COMMENT IF YOU MUST - BUT EXPECT NOTHING.
I was talking to son Neil on the webcam last week and he expressed regret that my year of blogging seems to have attracted little by way of comment.
But, y'know, I am not sure that either the proffering or the receiving of comment is necessarily a welcome addition to anybody's blog. (See my post Not Everybody Will Like You.) The first thing to bear in mind is that there is no brotherhood/sisterhood/personhood (curse all that bloody P.C. stuff) that will guarantee a favourable response should you approach another blogger.
If, for example, your one hobby is patchwork quilting it is unlikely that you will find much in common with a football fanatic or a jazz fiend or a train spotter. If you don't know your website from your blogsite you are unlikely to obtain anything but instant deletion from a computer buff. If you are an old guy who plays all the Harry Potter PC games and reads J.K. Rowling you will probably be regarded as retarded by the younger blogger who plays chess and reads Marcus Aurelius.
From the little I have gleaned in the last year, bloggers are understandably suspicious of any encroachment upon their blog space. If a complete stranger crossed the road and sought to enter your life, that stranger would probably be advised to depart and multiply; so why should you react differently to an unexpected arrival at your blogsite?
Bloggers see most unsolicited approaches as attempts to gain oblique advertising.
And even if you appear to have everything in common with one of them, don't be fooled.
Bloggers are writers - well, some of 'em are - and you should never judge a writer by his writing. Some very accomplished writers have been far from likeable human beings (think of Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh and Randolph Churchill for a start), so I would neither expect, nor necessarily give, a hail-fellow-well-met response to blog comment, no matter how well meaning. That having been said, I have made the mistake once or twice.
But I constantly bear in mind the words of the playwright John Eliot in his book MOGUL, The Making Of A Myth (1970). "Writers...live in shells, sucking nourishment from the world and only giving out squirts of ink. They brood. They harbour grievances. They are subject to fits of depression; and are tortuous and difficult to know. They are cast down by criticism and elated by praise, but secretly, and it goes into their work."
After one of the films in which he appeared it was remarked of the actor Charles Laughton that he stood around the edge of the set waiting to be offended.
In my experience, quite a lot of writers are like that, too.
I don't intend to be one of them.
Can't speak for you.
A CERTAIN AGE.
On the 26th July it was our daughter Jac's birthday. On the 31st July J.K.Rowling reached the same age. According to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, each of them on that particular day became The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
Jac is a teacher at a primary school and Jo is an internationally famous author. I think Mr. Adams was right on both counts.
Oh, neither of them looks anything like their age, either, but I won't say so for fear of being labelled smarmy.
THERE ARE FEW THINGS MORE CERTAIN.
In this life there are few certainties.
I can think of but three:
If you have gone up to the attic there will be a knock at the front door.
If you are using the lavatory the phone will ring and
If you have finally broken your links with your car insurers...
It was obvious that I was not going to receive my No Claims Bonus details from Age Concern's motor insurance people once I had told them I had found another insurer. I sent a SAE with the request which they returned with a note telling me in so many words that they'd deal with the matter when they got around to it. My letter to them went on 24th June, my new insurance started on 6th July. It is now August 5th.
Not so much as a kiss my...
Am I surprised? No.
I'm sure I'll manage without them.
MORE SPORTING WORDS WITH THE CAT.
"That was a helluva result for England, 62 - 5 against Wales at Twickenham," I said to the cat Shadow.
He was in dozing mode on my lap.
"I think you'll find it was the Welsh second team," he said. "But yeah, it was a helluva result."
"Good to see names like Lawrence Dallaglio and Jonny Wilkinson back in the England side, too."
"Be better still when you feel they can win without names like Dallaglio and Wilkinson in the side," he said.
"Did you go round to one of your mates to watch it on Sky?" I asked
"Na-a-ah. I stayed here for the Women's British Open at St. Andrews. I sleep much sounder with the golf. Mexican girl, Lorena Ochoa was in the lead when I dropped off. She was looking good." He grinned his cat grin. "Playing well, too."
"A lot of them look good now," I said. "I think the days of statuesque golfers like Dame Joan Hammond are long gone."
"Didn't you once say she was a singer?"
"Yeah, she was. Healthiest looking Mimi I ever saw on stage."
"Good was she?"
"Bloody marvellous. Her One Fine Day from Madame Butterfly could last me all week."
"Can't see any of today's bunch being that versatile," he said. "You've seen some remarkably talented people over the years, haven't you?"
I have indeed. He didn't need a reply.
I sighed contentedly and he went back to sleep.
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