Having just been subjected to a tortuous piece on blogging on The Daily Politics Conference Special which seemed to involve talking to a lot of people who had heard of a weblog and one woman who had even "tried it once", oh and Iain Dale, naturally, I thought I would ponder the rise of the political blog in this country.
Then I thought that that would be equally tortuous and I would just say this. As a card carrying member of the Labour Party and possibly even a member of "renewed "New" Labour", or for that matter as a menber of any political party, I owuld prefer that they spent my money on proper policies and public meetings than more marketing shortcuts and guff.
Blogging is not a way to sell things or ideas to people, it's an invitation to a conversation. At least that's what I think. Anyone care to comment?
As you may have guessed we will be off again for the weekend, escaping the delights of Urine Towers and communing with nature in God's country. I will probably bore you all into submission about it next week. By which time the whole work/mania dynamic should have settled down a bit.
Just to let you all know that I'm still here and that I'm thinking of you all but especially YOU just now.
So after returning relaxed and lovely on Saturday and having a very pleasant evening catching up with Arty Daughter the dog sitter, Sunday brought us down to earth with a bump. Chav Central, situated somewher beneath the delightful flat we occupy in Urine Towers, was busy all day with young men consuming (actually relatively small) quantities of Stella Artois and feeling only its detrimental effects accompanied by shrieking young women. I can only surmise they were quaffing fruit based drinks a la "The Pub Landlord", probably Bacardi Breezer or something similar. These were having a similarly detrimental effect and very soon even more shrieking ensued and accusations and epithets were being bandied about with vigour. Bottles soon started to be dropped on the ground and we were quickly reminded why we had had such a good time in the middle of the countryside. I thought they had set in for the day but about 2 o'clock it went quiet again. Perhaps they had gone home for a nice Sunday dinner with their respective families I hear you ponder. Well that would be the conclusion any usual person might come to but apparently this wasn't the case; they went somewhere else and got (allegedly) stoned and had a few more Stellas and then decided to go for a Sunday afternoon drive.
So all this seems a very long way away.
But it's not too far away really as we are going down at the end of September. yay!!
| You Are A Martini |
 You are the kind of drinker who appreciates a nice hard drink. And for you, only quality alcohol. You don't waste your time on the cheap stuff. Obviously, you're usually found with a martini in your hand. But sometimes you mix it up with a gin and tonic. And you'd never, ever consider one of those flavored martinis. They're hardly a drink! |
This post was inspired by Doris over at Grans on Bran. Many Happy Returns, Doris.
Your anniversary date is one I share as on 9 June 1986 I left home aged 17 to join the Women's Royal Naval Service as a trainee Wren Radar. The girls I shared a mess (bedroom) with were Sue Thomas, Elaine ____ from Sunderland, Claire Norsworthy from Cardiff and Lesley ______ who's dad had been in the Navy with mine.
I could say that I joined for all the usual reasons given for joining the armed forces but in truth I joined to escape a situation that over the previous six years had eroded my confidence and broken me into tiny fragments of myself. The shards were so shattered that it has taken me the intervening twenty years to try and reassemble them and they are still not all in the right order and some may still be missing in action.
At 17 I found myself close to emotional meltdown and considered a career in the Wrens as a safer option than the complete boundarylessness of the next few years spent at University. In fact it was anything other than safe and in effect just pulverised the shards into smaller fragments than they would otherwise have been.
My memories are therefore bittersweet. I do not blame the Navy; my expectations were flawed. The people I met were not all angels and their motives were sometimes very suspect but on the whole they were good people. I was the ubiquitous square peg and however hard I tried I just didn't fit.
I have felt like that for a lot of my adult life apart from here; I actually feel like I do fit in. What that says about the rest of you, though, I couldn't begin to imagine.
