I have changed the category of “Random Scatter” from “Creative Writing” to “News/Links” because I think this more closely reflects the content. Not that there are many links to be found in the blog, but the content is mostly rants about politics/ current affairs/ popular culture. That’s not to say the writing is not creative or anything, but well, I am the reviewer and I can do what I like. This line of argument seems to be going nowhere anyhow.
So this is a blogspot blog. Standard template, though no advertising box (unless Norton has become clever enough to block it out on my PC) and um… no archives either. Just writing. A whole page of writing going back to September 2003, although to be fair, the whole lot could be read in about an hour.
I could post up a URL to show you how to view the archives on a month by month basis, (one of my fellow reviewers has enough familiarity with Blogger to be able to do this) but in actual fact the author has removed said links to said archives deliberately, so I don’t see why I should help him out really. This whole system of posting everything on the main page works now because there isn’t that much content, but in the future, this could get to be a very big front page. The author claims that, well he only posts every now and again and he is editing his posts anyway to take out the ones he doesn’t like, so what the hell.
(START RANT) Editing posts and removing ones you don’t like is wrong. Very wrong. There is no rulebook on blogging to say this is illegal or anything, but I just don’t like it. In my opinion, weblogs should reflect everything about a person, good and bad. The only exception to this rule in my case has been ex-girlfriends and employers asking for content to be removed, and then only at a push. (/END RANT)
The author also doesn’t have any comments. Putting in sentences like “If anyone’s listening I’d welcome comments.“ without providing a comments facility is slightly futile. Also the content is opinionated and the lovely thing about opinions is that they can be disagreed with… but only if the author allows comments.
So having completely slated the technicalities of his blog, I would like to praise the content. The content is great- all his posts are literate, argued well and sometimes funny. He makes observations about politics mostly, but also music, TV and technology. He is quite “right on” about his views but I found this refreshing. Anyone who uses the word “curmudgeonly“ can’t be all bad. I like this author, I like his writing, I just don’t like his blogspot blog.
Well, I guess it comes back to form over content. The content is great but the form is not so great. I reckon if he makes the effort with the technical aspects of his weblog and continues writing the kind of stuff he is writing, this could become a regular of mine.
Random Scatter