am constantly on social media, because I kind of am, but it’s not as much as it probably seems. Despite having several accounts I really only engage on Twitter and Instagram, and then mostly actually “talk” to people on Twitter, and I would miss that if Twitter was suddenly shut down or became intolerable.

Hence Bluesky. I finally managed to open an account there in June 2023, after having been “accepted on beta” the previous April. Before that I had tried all the Twitter alternatives, but this one felt the best to me. And turns out it seems to be the front runner now that everyone is fleeing Twitter.

The main issue a lot of people seem to have with Bluesky is that there is no simple way of transferring over friends and followers from other platforms, so it’s like starting from scratch. And since it’s been taking time over the past year or so to get more people to engage, growth has also been slow. I’ve been posting there since June 2023, pretty much everything that I also post on Twitter Sevilla Tapas, mostly as backup. So my content is there in case Twitter suddenly disappears, or if I finally decide to leave.

But yeah, it’s slow going finding all the friends that made Twitter such a great place to hang out. Still, I think it’s worth the effort. So far Bluesky is ad-free, has lots of cool fuctions (like a block function that actually works) and seems to be mostly bot-free. Check it out.

Sevilla Tapas on Bluesky