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.