er...

The big gap at the bottom of the previous entry I suspect is the place where my 'pastings' are being put though for some reason they are being made invisible when I do it. 

Argh!

I must admit I'm finding this a bit frustrating.  I'm not quite sure how to navigate around different pages, and I end up tied in knots, clicking on the back button to find something familiar. I'll keep trying, but there is so much crap out there, and I find it so time consuming, and awkward, that at times I'm losing motivation.  They don't yet do Chrome for Mac, which doesn't help.

I'm not yet convinced that I need all this information beamed in my direction through RSS.  Do people actually sift through and read this stuff?  (I must admit I'm one of those people who buys the newspaper and doesn't actually read it).  I find the internet really useful for communicating with friends, and I use it to get specific information about particular things that interest me, and for buying books, and stuff, but I can't see yet what potential it has for publishing and sustaining 'information delivery' (as staff at the Bodleian are taught to say), (I can't bear letting go of my work for hard copy publication, for anxieties about quality, let alone the thought of doing it instantly for the whole world to see), and I think it would be so labour intensive trying to channel and quality control information for students, that I'm a bit dispirited and overwhelmed by it all.  I can think of maybe a handful of sites that are of the right quality and integrity to make use of, and that's it really. e.g. (and here I've tried to cut and paste web addresses and it just won't do it and its immensely frustrating failing to do such a basic thing and not knowing what I'm doing wrong).

Some people, honestly, are posting and publishing stuff of such unremittingly narcissistic mediocrity and guffness, simply because the technology allows them to do so.  How can that be progress?  I'm all for freedom and democracy but I wonder whether knowledge is harder earned than that, and am an unrepentent elitist when it comes to respecting people's excellence whether it be musicianship, arts and craft, skilled labour, or academic research.

Sorry for being such a party pooper.

 

     

First Tentative Steps

Is this live and universally available?  Is there no nursery slope for baby bloggers?  A little ball pool training area, to practice in, and build up confidence?

I have to say, I'm really not quite sure what the point of blogging is unless you are sending a message to the world from (a) the Afghan mountains, (with a BT Wireless Broadband that conveniently covers the whole of the cave complex, and allows you to download US movies on your 50 inch plasma telly); (b) a Chinese labour camp wondering if any of what you post makes it out into the world, or rather if someone is going to find out that you've still got your Blackberry which you're hiding up your arse during the day time when they get you to break stones, in the torrential rain and/or punishing sun, or (c) your posting as a journalist in North Korea/ Iran/ Zimbabwe/ Myanmar/ Barrow In Furness.

My automatic prejudice, that I hope to have dashed to pieces, is that blogging is just one more narcissistic modern fad that encourages people to publish their mindlessly tedious, mediocre musings on dreary, inane and exhaustingly ephemeral tawdry celeb-this, x-factor-that CRAP that they mistakenly - nay delusionally - take to be philosophically profound, kooky, cute, quirky, and/or just a bit sexy, as though anyone gived a flying f**k what they thought.

Er... and rest.