N.E.G.L.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me.

Oh gnash of teeth and wail of lament!

Oh damn you hours in the day for being so paltry in number!

Oh curse you sense of prioritisation and your . . . your . . . priorities!

Just doing one of those oft-heard blogger-with-no-time-to-blog posts. You know the type. Life is hectic (which it is) and external responsibilities are too demanding (which they are) and procrastination is too [*note, insert thing that procrastination is too much of here at some point*].

It could start to get you down, although blogging shouldn't be a chore. Unless you're doing it for a living or as some sort of punishment.

I wonder if there are any punishment blogs out there?

I don't mean *waggly eyebrows* dominatrix-led punishment, with all studded collars, flagellatory equipment, leather faces and that, because they're ten a penny. I imagine. No, I mean blogging instead of doing lines or paying a fine or something.

"Professor D'Espicable, you have been found guilty of wantonly hollowing out a mountain without planning permission, and so must either serve 60 hours of community service visiting the elderly or construct a blog post on the pitfalls of setting up a nefarious empire intent on taking over the world."

"Ah come on Your Honour! Can't I just be ejected into space and get it over with?"

No, for me blogging is just for fun, and like any fun thing one shouldn't get stressed about neglecting it. Although it might be frustrating when you don't get chance to bash one out (yeah, that's where I'm going), eventually you are going to be able to relieve the pressure at some point, and end up happily ejaculating your givings onto the receiving substrate.

So here I am.

Before any of you begin feeling extra sorry for me and start planning a concert to raise awareness for my plight, I should point out that I've been having a pretty pleasant time of it over the last few months. The summer was damp but not horrible, we went on holiday, we had some enjoyable get togethers and we took the children on various educational trips to expand their brains, broaden their horizons and fuss fluffy critters.

I was particularly excited by the promise of this sign outside a farm park which suggested we could feed baby felines to cows:

Kittens! Pound a sack! Gerrem while they're mewling!

As it turned out, the kitten sale and animal feeding were separate entities. I should have realised this because cows obviously don't eat kittens. If mad cow disease has taught us anything it's that cows eat other cows.

We drank occasional expensive coffeecinos in smart cafes, one of which had a literally correct description of it's cake:

Further reductions inside!

And, at a wedding, we all stayed in a posh hotel which had not only a kettle and a telly in it, but a panic alarm on the wall:

Panic? Alarm? Which is it? WHICH IS IT?

Never mind the children, you have no idea how much self-restraint I had to show not to push that bugger just  to see who might turn up. Maybe the Best Western chapter of the Guardian Angels, or Batman in a stolen hotel robe. I'm pretty sure it would actually have been a phone call to see whether it was panic or alarm I was experiencing. Press '1' for panic.Press '2' for alarm. Press '3' for alarmed panic.To listen to these options again, please scream repeatedly.

It's not all fun and frivolity though. Yesterday, as part of my parental responsibilities, I had to steal the kids home-made play dough, craft a scary halloween hand and then chase them and their visiting friends who'd come round to play:

Anyone got any E45 cream?

I was rewarded with satisfyingly high-pitched yelps of terrorised delight and one child wetting herself. If that's not a sign of success then I don't know what is.

And if this post has taught me anything, it's that blog posts really don't have to be about anything.

Adventures in Blogland

Just over a year ago I started bloggaging, taking my first tentative, shaky steps into the murky, surreal woodland that is the blogoshpere, like Bambi exploring Kenya. This is a woodland that would make Tolkien shudder with the ethereal strangeness that abounds. Where creatures of the night live side by side with rainbow-hued optimists, where hardcore nookie fanatics cross paths with knitting enthusiasts, where rampant daily contributors brush shoulders with occasional nibblers.

The world of the blog is varied. Hot and humid one moment, just a short few steps away and you're in a temperate zone utterly suited to your tastes, and then a quick reconnaissance in another direction and the temperature drops, leaving you unable to decide whether you should stay and explore or scurry back to more comfortable environs.

It was a strange experience in those early, embryonic days.

You make a little camp in that woodland with no maps, no native guide, no bushcraft skills other than your inherent foraging abilities which may or may not be up to the task. You choose a name for your blog. You take about five seconds because you have to put something on the sign, and it's not as though it's going to be a permanent fixture in your life for the foreseeable future is it? You'll probably be deleting it in a day or two anyway.

So, you've named your blog. Job done. You're now ready to get posting! Let the creative juices pour forth!

Er . . .

What to put on it? You try and recall what they taught you about blogging when you were at school in the eighties, but the lessons on blogs must have been boring because you can't remember anything. It's like home economics where you vaguely recall coming home with a chocolate refrigerator cake that one time, but have no actual memory of the lesson. Or the teacher. Or the classroom.

You need ideas.

You sneak through the woodland and peer at other peoples set-ups through the (sometimes quite literal) bushes. What are they like? Are they interesting? Have they got any advice? Would they share it with you? Some sites are actually designed to help you with blogging, which is lucky. You creep up to them and, when no-one is around, snatch a few nuggets of information and then scurry back into the undergrowth to unpeel the nutty loot you've nicked.

You discover that the subjects covered by blogs can be encompassed in just one simple word, which should make things easy.

Unfortunately that word is 'everything'.

You search some professional sites for more info and they obligingly give it up for your perusal.

You need a topic, apparently. You need to sell stuff. You must categorise your blog, so people know what to expect, so like-minded explorers can find you amongst the chaotic ecosystem that is the blogland. It's all about planning what you do, then doing what you plan. It's dynamic. It's proactive. It's about taking incentivisation out of the box so you can action it to the next level. Their blogs are all stainless steel and black marble and healthy looking plastic plants.

You have no idea what they are talking about, and slink back to your little blog camp, which is made from metaphorical driftwood, some randomly placed moss and a shell.

You come to the conclusion that, to be a successful blogger, you must be incredibly organised with an innate sense of direction and a iron-clad self image.

Bugger.

You search a bit more and, happily, discover that there is a sub-division of blogs which appeals to you.

You shall class yourself as "miscellaneous"!

Now you've got an idea, you set out your stall and hang up some of your wares for other people wandering the trails to have a look at. You try and keep them as fresh as you can, and see what comes blundering past. You smile coquettishly and bat your eyelids in a 'come hither' fashion.

The blogging begins.


Flash forward one year with wavy cinematographic time-travel lines and sound effects that go "scuddly doo scuddly doo scuddly doo!".


Name of blog: Still the same.
Category of blog: Still miscellaneous.
Stuff in blog: Still just your witterings.
Plans for the future: Er . . . carry on regardless.

The other critters in the woodland have turned out to be, not only approachable, but outright friendly and supportive, and there exists, depsite huge variations in form and function, more uniting similarities than differences. I'm not saying there aren't bloggers out there who are beyond liking or even understanding, but if you come in and look around, maybe make a bit of an effort, you will without doubt find someone who shares your interests, or your sense of humour, or your hatred of ginger and fingerless gloves. Or bobble hats. Or the French.

So, here I am, still at it. I was thinking of getting an ID card with "BLOGGER" written on it so that, when I inevitably get caught taking a photo in a public convenience I've got a vague excuse legitimate reason.

Bloggers tell it like it is. Or at least like they think it is, and because history is written by humans and doesn't depend at all on nebulous concepts like "facts" and "truth", this amounts to the same thing.

As Socrates said when he wrote Spiderman, with this great power comes great responsibility. Blogging has an effect on society, very much like walking through a crowded shopping mall whilst wind-milling full nappies at arms length and shouting "LISTEN TO ME!" at the top of your shrill, shrill voice.

It gets noticed.

With this in mind, I manfully shoulder the burden of the blog, and bring important issues to the fore. Things the ordinary man in the basement might not notice.

For instance, I was in Sainsbury's recently and saw that the cafe had one of those wooden shields given out as prizes displayed proudly for all to see. I approached, expecting some sort of Jamie Oliver prize for best carrot and coriander soup, or an award for mopping up aisle three in record time. I snapped a pic:


Turns out it was for the Most Improved Department.

Is it just me or does that simply make you wonder what they were like before they improved? Especially when they seem simply average now?

All the little shields on it were blank as well, and even the fake silver scroll in the middle is bereft of congratulatory wordage, which begs the question of whether or not the shield is simply passed around the various departments in the supermarket in an attempt to boost morale, like giving everyone an "Employee of the Month" certificate at some point regardless of their abilities, even if their productivity is on a par with navel lint and they spell 'customer' with three Zs.

Or maybe it was simply stolen by the cafe supervisor to throw the Environmental Health Officers off the scent.

"Cockroaches? Well, that's impossible because we're the Most Improved Department I'll have you know. Got a shield and everything look. Now, do you want legs in your mulligatawny?"


This post is a celebration of my one percent of a century of blogging, and reflects on the sorts of things I like to incorporate into this digital tome. Such blue-sky thinking is useful because it allows me to non-sequitur another picture I took into it.

One of my favourite topics is the out-of-context drawing from childrens books, which I am subjected to on a regular basis and so must amuse myself in other ways, as they tend to lack plot twists and surprises.

I've done it before, and I'll do it again. From a recent sojourn to our local library with my sprog:

Splat indeed.


You see? Bringing the important issues to life is the essence of the kernel at the heart of blogging.

No need to thank me. It's what I do.

I'm a blogger.

Called to the Bar

We've all thought it; taking photographs of day-to-day life for a blog is very much like quantum physics.

You know, where the observer effects the observed, and your quarry suddenly declines to act in the manner that made them blogworthy in the first place.

It's a problem for the diligent blogger, who simply wants to parade people's foibles on the internet for the innocent entertainment of others, and there's very little help on taking clandestine photos out there. You'd think there'd be evening classes or something. Maybe a government leaflet.

To avoid intrusion one must, like the most patient of natural history film makers, try and be as discreet as possible, blending into the background and taking your victim subject by surprise, preferably leaving them none the wiser for their participation.

Whilst a traditional hide would be perfect, it is quite hard to set up without arousing suspicion, so the wily blogger must resort to using the instinctive cunning for which they are renowned.

I have almost perfected the art of amateur blog photography, and it essentially involves holding a camera phone up to your ear and frowning thoughtfully, as though listening to an important message on the answer service, maybe from your doctor about that blood test you took last week, or perhaps it's your architect who's discovered the patio doesn't conform to local planning laws and you may need to find a different place to hide the bodies. Whatever, make your own imaginary recorded message up, just so long as you look like you believe it, because then so will they.

So will they.

Simultaneously, and at the same time, you must surreptitiously go through the overly-complex methodology the average phone utilises just to take a photo.

If you're actually using a camera, rather than a phone with a camera stapled to it, you should omit the holding up to your ear bit, as it looks mad. In this case, just ostentatiously take a photo and then wink at the subject. They like that.

Happily, I haven't got one of those phones that shouts "CLICK!" when you take a pic, which was apparently installed on many handsets due to an epidemic of upskirt photos being taken on Tokyo tube trains by sexually repressed Nipponese geeks. This is great for the blogger, as it means voyeuristic photos can be taken at will, although it also helps if you're not a great big pervert.

I'm not sure what the point of trying to take photos of ladies undercrackers is, as surely it would be better to befriend a lady, get to know her, start a romantic relationship and see if she'll show you her grollies voluntarily.

Takes a bit of time and effort, and you might have to reciprocate, but you get a result with only a minimal risk of being arrested. And there might be sex involved. With another person. Imagine that.

No, the subjects of my photographical expertise tend to be more esoteric. As Mrs The Jules said when she saw a photo of a load of spilled coffee-oid granules on my phone the other day; "You don't half take pictures of some strange stuff."

Yes, but they make sense to me at the time, and are often taken because they make a point, amuse me, pose a question or answer one.

For instance, whilst entering my local public house, The Woolpack, a place I confess to having visited before, I held the door to let a regular (well, more regular than me) punter in behind as he was struggling to get through. The cause of his strugglage was two-fold. First, he had reduced mobility, possibly due to a medical condition, but more likely because he's fried his nervous system from half a century on a strict high alcohol and nicotine regime. Secondly, he was carrying an empty bottle crate.

After letting him in, he stood for a moment, clutching his crate under his good arm (the one that gives to charity and doesn't fondle unasked. His bad arm does that) and surveyed the room, giving me chance to ponder the possible reasons for his bringing a dirty plastic box into the pub.

I wasn't going to ponder too hard, because the regulars in The Woolpack have been known to bring in stranger things, such as fox tails, shrimp nets and, occasionally, fleas. Besides, I reasoned, I would find out soon enough.

I recalled that his favourite seat is one of those high bar stools, and the seat of this stool is angled slightly forward as a result of years of heavy customers slumping. When he takes his place there, he often has to put up with a graceful sliding motion that most folk automatically adjust for during the course of the night. Unfortunately, his reduced mobility means that he's constantly slipping off it, necessitating an awkward clamber back on about eighteen times a night.

This spectacle stuck in my mind because it made me realise that the social aspect of being at the bar obviously outweighed his difficulty in staying on the stool, and sitting in one of the comfier, lower chairs would feel isolating to him. Instead, he would get on, slide off, grumble and get back on, he and The Stool like two adversaries in a war of attrition, or maybe a modern day version of the punishment of Prometheus, the only difference being Prometheus's liver was probably in better condition, even post-eagle.

I felt a little sorry for him as, between slides, he engaged anyone who approached the bar in muttered but enthusiastic conversation, and I wondered if all he needed was a friend, a confidante, an empathic and sympathetic other to whom he could turn so that he wouldn't have to rely on visiting the pub for that tiny spark of human interaction he so desperately craved.

Obviously, I wondered this from the other end of the bar whilst avoiding eye contact. He was pissed as a fart and talking about immigrants, so I wasn't going to humour the old soak.

Tonight though, as he swayed there, he sized up his old nememesisis, The Stool, with an air of quiet confidence. A watery glint in his eye proclaimed that he had both a battle plan and conjunctivitis. He strode, well, weaved his way to the bar and, with a flourish, implemented his (possibly patented) bar stool anti-slide system, by placing the crate on the floor so he could put his feet on it:


Thus was he successfully braced against the conspiracy between seat and gravity.

This time, when he slid off the stool, it was solely due to good old alcohol.

Continuity

In the beginning, there was a blank space. Then, I typed some words on it, and posted it on a blog. And then stuck on a picturemogram from my phone for good measure. This seems like fun, I thought, and then amended that to This seems like fun, when I remembered that I think in italics. I shall do some more.

So I did. Ninety-nine more, in fact. This is good because Douglas (my first ever commenter and a blogger of class and gentle intelligence) called me a slacker when I'd only done fifty posts, which made me determined to continue.

So, what have I learned from blogging? Well, two things mainly.

First, it's about enjoying yourself.

Second, it's about the people.

Not exactly world-shattering news there. If you're not blogging for profit, then the first is fairly self-explanatory, but I get the impression from other blogs that people get stressed if they haven't posted for a while. I can understand this as I've occasionally fallen victim to that sort of angst, and have had to remind myself that posting on your blog shouldn't be a chore. Like sexual intercourse, if it becomes more of an effort than a pleasure, then one should just hang up one's Batman outfit, get down off the wardrobe and quietly leave the area.

Happily for me, after a few days I'm positively itching, mostly to do with this unexplained rash, but partly with the urge to write something.

The latter reason has taken me a bit by surprise, as I wasn't expecting to make friends doing this. I thought it would be one of those exercises where a few people read you, some commented, you reciprocated and then you drifted off onto other bloggy avenues. What I wasn't expecting was to care about the people I've (sort of) met, to worry when they're ill or haven't posted for a long time with no reason, or to get quite so chuffed by receiving comments as I do.

If the comments had been mostly negative, then I might have decided against furthering this malarkey. It's the positive responses you have given (mostly) which have perpetuated this blog, so you've only got yourselves to blame.

A hundred posts later, and I'm not yet bored with doing it, so what better way to celebrate than to continue the tradition of posting a couple of pics I took because they amused me, momentarily.

The first is some opportunistic graffitage, and not just spray-painted stuff which can be removed or painted over with a bit of angry tutting and elbow grease, but someone who has taken the time to finger-scrawl a message in the wet rendering on a wall before it set. This is a good way of doing things, for it means that your graffiti is there for perpetuity, so future generations can look on your work and think about what you meant. The owner of the building becomes an unwitting billboard for your alternative viewpoints, be they social commentary or revolutionary incitement.

Or you could just write 'sex cock' and let it go at that:



For someone who probably wrote three words in all the months they spent in high school, this sort of literary achievement amounts to a veritable dissertation, and the fact that both words are spelled correctly would no doubt bring a tear of gratitude to their English teacher's rheumy black eye. This is the proud voice of someone who is not ashamed of their lack of cerebral ability, who positively revels in their dumbosity, and wants the world to know that, above all things, they really do value sex cock.

Intelligence, whether academic or emotional, does not make a better person, and this is where intelligent snobbery falls down. I've met many a numpty with a doctorate, and some of the best, nicest people I've ever met have had the IQ of a Spectrum ZX81, without the 16 k RAM upgrade.

It would be nice to have more brains, but we are forced to make do with what we have by virtue of our physiology, and impersonating Stephen Hawking does not, apparently, give everyone else the impression that you are super intelligent, no matter how much fun it might be.

There is also no excuse to be proud of our limitations, only our attempts to overcome them. This seems to go against the sort of untermensch who regularly boast of never having read a book, or got a job, or stretched themselves in any way at all, and is like a reverse intellectual snobbery where any argument to the contrary is met with either bemused silence or outright hostility.

Anyone who challenges someone else with the words "You fink you're better 'n us, don'tcha?" should really be prepared to accept the almost universally true answer of "Yes. Yes I do."

In a world where being gormless seems to have become de rigueur, it's nice to know that some anonymous Swedish furniture stores have tried to redress the balance, and you can actually purchase gorm from their shop:

So, you may well be ignorant enough to think that bread or chicken skin can be used as a contraceptive (hence your eleven children), and you may say "Can I lend a fiver?" when you mean "borrow" (does that drive anyone else as mental as it drives me?) but you can always claim you're not gormless now. Look, you have a gorm right there in your living shack.

It's not all about being clever. It's not all about being extremely pleased with yourself for having had the luck to be breast fed, avoiding brain injury and always being supplied with appropriate amounts of oxygen. What it is about is being self-aware, of seeing what you're capable of, achieving it, and then trying to achieve some more.

Let's live in a society where aspiration means more than just inhaling your own vomit.