Worth Doing Badly

My first baby steps

I started working back in a time before computers, when spam was a type of pressed meat, your address was where you lived and an URL was a cockney throwing up. As a result when blogging started I paid it absolutely no heed – as the ultimate luddite it was something I’d never get the hang of.

I’ve being reading other people’s blogs for a while now, starting with Twenty Major, who I read about after he won something or other (the Aga Khan Cup, I think it was). I’d look up his blog every couple of days, and after a while I took to looking at the comments as well. Here I met the extended family that I call the Majorettes – a disparate group who meet every day to swear at each other and try to outdo both Twenty and each other at humorous remarks. Here I have made the acquaintance (at least virtually) of people such as Monkey Balls, itchybollix, Puerlie Pish, Jothemama, SAm Crea, maggot and fatmammycat. Many of these also have blogs, and I began to read these as well.

Eventually I made a comment on Twenty’s blog – something lick-arsey about his book, I think. Emboldened by the fact that nobody told me to fuck off, I had another go a few days later, and then one day got sucked into one of the many arguments that rage on the site, where I forgot about trying to look witty & simply let go with what I felt. I have now been told to fuck off many times, and am starting to feel like I belong.

However, in some ways I was being a bit of a fraud, hiding myself away more than even the others with their pseudonyms. Whenever one of the them made a comment that I felt strongly about, I could look at their site to see what sort of genius/gobshite (depending on the comment) would come out with something like that. I was totally hidden from them – my age, where I’m from, and other important stuff like what team I support, how I’ll vote on Lisbon, and who I think would win a fight between the Mutant Turtles and the Power Rangers.

So I’ve decided to have a go, and this is my first effort. The title is from G. K. Chesteron. The saying “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well” has been around for donkeys, but it was Chesterton who said “anything worth doing, is worth doing badly”. In other words, if you really think something should be done, don’t shy away from doing it just because you think you can’t do it perfectly.

It’s kind-of the way I’ve lived my life.