Tag Archives: bloggers

A Perplexing Proliferation of Popular Political Parties

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The football rumbles on. I tend to ignore most of it, but note that wales didn’t do quite as well as their hype suggested, and England, as usual, have made things a little more difficult for themselves. If Wales beat us by 4 goals when we play on Tuesday. It’s unlikely that Wales will beat us by 4 goals, but in football you never know . . .

Meanwhile, the Arab world seems to be getting a little fed up (though I base this on reading reports of reports) with being lectured on how to conduct themselves. Looks like I was very timely in my discussion of such things.

I’m actually quite irritated this week, because I’ve been drawn into discussing sport and politics. There ahs been so much nonsense hanging round the subject I couldn’t stop myself saying something, despite the fact we already have too many people offering opinions. Just because I am irritated by something doesn’t men I have anything to offer. That’s why I tend to stay away from serious subjects. Bloggers should stick to subjects like baking, bicycling and bears and leave politics to the lesser writers.

Which brings us to American Politics. I hear that Kanye West is running for President. I know very little about him but won’t rule anything out after watching events of previous years. I have just been looking at the list of American political parties. I honestly thought you only had two, with the occasional egomaniac standing as a independent. I now find there are actually loads, but they never get on the news.

US Taxpayers Party, People Over Politics Party, Independent Conservative Democratic Party, Green Party, Independence Party, Veterans Party of America Party, American Independent Conservative Party, Conservative Party, Libertarian Party, Peace and Freedom Party, American Independent Party, American People’s Freedom Party, Concerned Citizens Party of Connecticut, Moderate Party, Independent American Party, Resource Party, New Alliance Party.

Forgive me if I say that I am put in mind of the People’s Front of Judea sketch.

However, if you look at a list of British parties we have 11 parties represented in the House of Commons with four in other UK legislatures and another 124 represented in local government, including Tunbridge Wells Alliance, Poole Local Group and Poole People Party. Could you make it up? Probably, but I didn’t need to, I just needed Wikipedia and an enquiring mind.

Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I have noticed that there is room for People’s Poole Party, and I may be just the charismatic leader they are looking for . . .

The header picture is a metaphor, with pigs and snouts and troughs, though it does seem unfair to the pigs. The lower picture shows wasps. I like wasps and lured them to the table (in August 2015, which now seems a long time ago) by smearing jam on the table.

Wasps

And in answer to the question I am sure is in your minds, yes, I could have worked People and Poole into the title, but it seemed a bit long.

 

 

 

 

 

Where does the time go? (Part 1)

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I have decided to do some research on where my time goes. Today I set a fifteen minute alarm and set to work with a plan in mind. I was going to us my first hour fully and the first 15 minutes were going to be writing a post. I can, if I get a move on, do a post in 15 minutes, though photos and tags can take another five or ten depending on how it goes.

The results so far. My first forty five minutes has gone and I have read and replied to the comments, drifted off on top Wiki to look at “Variations in Australian English”, eaten a bacon and mushroom sandwich (cooked by Julia, so no time lost there) and checked my emails. The good news is that these 120 words (approximately half my minimum blog target) have only taken four minutes.

The short answer to my question would appear to be that answering comments takes more time than I would have thought. However, there is no point in blogging if you don’t get comments  I now know what sort of accent Tootlepedal has (I currently have a picture of Miss Jean Brodie, well Maggie Smith, to be honest, stuck in my head, though I’m sure I am wrong), I know how many blog posts LA has written (most of them  more thought provoking than my ramblings) and am far better informed on the variations in Australian accents.

Left to myself I would merely have watched TV. Probably Murder She Wrote. I can therefore claim that my brain has improved as a result, compared to the undoubted atrophy that would have taken place if I had not been blogging.

I have now been going for about an hour (I forgot to reset the timer last time it went off and I have written a post, read and replied to comments and eaten a bacon sandwich. Not bad for an hour.

I will now throw in a few careless tags and recycle a picture and am good to go on my next keyboard adventure. That will be covered in Part 2.

The picture is Arkwright the Tortoise from May last year. I haven’t seen him recently, but it’s been a bit cold so far this year.

 

Skies and Disappointments

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Last night I took No2 son to work. It was just after 10pm and the sky was a fantastic shade of saffron. As usual, I didn’t have the camera with me, though it wouldn’t have helped much – all the best views were from roadworks and dual carriageways where I couldn’t have stopped anyway.

This morning, at around 4am, on the way to the bathroom, I noticed the sunrise was similarly colourful. This time I did have access to the camera and I didn’t need a parking place. I did, however, manage to ignore these advantages and went back to sleep. That’s why I’m using the pictures fron last Wednesday.

I’m not cut out for the hurly-burly of high-level blogging. I’ll leave that to Derrick Knight and Tootlepedal – they are like blogging machines. Me, I’m more of a dormouse.

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After a hard half day sorting parcels and pennies I went for a cream tea with Julia. We’re thinking of blogging about cream teas.

I’ll show you the pictures later.

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Have to go now- Julia says it’s time for me to cook.

Derrick and TP don’t have this problem…

Mass Observation -2017 style

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Typical Blogger?
Typical Blogger’s Wife
And again…

I’ve been sitting and thinking again; thoughts went from blogging to diaries to Housewife, 49 and finally to Mass Observation.

It occurred to me that one day our blogs might be used as historical documents, like the Mass Observation archive or the Domesday Book.  At that point I started wondering just how accurate all these other historical documents are. The Domesday Book, being a tax document, is probably very accurate, though limited. The Mass Observation diaries are probably accurate as far as they go, but represent the views of people who aren’t necessarily representative of the population as a whole – described (by Wikipedia)  as “middle-class, educated, literate, and left of centre”.

I’ve never read Housewife, 49 but I have seen the TV adaptation and I’m not convinced by the “left of centre” but I can see that a group of diarists or bloggers could fit that description.

According to a blog I’ve just looked at, bloggers are, in general, ambitious, self-reflective and forever learning. I agree that most bloggers seem to be self-reflective and forever learning, though I’m not sure about ambitious. There are other qualities mentioned, but I’ll let you follow the link if you want to discover more about yourself.

Meanwhile, let’s consider my blog as history.

If anyone tries to reconstruct a picture of the 21st century using my blog as a source, they are going to think that the average UK citizen was more concerned about cheese, brown sauce and words to describe book hoarding than they were about Brexit, global warming and Trumpageddon. (In the UK trump is a slightly archaic word for breaking wind in the UK, and cows emitting methane as a result of the digestive process are said to be responsible for destroying the ozone layer, so those last two items could be the same thing.)

It also explains why, despite the example of Sir Toby Belch, nobody in the UK actually thought he was going to win. Joke names, like bald candidates, tend not to win. That’s why Derrick J Knight is always going to be top dog in the blogosphere, and I, with my shiny head, will always be second.

I wonder if that was why Samual Pepys, a somewhat retro blogger, wore a wig.

However, I digress. I really meant to discuss how representative bloggers are in the scheme of history. It seems to me that we are more interested in health, food and books than the average person. On the other hand, that might be the effect of blogging about those subjects, and following people with similar views.

If I blogged about body modification, manga and mud wrestling I would probably have a completely different view of my fellow bloggers. (Ask your grandchildren if you need any explanations).

So, how representative do you feel?