Smoke and mirrors - circular referrals where everyone passed you on.

[whole diary]

[grahame]

The "Smoke and Mirrors" board title was selected by a frustrated campaigner (myself) way back in 2007 as I felt my way around the public transport (rail) system in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) - looking to sort out my ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) from my BTP^▸ (British Transport Police), my TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) from my PF^▸ (Penalty Fare), my LTA^▸ (Local Transport Authority) from my RDA^▸ (Regional Development Agency), my SWPTUF^▸ (South West Passenger Transport User's Forum (now TWSW^» (TravelWatch SouthWest - website) - Travel Watch South West)) from my RF, my ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) from my ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about), and my NR^» (Network Rail - home page) from my BRB^▸ (British Railways Board, or 'be right back', depending on context) Residuary body.   To know whom to approach on a particular issue, and how to read responses that appeared to pass the buck. Was the buck being correctly passed, and if "A" passed in to "B" who passed it to "C", who then recommended I contact "A", what should I do?

The classic emoji to represent this sort of thing ...

From The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) - a study of the last popular emoji also mentions the ten MOST popular and that included the "Recycling Symbol" ...

Nine of the ten most popular are hearts and faces. But one is perhaps more unexpected - last year Rothenberg published an article called "Why the Recycling Symbol is Taking Over Twitter."

His research found this symbol is frequently used by apps and websites which automatically post Islamic prayers to Twitter, such as du3a.org.

The symbol seems to be mostly encouraging people to share posts, rather than having anything to do with recycling.

It may be overused, but it feel so right for what I sometimes feel as I look to get an answer to a question ...

P.S.  I have intentionally used but not expanded acronyms in my intro to this post - this once - as an illustration of the issues for newcomers. How many can you identify straight off?