I was greeted by a very restrained site. The title was explained by a Montaigne quote.
“I have gathered a posie of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is my own.” The author, Mr Brooks, is going to collect together the work of others and make a collage perhaps?
The design was simple and the web log pleasant to read. There is a right sided panel with recent posts, archives and some links to blog related sites. There is evidence of an anti spam device which is good to see. The top of the page contains the blogger.com adverts and the quote and links to a very straight forward factual about me section and links to the author’s other online activities. There is also a link to a detailed contents page where an overview of the site and a Roget’s driven statement of purpose can be found.
The aforementioned collage didn’t quite work for me. There is very little in the way of imported wisdom from the great and the good. Mr Brooks is not a very good magpie. There are some quoted words from the obscure and even more obscure. Some contrived comments suggest fraud. I was too disinterested to research that.
There is limited use of pictures, links and some of the comments appear to be ‘set ups’ and the vast majority of the posts are off topic and trivially nondescript.
The writing is eloquent and at times interesting and once laugh out loud witty. However it hit these heights too seldom to maintain my interest. I struggled through the already assembled posts, the vast majority of which were written prior to the publication of the web log in April 2004. Why that is, is not explained.
I struggled to finish my reading for this review to be honest. Not my particular choice of flowers. I can give it no more than a two out of five – it is well written after all.
Other Men’s Flowers