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March 22, 2011

Writing the Great Office Novel

There is only so much procrastinating one can do. After a long hiatus, this weekend I finally got back to writing a little fiction. Right now the focus is on a (very ironically named) Great Office Novel. It really is nothing of the sort (certainly not the Great part), but is a means of me channelling some of my recent experiences, assimilating some others, and generally having fun with our 9-to-5 lives. Write what you know and all that. It’s been done before, it certainly has been done better, but I figure it is a good way to ease myself back into this fiction-writing lark. Read the rest of this entry »

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March 9, 2011

Damn statistics

No real post today, just a futile attempt to keep things ticking along. I would like to say that this was inspired by my desire to stay engaged with my readership, to strike out once again into the big, bad world (wide web). But no. My motivation is that damn site stats page WordPress offers us. If I post something then I’ll (hopefully) get a spike in my stats and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Read the rest of this entry »

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March 8, 2011

Critical Mass

Being the navel-gazing/thoughtful (delete as appropriate) guy that I am, I often think about the role blogging can, might and should play. The medium has progressed from mere online diary to something more substantial and worthwhile. But it is still ripe for attack from blogging sceptics. Read the rest of this entry »

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March 3, 2011

Your correspondent wasn’t born yesterday. He was born today.

Today is my birthday. I already feel a whole year older, if not a whole year wiser. Amongst the many generous gifts I have received, the people of the United Kingdom and Ireland have decided to hold their World Book Day today¹, rather than on 23 April, which is when the rest of the world will celebrate its love of books. Read the rest of this entry »

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March 2, 2011

The Memory Chalet

Tony Judt was an eminent historian. He wrote acclaimed books, he wrote for the New York Review of Books, he was a university professor. He was an intellectual, but in the best possible sense of the word. He was a public intellectual. In 2008, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehig’s Disease. By October 2009 he was paralysed from the neck down. He died in August last year. Read the rest of this entry »

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