Let Sleeping Dogs And All That (friendsreunited.co.uk)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	friendsreunited.co.uk
Date:	03/01/02 (601 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Huge nostalgia trip, Can contact old buds

Disadvantages: You may not want to be found after all these years!

I have rarely come across anything that provokes such strong emotions as Friendsreunited.co.uk. At the very mention of it most people realise straight away what you are talking about and either exclaim what a wonderful idea it is or look as though they are about to thump you.

You have to hand it to the creators who, apparently, operate from a bedsit in Barnet. They have over 2.5 million registered users all paying the "nominal" registration of £5 a year. This adds up to a large hill of beans (infact, the site was recently valued at £20 million). Such a simple concept making such a lot of dough (you can be forgiven for thinking "Why didn't I think of that?").

For those that haven't come across it yet - surely there can't be anyone left as it's been in The Sun only recently and is due to have it's own TV show soon - basically you find your school via the usual search mechanism and add yourself to the pupil list through the insertion of your surname and date of leaving. Once added, you can put together the obligatory resume of what happened since you left and allow yourself to be contacted by just about anyone else registered on the site.

Maybe the web was designed especially for sites like Friendsre but the range of emotions mentioned earlier are a bit like Man Utd - you either love it or absolutely loath it. For those that love it then it is a serious nostalgia trip and I have to confess to contacting a mate of mine that I haven't seen for 15 years. On the other hand, I know plenty of people that have growled that they would rather forget school and the thought of certain people contacting them gives them convulsions. I'm sitting on the fence on this one. One of the happiest days of my life was my last day of school and wandering through Aston Park to get to Aston Tavern where several ales were consumed along with a few games of pool. I couldn't wait to get away but my feelings are temper
ed by the knowledge that there are some people I'd like to catch up with (for the right reasons, of course - I pensioned my violin case off a few years ago after folks rumbled that it really was just an empty violin case).

The site is easy enough to use and pretty basic, in fact. You can register for both primary and secondary schools and nose around everyone else's notes etc. There is an e-mail facility to contact former colleagues via the site. There are bulletin boards which allow you to upload old school piccies, view/add school memories in general, view/add memories of teachers and view/add famous pupils. These functions did fall into disrepute last year as some of the postings were less than complimentary about some teachers and had to be taken off-line whilst the webmasters sifted through them. Another problem they had was former pupils logging on using a false identity and then creating false histories about other folks e.g. "My name is Dennis Smith and I subsequently became a crack cocaine dealer after I left. I've just finished a 10 year stretch in Parkhurst only to fall prey to my alcohol addiction once more! (apologies to any readers called Dennis Smith - just plucked that one out of thin air)".

My challenge to you is to check your emotions the first time you use it and see how you feel. Remember, school turns out to be only a small part of most people's lives and if you had a great schooling then bully for you. If not then check out how things turned out (by virtue of you reading this I assume that you don't belong on the cast of "Trainspotting"...but who knows...). Either way, you will experience something and that is what life's all about, after all (address all cheques to Maharishi Marandina at River Ganges, India).

p.s. Friends are now planning an extension to their site where you will be able to contact old work associates so if you've got skeletons from old Xmas parties th
en watch out!!

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