Everyone has to have hundreds of passwords these days. It is the secure thing to do if you want to stop hackers breaking in to your highly confidential everyday chit chat. Or worse still stealing your bank details and ordering goodness knows what.
I first started with” John”. I knew I would be able to remember that and I reckoned that no hacker would think I would be stupid enough to use my name as a password.
Then my iPad told me I should include a number to be more secure, so my password became “John1”. But it also needed to be at least six characters, so I extended it to “John12”.
Each time I altered my password I had to remember to go back and update all the earlier versions, which was a bit of a pain, but still if was comforting to know I was more secure. And I could sill sleep at night!
“John12” was OK with me, but some websites didn’t seem to think it was secure enough if I wanted to order something from them. They recommended I use even more characters and punctuation marks….. and maybe an emoji or two. So now I am using :-
“John12345abcdefgh,.!?&#£()%=🏈⚽️🍺😀“
It’s a bit difficult to remember and I do get “timed-out” quite frequently, but nobody has figured the code out for the time being. So far so good.
Nonetheless I still was worried about the increasing sophistication of these hackers. So I contacted the master code-breakers at GCHQ, you can find their number in the yellow pages. They told me that since I didn’t know any “top secrets” and I didn’t have much money in the bank, I shouldn’t be to concerned. That’s a relief!
GrumbleSmiles 
welcome to my world of buzzwords, crosswords, and passwords?? Who the ‘Hell are you” I must shake my memory around a little? are you that ‘DEAR JOHN Letter sender” whole while I was away from home, sent me a missive, of love, with a message,=’Please do not come back or reply”?? I just wonder.!!!
As you note in your yarn above when we communicate on the web either in reply to a message or generating one, or there again undertaking a transaction, commercially or socially, we are required to have as you state-‘A password, with a pin, or a codeword with hieroglyphics, and numbers!!;”’ Very secure but at my delicate age and mental agility confusing at 79 years of age. To crown it all, the government, local and national, and the trade transactions are becoming web based as we the UK head into a cashless world. The banks and building societies close their branches, and I can no longer smile at a teller, give instructions, and then look into their eyes to see that my/our transaction has been completed.
Then tomorrow I have that fatal telephone call from some executive, may be of a foreign accent asking me to undertake my transaction I have made a ‘B___LLS off on the web, and here I am in ‘cuckoo land’? who do I trust with my personal information, and that password of my account. I feel like a ‘naked sheep being stuff and fleece for the wellbeing of our future nation!!!! Am I talking POPPY cock, are you listening and do you care-I wonder who is my friend, some one on the WEB/NET or are they there create and run my person life, are we in ”1984”??? I wonder, and that man in the cupboard speaking Double dutch” to us innocents. .;
It brings back to me, the toilets of years ago, with paper you could write a message on, and then noting at the bottom of the sheet of paper was the words ‘PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS” all flushed down the LOO.
A Wet Dream, mind in neutral dreaming of many happy occasions. Dear John are we not encroaching upon your Birthday soon, or has it just past, like the expectant season of the ‘’TIGERS’’. I put my hands in front of my face and shout, ‘’I can see you, where are you?’’ I await the response, and then i pull my hand form my face, reveal my smile and fissog, and shout ‘’BOOO’’. Then we continue our conversation and greetings!!!. ‘GREAT!’.
By the way John; Molly and I wish you a very happy birthday!!! When ever it is??
Looking forward to a joyful sunny summer when we MOLLY and I can go to our Grand daughters wedding and at the same time have a few days holiday in Devon. I miss the occasional holiday to lake Garda in Italy: However the hustle and possible bustle in the departure airports with our luggage these days is daunting, and we await a more controlled future after CORVID-19, and the ravages this has caused the travel industry.
OWRAV WARR, dear sir, All the peace and joyfulness, with best wishes to both you and Mo, not forgetting that ‘woofer’??
The ‘woofer” ‘COCO’ is she/he still around? accompanying John on many a walk in the daytime, along the canal, or in the local park?
Just a thought, back in memory time, before CORVID=19 struck, and isolated us all, and confined us to the house/web and internet.
I miss those visiting ‘CRAFT Fairs’ and talking to the stall holders , appreciating the skills that they have on display, within their crafts.
Never mind this ‘SMILES and Grumbles’ web page allows me to review old pieces of comments, and gently reflect, upon the memories, with that most pleasant of smiles, as I sit in my armchair on an afternoon, downing my pint shandy, and then drifting off into dreamland
A passing wind? OLD FARTS Society, growing older. I spent yesterday with some old work acquaintances talking and rabbiting over the modern world off today, then wishing each of us a joyful summer with our friends and loved ones, to enjoy that idle chatter, odd drink or 2 and off course that sunshine!!! Wonderful.
My password ”TYKES UNITED”. I t is great this month 2-5 June 2022 to be british and enjoy the Her Majesty’s Queen Platinum Jubilations!!!! The friends and people who make being British special, on this occassion are well worth those few minutes of consideration and thanks, for what they have professional and personally achieved. Here I spend a few moments with my wife MOLLY and thank John Graham OBE and his panel of Friends on the Extracare Charity Board, and their conception of the ‘Extracare Schemes and Retirement Villages within England, for theolder generation.