In which the story pauses a little
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 09/Sep/2010 12:12, 34 days ago
So, blogging is a weird experience. I don't have quite the aloof control of Renaissance authors who can cast their work off from themselves with a 'go little mine boke upon the waters' and think no more about it. I don't really like the idea of throwing my thoughts and worries and joys into the ether and letting everyone else pore over them - but then I don't really like the idea of writing some kind of newsletter blankly reporting what happens in the world around me either. Both seem wildly narcissistic, of course, but that's the deal I think. And I particularly don't like not knowing or understanding who is reading things and why they're reading them. It makes me worry about 'ideal readers' and 'ideal writers' and what the former does to me and what the latter does to you. That's what reading too much Umberto Eco does to you.And I hope no-one keeps reading this wretched thing out of a sense of duty. Don't, please: I won't mind remotely if you don't know what I've been doing for two years when I finally come home. I've got no idea what most of you are up to during this freakish one-sided conversation we're having. And you can rest almost completely assured that I will never read anyone else's blogs, whatever you're doing (unless it's, like, some totally awesome research project like the one at the moment into the Isle of Lewis chessmen) because I'm far too lazy and looking at computer screens makes me grumpy and want gin.And all of that has been worrying at me for quite some time now, to the extent that I deleted this whole thing a week or so ago but (of course) nothing is ever actually deleted on the internet. Zuckerburg has taught us well. And I keep coming back to some of lovely George Eliot's wisdom: 'we have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them.' So, with that in mind, (and Lady MacB's advice, of course, to 'consider it not so deeply'), I've decided not to worry about it anymore (not that it's as easy as that, as Harry P finds out throughout his final adventure: I'll at least keep my existential concerns entirely in my own head now and not inflict them on the unknowing starry blanknesses of cyberspace).So there we go. The deal is, I'll be gibbering in this space about me and my life and you can read it if you want to. And I won't think too much about why you're bothering to do so, and what gives me the right to spawn forth yet more verbiage in a world already overcome by Errour's hideous brood, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.(That title isn't some really weird Hausa phrase borrowed from the Victorians, but from the brilliant Adam Bede. Read it! It's better than this.)