We’re Not Worthy

The Sunday Times doesn’t like us.

The attached article, especially its final sentence, strikes me as a gloat at the fact that blogging hasn’t wiped newspapers off the face of the earth.

The thing is, of course, that very few bloggers ever claimed that it would, and even fewer would want it to. The idea of there being no Irish Times, and no Fintan O’Toole, Tom Humphries, Mary Hannigan, Frank McNally, Kathy Sheridan, Lucy Kellaway, Fiona McCann, Roisin Ingle or Keith Duggan would horrify me. Even John Waters, who famously said in a radio interview that “all blogs are stupid, every single one of them”, writes a column that I read every week, since I find his posts that I disagree with just as entertaining as the ones where I don’t. 

I got all this from Damien Mulley’s post. He lists the questions he was asked, and the replies he gave, and it’s fascinating to see how his essentially positive analysis of the state of blogging in Ireland is made to appear negative in the actual article.

It’s also interesting that the article quotes Rick O’Shea as saying “I don’t think the blogging community wants or needs mainstream respect or recognition. It only matters that people are reading your blog. The blogging community doesn’t need anyone but the blogging community.”

The next sentence in the article says: “They don’t mean that, though, not really”. Why bother asking him, then?

The ST cite the fact that we have annual blog awards as evidence that we “crave recognition”. And perhaps we do (vote for me, by the way, when they come along), but only from other bloggers. Architects have annual awards as well, where the important thing is having your work recognised by your peers. No-one claims that these awards are so architects will earn respect from the public at large.   

On the subject of Twenty Major, they bemoan the fact that he has a larger readership for a post that says “John O’Donoghue is a fucking clown” than Gavin Sheridan has for his continually excellent posts about NAMA and similar issues (unfortunately for them, anyone clicking onto Gavin’s blog for the first time today after reading their article will come first upon a post dated Dec 11th that doesn’t really help their argument). But this is not comparing like with like. Twenty’s site is primarily about entertainment. As part of that entertainment he vents about issues in our country, striking a chord with many frustrated and enraged Irish citizens as he does so, but he is not the same type of writer as Gavin, nor would he claim to be. It’s like bemoaning the fact that South Park has more viewers than the South Bank Show.

(As a brief aside, the article says that the fact that many of Gavin’s posts attract no comments “indicates little interest”, though it does admit that his posting of all of John O’Donoghue’s expense claims were read by people who then helped escalate the whole matter. The fact that posts don’t attract comments doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t being read. Mulley’s own posts, for example, attract very few comments, but that certainly doesn’t mean we bloggers don’t read them. And Twenty himself often provides links to posts written by Gavin).

On Twenty being more popular than Gavin (sorry, Gavin, I’m going to stop saying stuff like that now) the article asks “Isn’t that typical, and disheartening for those who hoped the internet might be a forum for higher minds?” Oh, for God’s sake. Playboy massively outsells the Economist every month. Isn’t that typical, and disheartening for those who hoped that the periodical might be a forum for higher minds? 

The Playboy/Economist comparison is probably at the heart of this issue. The magazine world has publications from Bass Angler’s Guide to Flying Saucer Review. No one would write an article suggesting these have a common aim, or are of comparable value. Yet article after article says that the blogging world wants this, or has failed at that. It’s meaningless.

My blog will not change the world, nor have I ever expected it to. I like writing, though, and I like writing stuff that I hope is funny. I also like to sometimes use my blog to articulate and therefore ease some of the health and mental problems which have dogged me over the last couple of years. I don’t have a large readership, but you are frequent and loyal readers who I’ve come to regard as friends. You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t engaging and interesting, so the fact that you are makes me very, very proud. I don’t crave recognition, but I do crave the feeling that I’m doing something well, and I get it from all of you.

And there are many other blogs, some of which belong to all of you, some of which belong to people who’ve never heard of me, and many of which don’t even know I read them (I’m not a great commenter), which I go to every day.

And that’s the saddest part of this article. In the concluding paragraph, the author states: ”While some are entertaining, not one continually demands our attention. No Irish blog is important enough to read every day.”

Ignore the arrogance behind the dismissal of others as unimportant. That sentence is written by a journalist who believes that all that matters is the cocoon-like world of politics and current affairs, whereas the blogs I read entertain me, share my concerns, make me laugh. Some have fabulous writing, most have real warmth. All of them have an overriding sense of humanity.

These bloggers make my life more enjoyable. I don’t think that’s unimportant.

Chart Wars

Two posts ago I mentioned that I was number seven in a Google search for “wombat sphincter”.

As Laughykate then pointed out, that post went straight into the chart at Number 3, but later in the day KickOuttheJams reported it had dropped to Number 4.

Did you see what demoted it though?

I was overtaken by WordPress’s Category Listing for “wombat sphincter”, even though the only actual post in it was mine. I feel like a burglar who’s just robbed his own house by mistake.

Their title, though, means they deserve to be ahead of me. “Wombat Sphincter – Blogs, Pictures and More on WordPress”.

Neither Laughykate nor I ever promised pictures of a wombat’s sphincter. And, since I presume they’re not readily available on Getty Images, I can think of only one way of obtaining such pictures, and believe me that won’t be happening any time soon. My digital camera’s not especially valuable, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning to stick it up a marsupial’s rectum.

And… “Blogs, Pictures and More”? What could “More” possibly mean?

Once when I was at school we had to write an essay about any topic at all. Since I was an impish fellow a smart-arsed git I decided it would be funny to write about “the full-stop at the end of this essay”, since every time I started a new sentence I was writing about a different full-stop to the one I’d been writing about in the sentence before. This gave me the chance to spout existentialist crap about the impermanence of all things, and about how unreal reality is in reality (aren’t you glad I didn’t have a blog back then?).

As if the teenage me doesn’t sound annoying enough I then ended the essay with something like “and isn’t it ironic that by ending this essay with a question I’ve effectively rendered the whole thing meaningless?”. It’s a tribute to my English teacher’s tolerance that I’m not wearing the essay-book internally to this day.

Anyway, the reason I’m dragging up this embarrassing memory from the past is that I’m doing something very similar here. Once I post this God knows what Google’s list will look like.

Back last Christmas I accidently produced a “Googleblatt”, a phrase that gives the search result “1-1 of 1 results”. Just by writing about it I made it cease to exist, of course, and I feel that I’m in the same time-warp, Doctor Who-ish, mind-bending area now.

I think I’d better end this post, before my brain melts.

The Big Four-Oh (-Oh)

So, my 400th post, and a chance to defend Wikipedia.

People warn you to beware of Wikipedia, telling you that the information on it cannot be trusted (there’s a great Dilbert cartoon where one of the charcters says “I once passed a gallstone so big it became Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration”, and when one of his workmates says “I find that hard to believe” he replies “Give me ten minutes than check Wikipedia”).

I have to say, though, that I’ve just looked up “400″ in it, and this is the opening sentence:

“400 (four hundred) is the natural number following 399 and preceding 401.”

Now that’s accurate. Not very interesting, maybe, but accurate.

I defy Encyclopaedia Britannica to do any better.

(As you’ll have gathered, I’m now reduced to writing posts based on what number they are. Expect a post about Levi 401s tomorrow).

The Hit Charade

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve finally found out where my blog stats are. They list the most viewed posts of today, yesterday and this week.

Obviously the more recent ones feature most each day, though sadly not in numbers that are likely to make me a household name anywhere except in my own house. Every day, though, my post Stuck On 99, written as my 99th post, gets eight to ten hits.

I used to wonder why this was, till I found a new section which lists what phrases people use to get here. Every day a number of people come here after typing in “Agent 99″. Again I wasn’t sure why they’d end up here as opposed to, say the Get Smart movie website. Then it occurred to me. I typed “Agent 99″, not into Google, but into Google Images, and the first picture of Agent 99 brought me to, well, me.

I’m not sure about this, but I think I read somewhere that the more hits something gets, the nearer the front Google will put it, so now that I’m in first place I will stay at the front in an ever-increasing circle of cause and effect.

Laughykate knows how this feels, as Google now recognises her as the world’s leading authority on the wombat sphincter, occupying both first and second place in their listings (I’m delighted to say that I’m seventh, though only because of a post in which I referred to her). One day Mwa will be recognised as the Queen of Gay Porn, and we will all feel proud that we knew her before she became a legend.

You don’t feel so thrilled to have had over 24,000 hits once you realise that a substantial number of the people who come here are only visiting because they wanted to look at pictures of an actress from the 1960’s. One can almost sense their disappointment when they find, not more pictures of Barbara Feldon, but some Irish bloke wittering on about the girls he fancied when he was young (the post does include photos of both Mrs Peel and Purdey from the Avengers, though, so hopefully that’s some consolation to them).

I am quite proud, though, of the fact that if you type “Worth Doing Badly” into Google I’m now top, since there was a time when you had to add the word “Tinman” before I appeared at all.

Anyway, as I say, I discovered the truth behind people’s obsession with my 99th post today. It’s not all that interesting (no change there, I hear you say) and I wouldn’t have bothered to mention it at all, had co-incidence not intervened to give me a reason.

Because, co-incidently, this is my 399th post.

I’ve looked up Agent 399. You get nothing.

New Kid in Town

One of  the thousands hundreds couple of people who comment here, Sas, has started his own blog.

The story of my blog and Sas, or KOTJ as I will now have to call him, is proof that the world is a very small place indeed. We played cricket together years ago, but he was reading this blog and commenting without either of us knowing that we know each other until I wrote the post about having to speak at the cricket club dinner.

Anyway, after he wrote more and better Nursery Rhymes than I did in my post last week, I suggested that he start his own. So he has (I feel like I’m its Dad, think I’ll buy some cigars).

His first post is about John O’Donoghue’s resignation. Have a read & see what you think.

Worth Doing Bard-ly

In Laughykate’s post last Friday she mentions that her brother originally set up her blog as a platform to sell her book (which we all keenly await).

She is not the first author to write a blog while waiting to be discovered. It is a little known fact that Shakespeare himself had a blog, writing under the name of Bardman.

See what you think.

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March 15th

My publisher rejects my plan for a play about  a pair of star-crossed lovers, since it hath an unhappy ending. He sayeth that I know nothing of how chick-lit works.

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March 16th

One of the regular routines which takes place in our household is Shouting At Mrs Bard’s Handbag.

Whenever Mrs Bard has to go out anywhere there is a frantic search for her handbag. If she is unsuccessful the Bardkids and I all stand together and shout “Handbag!”.

It never works.

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March 17th

I have a new idea for a play, concerning a merchant in Venice (I am hoping to get a grant to go there for research purposes) who borrows money from a Jewish moneylender, who demandeth a pound of flesh in return.

“Christ, don’t slag the Jews,” sayeth my publisher, “hast thou not heard of Tommy Tiernan?”

“Er, no,” I reply.

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March 18th

The Government sucketh.

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March 19th

I hast received a comment!

How blogging worketh is that each of us is assigned a wooden pole in the town square, and each day one pins one’s latest article up on one’s pole (or post, which is from whence the name cometh).

And this morning I had a reply pinned under yesterday’s post.

It is from someone called Anon, and it sayeth that I am a wanquer.

I know not what this word means, so later in my local (The Hopping Leper) I asked my friend Chaucer “wouldst thou say that I am a wanquer?” He laughed so hard that ale shot down his nostrils.

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March 20th

My publisher hath suggested that I try comedy. I send him a draft of a play set on Midsummer Night, with a cast of fairies and elves. He complaineth that there art no jokes in it, and suggesteth that I introduce three new characters – an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, all co-incidentally named Patrick.

I tell him that he knows nothing of character development, and he telleth me that I know not my arse from my elbow.

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March 21st

I am becoming concerned about how many brackets I use in my writing (I hast read that they are the sign of a teeny, teeny mind).

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March 22nd

Bardson1 hath started in school, where he will learn up to seventeen of the letters of the alphabet, how to count to ten without the use of fingers and toes, and how to hit a spitoon from 25 paces.

On his first day there, he hath joined the Archery Club.

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March 23rd

The Elizabethan Blog Awards took place this evening. Walter Raleigh, writing as Twentypipes, took most of the awards. I think his popularity is due to the fact that he calls everyone a Count.

The award for Best Blog by a Buxom Irish Wench went to Lady Jo DeMamma, the Duchess of Brae.

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March 24th

A curious development.

I had been working on a new comedy, wherein the Prince of Denmark lives in a Haunted Castle with his mum and is visited by the ghost of his father (with hilarious results). Last night, however, depressed by my failure at the awards and my continuing lack of success as a writer, I re-wrote much of it, having the Prince’s uncle as a murderer and finishing it with a bloodbath in which absolutely everyone dies.

To my astonishment, my publisher is delighted by the new version. He says that audiences will lap it up, and that I am on my way to stardom.

He says it hath the Tarantino factor.

I Ate’nt Dead

Those of you who read Terry Pratchett (and those of you don’t, should) will be familiar with the above phrase.

One of the witches in the books, Granny Weatherwax, occasionally goes “borrowing”, i.e., letting her mind into the mind of another creature, such as an eagle, so she can share its experiences. While she is doing this she is, by all appearances, dead, so has taking to placing a card saying “I Ate’nt Dead” on her chest as she lies there so that she doesn’t wake up in a coffin.

I feel a bit like that at the moment, since I just can’t think of anything to post about. Last week I was reduced to posting a piece about my cutlery. While we’re waiting for the emergency budget there doesn’t seem any point in writing about the economy. There are only so many ways I can say “Cut the crap and the ludicrous benefits to yourselves, and show some guts with dealing with the bankers & developers, and you’ll find us all much more willing to accept sacrifices ourselves.” This should be so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be said, but I have an awful feeling that they’re still not getting it. Still, I’m continuing to hope, at last, for some leadership.

So what else is there? The rugby? Yes, it was wonderful, with a finale that you couldn’t possibly make up, but other, far better, writers that me will commerate the event. ( I will say, though, that while Ronan O’Gara’s last gasp drop goal was desperately important, I’m not sure it was all that impressive. He put the ball high over the bar from 14 yards out, standing untackled in front of the goal. Those of us who follow Man U watched Andy Cole spend a decade doing that).

The Tinkids are obstinately refusing to do anything cute, endearing or just plain daft at present, so are a poor source of material. The office is very quiet since the redundancies, and so many of my friends are gone.

So I’ve missed quite a few days of posting recently. Which is not a problem, of course, but it did make me think of something. Recently Laughykate wrote this post about looking up symptoms on the Internet and deciding she had a brian aneurism. It was very funny, and also so true (you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I looked seriously at when I had the blackouts). Rather alarmingly, though, she then didn’t post anything for three days.

As time goes on in the blogiverse, you get to meet virtually people who become virtual friends. But you don’t even know their real names (unless they out themselves and their um, activities in a national newspaper), we don’t know where they live. How would we know if anything actually happened to one of them one day?

Holemaster is getting test results any day now. Best of luck with them, and make sure you post something afterwards. Even if it’s just “pudgy”.