Beyond Lies The Blog

‘Blog’. Ugh! What an ugly word, created by the unholy conjoining of the word Log to the orphaned B from the word Web, thus ‘Web-Log’ becomes ‘Blog’. In today’s high-tech high-speed world, two syllables is just one syllable too many.

To my ears, ‘Blog’ sounds more like a character from Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. Or maybe the name of a set of quirky foot-stools from a popular Swedish furniture superstore. Or the comical result of changing your mind about what word to say whilst you’re in the middle of saying it. Certainly not a pretty word by any stretch of the imagination; The kind of word you would hesitate to introduce to your parents, or have photos of in your wallet. The Jade Goody of words. The Lada of words. The Middlesbrough of words.

Which makes it all the more unfortunate that it’s really the only word to adequately describe the method of communication of which you are currently an active participant. Trust me, I racked my brains for an alternative, but nothing was forthcoming.

So why a ‘blog’? What line of reasoning could possibly have led me to the conclusion that what the world really needed, was another ‘blog’?

Well, I recently visited my friends Jack and Paula. Jack is a blogger (at least, I think that’s what people shout at him), and suggested WordPress to me for producing a news page for my website. I tried it, and found it to be incredibly powerful – far too powerful, in fact, for such a simple task. So I decided instead to code my own news script, but my interest in WordPress was piqued.

Also, despite being an award-winning writer, I’ve not actually done much in the way of writing in quite some time – award-winning or otherwise. When I won my award, I assumed it was because all the other candidates had a writing style which closely emulated that of the average YouTube commenter, but several people complimented me on my articles, and one otherwise seemingly sober person even admitted to “looking forward to” reading my outpourings.

I’m well aware that most ‘blogs’ are dreadful egocentric areas where tragic people waffle on and on with their dull scribblings because they genuinely believe the reader is interested in their poetry, or their militant political views, or some equally dull and personal product of their “mind”. This is usually because the author believes that the person who reads his ‘blog’ actually wants to find out more about them, when in fact the vast majority of viewers are only doing so because the author included fake pictures of popular female celebrities in the altogether. That’s certainly my experience.

So, before you take my hand and allow me the simple pleasure of leading you on a journey through my thoughts, take heed of the following caveat:

This ‘blog’ is full of rubbish I have thought about, or seen, or found on the internet, or felt you might want to be subjected to for some other reason. If you’re from the FBI, or you’re stalking me, or possibly even someone I know who’s trying to find dubious material to shame and discredit me with, then you might find this stuff interesting, but probably won’t. So be careful, or you may go blind. Or something.