The Weblog Review

A picture of the coast and a lighthouse are the first thing you see on entering this site, accompanied by the words, “where there is love there is life.” I assumed that this photo was taken near where James lives and that the words were his personal motto, but I couldn’t find an explanation on the site.

James’ weblog is mostly personal but, as usual, through his personal experiences and opinions he actually tells a us lot more. Quite a few of the posts sounded familiar to me: the British weather, the media, the decision of whether to travel down to London for a night out, the trips to the pub. I suppose this shows that James captures the “being a late teen in England experience” very successfully.

I wanted to find out more about the liberal minded James who described the British winter so well. Although I felt that I got know him quite well just from his daily posts and from reading the brief overview in his first post, I would have liked an “about” section. Due to the personal nature of the weblog I think that an “about” page would add a lot to the site.

James coded the page himself and has done a good job. There is even an inbuilt search engine. As for the colour scheme, range and grey seemed a strange combination but it actually works quite well here. The only problem I had with the layout was that it seemed a little too empty. This is possibly due to there only being a few additional links in the side column, but this could be because the site was only started two months ago and is still growing.

Someonecalledjames has started on a strong enough note to prove that it could really turn into something, and even now it is well worth a visit.someonecalledjames

By far, this is the most aptly titled blog I’ve ever read. At first glance Someone Called James seems like it would be a short read, being only two months old, but James has done a lot of writing in the last two months, pretty enjoyable writing at that.

James, an 18 year old living in the United Kingdom describes why he started his blog in his first entry as; “I just want somewhere to ramble on about my life, my thoughts, my feelings – infact just me in general.” Which is pretty much why we all started our weblogs. The differance between most weblogs and James’s, is that his is pretty interesting and at times, even though the author probably doesn’t realize it, is pretty gosh darn funny. In his January 2nd entry James writes about the breakup with his longtime girlfriend and how he has still remained good friends with her; “But i suppose in a way we never split up. We just stopped having sex – perhaps we got married when I wasn’t looking.” That comment is just hilarious!

Although this blog is only two months old, James is quite a prolific writer, I spent just as much time reading this weblog as I did reading weblogs that have been around for five or six months. There is no “About” section or “FAQ”, but by just reading this weblog’s entries for the last two months I felt I kind of knew who the author was. I think I found out more about him than an FAQ or “About” section could provide by just reading the blog. How rare is that?

The author doesn’t just talk about his own personal issues though, in his January 17th entry he takes the British media to task: “Maybe if they stopped moaning and looked at themselves, they would realise that the problem with Britain today isn’t asylum seakers, or rising crime, or the imaginary persecution of the ‘middle classes’, but the bigoted attitudes they encourage daily.”

The site design is user friendly, easy to read, I had no trouble navigating it, and had no trouble getting to the archives. There were no broken links.

I’m giving Someone Called James at 3.5, even though its only a couple months old, because this blog seems like a “true” journal. The author writes candidly about his personal life, its entertaining, and I enjoyed his dry humor. In a few months when there is more content this weblog will probably be a “five”. This journal has a pretty gosh darn good start. Three and a half stars, check it out.

someonecalledjames

Someone called James? Someone called James. This weblog comes to us from someone called James.



The ability to capitalize letters has apparently escaped someone called James, but it could also be that the shift key just doesn’t work on James’ keyboard. Normally, it really bothers me to read through paragraph after paragraph and not find one capital letter. Someone called James, through his writing, made me completely forget about the lack of big letters throughout each entry. I got so wrapped up in nodding my head in agreement or comparing an event that has happened in my life to something he writes about.



The design gives off a very calm look to the site. You’re met with a white background, and oranges and grays are sprinkled around via hyperlinks, or tables. The colors compliment each other well, and the design does a good job by not taking away from the actual content.

I like it when I read “authentic” British phrases like “i did bugger all at work”. I don’t know how much £31.99 is, but I get a kick out of reading it. James, being from England, had a few phrases like that throughout the site. Silly, easily-amused Americans, right?

James’ dating (or, lately, lack there of – Sorry, James!), his likes and dislikes when it comes to movies and music, or just the general scoop of what’s going on in his life are just some of the various topics he touches base on in this weblog.



The things you learn about James you learn solely through his different weblog entries. He makes it perfectly clear from the get-go that he doesn’t want people led to think he’s an egomaniac. According to him he’s not, and if he were he’d “have lots of pages detailing myself and my life, but I don’t want that”. So, what you get out of each entry and the information that gives you about our author is all you have to go on. It’s almost like one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Only here, we get to choose our own weblogger and have him in our heads however we take each of his entries.

Someone Called James is just in its infancy stages, having only started this little diary detailing James’ “life as an adult” in December. And while it’s still fresh in the market of weblogs, it’s definitely one I can see catching on and probably being at the top of everyone’s “must read” list.

someonecalledjames

Dreaming in Denmark’s author has been blogging for well over a year…The archive dates back to May of 2001 with entries nearly every day. Phew. Needless to say, she has developed a very engaging writing style and has a unique way of observing the world.

I enjoyed reading dreaming in Denmark. After reading several months worth of entries I began to appreciate the author’s sense of humour and her take on life. I really liked that the entries were often very short, making it a good daily read. (maybe due to my 21st century short attention span).

Her blog has many short humorous observations:

“walking in to work this morning, i glanced down and saw a battered summer squash on the ground just under the bumper of a rusty blue van. all i could think was ‘truck turds’. see? i’m telling you, i’m not safe before coffee.”

And blogging about blogging:

“my life, in captions

i’ve noticed recently that my writing habits are spilling over into day to day life, away from the pen and keyboard. all my entries, here and in the journal, are titled one way or another. and i find myself sitting on the T, talking to friends, running errands, and inventing captions for whatever is happening.

and often more serious reflections on relationships:

“feeling a bit Fuck You.

help me understand this. no, really. i’m willing to learn. what part, exactly, of ‘don’t call me again’ isn’t clear? because if there’s a way to clarify that i don’t want you in my life, i’m happy to do it. honestly – i’m not really sure which part of that could be misunderstood. but i apparently needed to be more precise, because there were a slew of messages waiting for me when i got home. or was it just that you had to get in that last parting shot, making sure once again that things are done on your terms?”

A great blog. A clean, well organized site. What I think blogging is all about. An honest journal expressing life’s ups and downs. I think there is something in her writing for nearly everyone.

I hope she maintains her caffeine intake. 🙂
dreaming in denmark

Popism was listed on The Guardian’s Weblog Special this past summer. In case you didn’t know, the Guardian, according to its website, is a newspaper in the UK. The folks there listed Popism as a “British weblog on pop culture”.

The writing is very well done. It’s very straightforward without any fluff or filler at all. The author gives the readers a link, and a few words explaining what position towards the issue Popism is taking. Previous knowledge of what goes on in the British pop culture world is very helpful. I, of course, didn’t have that knowledge, so I spent quite a bit of time doing some research on the certain issues at hand.

Technically speaking, Popism is actually over a year old, entering the world of weblogging in January 2002. But I’ve seen weblogs that have more posts in a week then this site has had for the past year. Every entry ever made, at least the ones that I could find, were all available to view on one page – the main page.

The layout of the site is very simple. The black text on a light blue background used for the weblog portion of the site is very easy to read, as is the light yellow table that the author has listed other various links in.

Naturally, I would have liked to see more to this site. I know sometimes quality is better than quantity, which is relevant in this case, but more posts would more than likely draw readers back on a more regular basis, opposed to only a few posts a month for people to wade through.

If you’re in to British pop culture, this site is will certainly appeal to you. Otherwise, like me, you’ll be doing a little research on the site to fully understand some of the entries here. Don’t plan on regular posts, but it’s a good one to add to your list of sites that you just come back to check on every once in a while.

Popism