blogging

Apr 4, 2006 ∞

Cafe culture

Well, I feel like a proper 21st-century blogger at the moment: I’m sitting typing this in a cafe. Specifically, the Clissold House Cafe, in Clissold Park in Stoke Newington, North London. The kids are currently at a tennis ‘camp’ (two hours’ intensive training a day for four days this week). It being the school holidays, I’ve taken the week off work to look after them.

So with two hours to fill, I went for a wander round the shops of Church Street (only bought two books in a second-hand bookshop) and now I’m back at the park, waiting for the tennis to finish. I’m typing this on my Palm with folding keyboard setup. It doesn’t have anything fancy like WiFi or Bluetooth, so by the time you read this it will be (at least) several hours later, when I upload it to the PC and post.

The coffee’s not very good, either. Their specialty is more cakes here, but I’m holding off until lunchtime.

I’m am reminded as I type of the existence of John Scalzi‘s book on writing, You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing. Still, I’m not trying to impress (or, indeed, fool) anyone (nor, I imagine, succeeding in doing so).

At the same time I’m listening to Radio 4, where there’s a program about ‘battleaxes’, which is kind of bollocks, as all such stereotypes are. It isn’t annoying me enough to switch it off yet, though.

Curiously, they just played an extract from Fawlty Towers that I don’t remember ever hearing. There’s only about twelve episodes, so it’s hard to imagine that there’s one I’ve never seen. Then they’ve been talking about Thatcher as a battleaxe, which is an interesting one that I won’t go into here.

I sat down to write fiction, but ended up doing this. It doesn’t make for the greatest of blog entries, but I suppose it serves as slight relief from bleak political posts.

Damn, nearly made it without mentioning politics.

Mar 11, 2006 ∞

Meet the new blog...

… same as the old blog.

Well, not quite the same. This one is on my own site, for one thing.

A new blog, though: just what the world needs, don’t you think?

As this is the first entry here, I can’t help but feel a certain… pressure, let’s say. Because, after all, in years to come, when this blog is one of the most popular sites on the internet¹, millions of people will look back through the entries, and pay special attention to the first one. Obviously its content is critically important. Unfortunately, its content is rubbish.

Well, its content was going to be rubbish: or rather, about rubbish; about the guy who was fined for dropping rubbish into a bin.

But many people have written about the stupidity of that, and in any case, the council in question have already, and predictably, gone back on their foolish decision.

Instead I thought I might write about the hat woman. But actually that’s too boring to go into. Pubs with “no-hat” rules, though: truly madness walks among us. Actually, the scary thing about that story is that there are pubs with CCTV cameras inside them. Truly we are the most watched society in the world.

Maybe that should be the theme of this blog, if it needs one: the madness of modern society.

I’d hate to come over like some old grouch, though, railing against modernity: “It wisnae like that when ah wuz a wean, by the way jimmy.”

Or not too often, at least. No, instead, like most blogs — like all the best ones — I’ll just write about whatever the hell I feel like.

Modern weirdness, though: I just heard about the recent trends for “internet suicides” in Japan; and the fact that the US Nasdaq exchange has made an offer to buy the London Stock Exchange. Apparently there are shares in the Stock Exchange: it’s a company. For some reason I find this immensely surprising. I would have thought (if I had ever thought of such a thing) that it was some kind of public body, like the Bank of England. Apparently not, though. Life’s strangenesses, I think, will be a recurring feature here.

1. this is meant to be humorous, by the way.

Dec 2, 2005 ∞

On the ethics of modifying blog posts

What, I’m wondering, is the etiquette for this? I looked over my last post, on literary deja vu, and I realised that the second-last paragraph was so scrambled together as to be practically unreadable. So I’ve just edited it, from the frankly execrable:

I did have an experience a bit like this before, though: a few years back I read one of Paul McAuley’s; Eternal Light, I think it was, but it is perhaps telling that I can’t remember for sure, even having looked over some reviews. It seems I still can’t remember it. It became familar to me in a much more gradual way, and I realised I had read it before. In that case I had the book out of the library, and I figured out that I had had it out before. In this case, with the Cadigan, I have no idea where I got the copy that I originally read. Library? Maybe. Borrowed a friend’s? Always possible. Or did I buy it, and forget? is there a copy filed away in the attic somewhere? I just have no idea.

to the slightly more readable:

But it’s not the first time. A few years back I read one of Paul McAuley’s novels. It is perhaps telling that I can’t remember for sure which one, despite having looked over some reviews. I think it was Eternal Light, but it seems I still can’t remember it.

In any case, it very gradually became familar to me, and I realised I had read it before. The copy I was reading at the time came from the library, and I figured out that I had taken it out before.

In this case, with the Cadigan, I have no idea where I got the copy that I originally read. Library? Maybe. Borrowed a friend’s? Always possible. Or did I buy it, and forget? is there a copy filed away in the attic somewhere? I just have no idea.

But the question is, should we update a blog post (or a LiveJournal post, if you see a difference) after it has been out there for a while? Obviously in the first few minutes after posting, when you notice the typoes, it’s fine (and I often wonder about people who don’t correct their typoes; don’t they read their posts?) Similarly, if it has been up for months, then you should not edit it in any significant way: it’s part of the fabric of the internet (at the risk of sounding pompous). My concern is when it’s been out for a day or two.

I’m not really concerned in this case: it’s not as if I’ve changed the meaning, and nobody has commented on it, so there’s no concern about comments becoming confusing or misleading. But in general, I’d be interested to know what people think about changing posts after the fact.

Aug 11, 2005 ∞

I claim this blog for Technorati...

Or is it that I claim Technorati for this blog? In any case, I’ve just set up a Technorati Profile, and I need to post this code here to “claim” my blog. So there we are.