Blogging, Me and the Blogosphere

Its strange, how change can come upon you.

Ive been running this modest blog for nearly two years now, and have never been so sloppy about lack of posting before. Fatkid seems to be having the same issues, allbeit for perhaps different reasons. Just looking at the blogroll to see who's updated will tell you the same story. Everyone's getting a tad bored, methinks.
Is it the fact that since Blogger was sold to Google, there's been a concerted effort to attract as many users as possible, at the expense of the service, and the content? When I began [around October 2003], the majority of blogs were either intellectual, informative or weird.[Or, mmmm, shall we say, Adult]. Now every mothers son and daughter is waxing lyrical over romance, spots, homework or teenage angst.
Im not sying these young whipper-snappers shouldn't rant about anything they want, but it's the sheer numbers game that we're dealing with here. Teens in jeans outnumber serious grown up bloggers, or so it appears.

Blogger itself has strained under the pressure of sweaty hands reaching for the blogosphere, and often has not been able to cope at all. This has been a major factor in many of us 'grown-ups' getting sick and tired of making the effort to post, when so many technical issues have screwed up countless posts, and in the end we give up, as we havn't the time to battle with the bloody thing.

Oh well, nothing lasts forever.


Me? Ive been putting most of my blogging interests towards understanding the video blog idea, and Im almost ready to start posting regularly, hopefully using quicktime progressive downloads, so everyone can see the vid. Only I've no intention of hosting it at Blogger. Ill probably use Wordpress, and use my own server, or similar. That way, I know if I can rely on the machines to do their job.

Leave comments if you have stuf to say on this. I agree with fatkid when he says he feels as if blogging has seen its zenith. Here's to the new world of vlogging, which is probably too technical for the moshers [?], thereby leaving the rest of us in peace, at least for a while.

check out the freevlog page that Michael Verdi and Ryanne Hodson have put together, its pretty good to start here for vlogging.

'Mad Dog' George Galloway

Yanks should be on the lookout for a wild Scots Git known by the name 'Galloway' who is stalking the corridor's of power as we speak [read]. This man gives great entertainment, he is not unlike Liam Gallagher, as in, ignorant, loud and known for coming out with hysterical ranting and half truths. He's always got someone in his sights, has our George, and of course, while he dishes out his uncontrolled criticisms and opinions, he regards himself as above the rest of us, completely without blame, no blemish on his conscience.

He is a fool of course. Not only has he succeeded at ridding the East End of one of its best MPs for years, he did it by foul means [encouraging the predominently Muslim electorate there with statements like 'don't vote for her, she's jewish' [and black to boot].

Of course he denies this, and thinks that is an adequate explanation of events in that burrough, when his expletive ridden spoutings about the Iraq conflict are ill informed, ignorant self righteous rantings of a [probably] guilty man. Anyone who has seen the footage of him with Saddam will know what a complete t*sser he really is.

Anyway, I encourage anyone who can watch the senate hearings to get stuck in and get ready for a good belly laugh. Somehow, for all his blustering, I don't think he knows quite what he's up against. We wait and see.

Football versus Politics

It would be great if all the Premier League teams had a vote off at the end of the season to decide who stayed up, and the politicians had a play off tournament to decide a new Government at the end of their term.....that way, we'd all have a lot more entertainment, feel more involved, and know it was all a game.
[I think more people have had the Champion's League on their minds, now that Liverpool are through to the final....]

Labour have survived, though not in my constituency. We got a Tory back in. Bummer.

The one person I feel has great intellect in the Government is 'Blind' David Blunkett....he's got what it takes. Perhaps he'll end up being the next PM? Now that would be a first.

Good for Blair too, he stuffed 'em good. I don't agree with all he says, but I admire the glint in his eye.

Want the details?
Labour Bloggers
Tory Bloggers
Sandra Howard's Campaign Diary [wife of Michael Howard]
Liberal Democrat Bloggers

The Day of Reckoning

So tommorrow we go to the polls to elect the government of the UK.

To talk to most people, you'd think the election was an annoying TV reality show that they've all seen before. No one is taking any notice, elections are so last year.

No one wants to engage in any serious debate of the real issues, preferring a weak kneed desire to 'protest' at something or other that they usually haven't really thought through at all. Usually it's the 'war', and whether it was 'legal'. Sometimes it's the mess in the health system, or the convenient political hobby horse of education. But no one THINKS THINGS THROUGH. We can't be bothered.

In reality of course, things are always much more complicated. But we all want to leave someone else to think about such dull details, we're too busy with our important lives to get involved. Essentially I'm the same, I think everyone in 'Old Europe' is the same - we take our democracy completely for granted.

The signs are there, clear to see: falling voting figures, lazy methods of registration, slack delivery of polling cards, total lack of visible signs of candidates in the streets, low level of leaflet posting, hardly any handbills in people's windows, I could go on.

I live in a marginal seat, so I was bracing myself for all sorts of doorstepping and leaflet bombardment, but I got hardly any at all. I only saw one lot of politico's in the street [Tories], and a brief sighting of Ken Livingstone [London Mayor, Labour], whom I stood next to while I got some cash out of the auto-teller. No one spoke to me, even though I consider myself very approachable. No one wanted to speak to me, or anyone else for that matter. They [the politico's] were all sealed off from reality, in their own little bubble, a private club that we weren't part of.

I have a very bad feeling about the future. Politicians by nature are anal dull types most suited to civil service employment and lots of rules. We all know that, and I think that's part of the problem. Great intellects in politics are unusual to say the least, and with so little charisma or idealism on offer, wow, you'd almost think you were watching a pop chart show. Lifeless turgid predictability.

We need some new leaders. And if the vacuum that exists isn't filled with real brilliance, it will be filled by fanaticism and religion - it's already happening in the States, Holland, Denmark, Germany, France and elsewhere.

Of course British cynicism acts as a protector in a way, though God help us if apathy let's in the Tories, then we'll remember the good old days of Labour Government.

Labour ain't perfect, but they're the best we got buddy.