REVISITING

It’s been “interesting” well, for me at least (I can’t really speak for the rest of you…) to “revisit” one or two of those hitherto publicly “unpublished” pieces which I wrote during that rather strange month when I chose to more-or-less “disappear” from BlogWorld for a while for various reasons, not all of which were completely without merit.

Some of those reasons, you see, actually made some kind of sense at the time… as I found out by reading one or two of the more “ranty” ones that are still safely locked in that Cybervault and remain unlikely to ever see the light of day unless I actually get to the point where I’m so desperate that I don’t have any words less or I just don’t give a toss any more.

Occasionally, that point feels like it’s only a heartbeat away, by the way, and I feel like telling the whole world to go and take a running jump, but the moment passes and sanity (or its nearest neighbour) prevails and the “nuclear” option is resisted for another day.

After all, the nuclear option isn’t really an option anyway, and even if it was, I’d be aiming at the wrong target. What’s the point in ranting at the wrong people when it wouldn’t be you that I’d be aiming my ire towards…?

But enough of this.

Reading through those thirty odd pages made me realise that fewer than half of them could really be considered “adequate” enough for sharing with the wider world in general, whilst the majority, whilst I accept that my brain was in a stranger than usual place during that month, were the deranged meanderings of a self-obsessed jerk…

Pretty much like most of the rest of the time, I suppose…

This does lead me, however – because there is actually some point to all this preamble - to the rather inevitable conclusion that burbling on and spewing these things out every day might actually be something to be considered as being far “too much” and, perhaps, reducing my output to every other day at most, might actually create a “better” product in some way.

Of course I already feel a tangent coming on about how we might define “better” and consider the horrific “management speak” cliché where “better” most often actually means “far, far worse” (especially if you happen to be a consumer…).

Still, it is worth a thought, although I do have to consider you lovely people who are kind enough to indulge an old man by reading his irrelevant drivvle each and every day. Would failing to stoke the fires of intrigue on only alternate days break the habit…? Would you swiftly forget to set your dial to “Lesser Blogfordshire” and drift away to the other, shinier things which might try to distract you...?

After all, so many local daily newspapers have gone weekly in an attempt to survive, and look how that’s turning out for them…

I also found from reading a few of them some time later (I seldom do, you know...) that my little tropes, verbal ticks and themes are pretty constant and that some of the things I have been referring back to here were only ever written there and so nobody else would have the first clue as to what I was going on about.

No change there then…

Still, it was nice to realise that at a time when I was convinced that I “couldn’t” write at all, it seems that some of the stuff that I was churning out was actually okay(ish) and so I felt confident to “unlock” the vault and release the half dozen or so that you’ve had the “pleasure” of reading across this past week or so and, when added to another couple which were released early for good behaviour, that makes a grand total of eight of thirty two that have been allowed to roam free in the world providing they don’t disgrace themselves, re-offend and get put back in the box.

I guess it’s a “trust” issue.

If you do the maths, you’ll realise that there are, of course, a few more in there, but I need to keep back some ammunition for those dreadful dark damp days as winter starts to brew itself up properly and my brain freezes and I need something to fall back upon, (possibly as soon as tomorrow if I can’t get my brain back into gear...).

Of course, at the moment, I’m convinced once again that I don’t seem to be able to write half as well as I thought I used to either (hence desperate nonsenses like this one), and so the cycle continues…

Rather more happily and against all the odds given what I’ve been churning out over these past few weeks, September - incidentally the two year anniversary of the beginnings of these outpourings – turned out to be, in terms of visits at least, a “record” month which is, I suppose, something to be pleased about. It might mean that the fatigue of familiarity isn’t quite setting in with you all yet, or it might just mean that I’ve been around so long now that people are kind of getting used to me being here.

It might, of course, just mean that there’s such a random scattering of titles and thoughts that the search engines keep picking up on them and luring in the unwary traveller who then, like at the “Munsters” house, takes one look around and is running for the gate…

No doubt I’d be running away too, if I had the energy…