Well 2010 is lurching towards an unlamented close. The last day of the year is approaching and as I look back on it I can only say "good riddance". Still there are bright spots; this marks the 150th entry since I started my blog and it seems like a good note to end the year on. I don't think 150 entries is a bad achievement for the year. Granted some of them were very short, others were monstrously self indulgent and still more were silly, stupid or wildly incoherent. This is before we even get into ill-informed, inaccurate, ignorant and occasionally deliberately untrue. Still, collectively I'm rather pleased with it. Which should tell you all you need to know about the standards I hold myself to.
A blog is the perfect medium for me. I can comment at length on subjects I know nothing about to a virtually non existent audience. It really is nothing more than an extended exercise in talking to myself without all the odd looks that that tends to generate. The great thing about a blog is that nobody can interrupt you. Sure they can comment afterwards but by that stage you have vented your spleen and have moved on to your next irrational diatribe. Having a blog means that no one can tell you to shut up. At least not until its too late.
The flip side of the above is that every idiotic comment, opinion and prejudice which even a moments reflection might have prompted you to amend is stored on the internet forever. If my family ever move to have me committed this blog is going to be Exhibit A. Furthermore if, later in life, you develop slightly more sensible attitudes people can dredge up old blog entries and wave them at you as evidence of your fundamental idiocy. If that happens write a blog entry about it. Be bitter.
Despite all the qualifications I am rather proud of my blog, a feeling which is in no way lessened by the fact that the next most impressive achievement I can boast is remembering everything I had to buy at the supermarket without referring to my shopping list. I have become a serial pest demanding that everyone I know reads it and (oh the monstrous egotism) quoting myself in conversation. Just think about that for a moment, with all the great literary, political and cultural figures of history to draw on the person I am most frequently quoting is myself. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that I am in need of remedial brain surgery.
Still talking authoritatively from a position of complete ignorance is rather fun. I like to think of my blog as the bastard child of facebook and wikipedia. Having a blog means never having to take responsibility (it is like facebook and wikipedia) and the beauty is, anyone can do it. Even more beautiful is the fact that nobody has to read any of them. The entire human race can publish their opinions to the entire human race and nobody actually needs to read a word of it.
The whole thing has been rather a lot of fun though. Next year I am going to improve. I am going to quit smoking, get fit, save some money, write a much better informed blog and sprout wings and fly. In the meantime this can do for the year. Tomorrow is the 31st of December and I'm going to pretend I have something better to do than write a blog entry.
Happy New Year, you might as well enjoy it. 2011 will turn up whether you like it or not.
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Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteYou've made me laugh in 2010, which was no mean feat.
Neil, your blog's been a delight and I'm honoured that I had a hand in kicking it into life. You've maintained a consistently high standard of invective and denigration - my favourite forms of humour - that I too can quote some of your choicer phrases when the mood takes me. You may not be Sydney Smith, but you can give him a good run!
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