Capture the moment

So, of course, having decided that today is the day I put up the remaining Christmas decs, and yes, I will do the tree, even though Harry will probably pull it down before I ever finish putting it up, naturellement, I discover mid  morning that the tree lights don't work.  So, the next three hours evaporate as I try to muster the wherewithal, given my cold-enduced misery, to leg it into Ortakoy to buy new ones.  The threat of having invited friends to ogle and admire my splendid decor tomorrow settles it and by 2pm I am in Ortakoy.  Ten minutes later I have the lights and new batteries for my Lemax village and decide to walk down to the water for a photo.  Even on this cold and grey day, the quayside in Ortakoy is littered with folk armed with various picture-taking equipment - many wielding phones on selfie sticks waving them about like balloons on sticks at the fayre - and not for the first time, I become interested in their obsession to prove that they were there, by blocking the stunning Bosphorus view that they are so keen to capture.  Here we have a photographer (him) watching as another photographer (me) photographs another photographer (her) taking a photo of her mates standing in front of, and blocking,  the view that has brought them here. 

In the last few days I have been introduced to and subsequently completely absorbed, obsessed by, a page on Facebook all about my home town in the UK - "Chelmsford Remembered" which has gone from a couple of hundred to more than seven thousand people in the last week as we re-discover our youth and yesteryear.  Sharing memories, Chelmsfordians both local and worldwide (some are in Australia now) are uploading their lives from those halcyon days and memory lane is green and rich and beautiful, funny and sad.  In times when we didn't take selfies every five minutes, the pics that are posted are valuable treasures and much appreciated.  

How will future generations look back on the age of the selfie and the surfeit of smiling faces that loom large before the lens where almost every moment of each day is snared and shared?

ok, enough nostalgia wrapped in bah humbug - gotta go finish the tree.