Back in a Bit

A title that amuses the author in at least three different ways simply isn’t enough: convention dictates that a weblog should have a subtitle. A number of publishing applications, notably WordPress, have functionality to allow, even encourage, the use of a subtitle. Prospective authors would do well to note the default subtitle, “Just another WordPress weblog“, with foreboding: for never a truer statement will likely fill this line.

Here, the use of a subtitle has been played down but, when one was required, I went with “a sporadic weblog from the United Kingdom about culture and technology”. You’ll agree that this, while basically accurate, is about as vague as its possible to be on subject matter. It does nothing to capture what the author regularly publishes nor, more importantly, what the visitors come to read.

Of late, I’ve been writing at length about my faulty brain; not exactly a cultural nor technological subject. Quite a fair few people came to read about it too, mainly because they’d been pointed to it by someone else. But what about the casual visitor? The ones that come here following a search on Google and the like? As it turns out, they care very little for my faulty brain. They also don’t care much for culture and technology. By far the most popular search term is “things to do on a train”, which guides them to a highly facetious post I wrote more than seven years ago.

Back then, it wasn’t so easy to post to your weblog on the move, but I’d developed a way involving my own CMS, a Palm Pilot (with sexy folding keyboard) and a mobile phone that allowed me to recover some of the time I was spending on trains (over two hours a day). All that was left to do was think of something to write about. As I looked up and down the carriage, I realised that inspiration was sitting all around me: a rush-hour train out of London packed to the rafters with irritating people. This was a time long before publishing weblog posts as lists was commonplace - I simply observed annoying things going on around me, arranged them in order of irritation caused.

It has occurred to me, however, that those arriving at this post via Google are going to be disappointed by what they find. Whereas they turned up looking for something to fill a tedious journey, what they find is me whinging about how bloody awful people are. So, let’s leave culture, technology and faulty brains to one side for a moment, and give the masses what they want. Following a bit of research, may I present (slightly) more appropriate lists of suggestions of things to do on a train.

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So. You resolve never to write publicly about a handful of things. Work could be one such thing, for example, because much of what you do is confidential. Your personal life could be another; some things aren’t meant to be shared with a wider audience. And so the list goes on. You could even make a standing joke of the long breaks between writing anything at all.

After a while, however, the list of things you don’t want to write about is longer than everything you’ve ever written. If you rule out the broad topics of work and personal life (which could be defined as everything not covered by work), what does that leave? Sleep patterns? And those extended breaks are all very well, but once you lose momentum it’s bloody hard to get going again.

So. You resolve never to write publicly about a handful of things, but it’s a mistake to cast that net too wide. As with so many things in modern life, the best approach is to CTFO.

We should expect, even insist upon, a little less order and a little more chaos.

I’m not organised enough to collect the phone numbers of beautiful women. If I’m honest, I’m not even organised enough to collect anyone’s phone numbers, or meet women of any description.
I do, however, have a little black book. Inside, its 192 plain pages are filling up with various scruffy notes that I have made in black fountain pen. Many of the pages have lists, bearably readable by anyone other than the author, of topics for posts to be made here.

My friends and colleagues like stealing the book. Maybe they want to know what’s going on in my head. Many say what they find looks like the scrawlings of a madman.

All the same, I have a little black book full of notes and, now I’ve done this, I feel I can begin on some of those.

All the new stuff is here.

The best of the old stuff (which, rather distressingly, made up about half a percent) is here too.

The sporadic posting and sometimes lengthy breaks between, while not particularly deliberate, is almost celebrated (hence the name).

Super. Carry on.

People keep asking, so here is my wishlist. I remember the days when you could just search for “Mo” and there I was. The internet is on a mission to make me feel like an old fart.

In spite of the bugs, I may as well throw this thing open. Hopefully will be more Frasier than Joey. Welcome.

Since its return, I’ve come to notice that this site (or rather, the selection of posts I’ve made of late) has been described in more than one place as “intelligent”. I find this quite interesting. I think what is actually meant is something more like “considered”, but even so it has got me thinking about intelligence and what it means.

Conventional wisdom on writing for the web tells us to use simple language, short straight-forward sentence structures and brief paragraphs. This is because we are fundamentally lazy readers, particularly when staring at a screen. The same wisdom also instructs us to place black text on white pages, for the same reason. I used to subscribe to these points of view, but as time has worn on I’ve drifted away from them.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to organise weblog posts, and I think I may have something.

In the search for workable ways to organise chunks of content on a weblog, I looked at how I organise things in the real world, to see if there was any existing system that could be adapted. I turned to my CD collection, which sits in racks that cover one wall of our flat. The CDs are organised alphabetically by artist, starting at the top of the far left column. There are several things that can be observed about the system I employ: firstly that the alphabetical sorting is quite informal—artists are grouped by the first letter of their name, but I’m casual about exact alphabetic sorting. I don’t worry about Radiohead coming before REM or Kraftwerk before Lenny Kravitz. Relatively simple name-grouping is sufficient for me to find what I’m looking for, without increasing the overhead of returning the CDs to the wall or adding new purchases. Secondly, there are spaces in the racks between each alphabetic group, again to allow me to add new CDs without having to reorganise the entire collection. Thirdly, I notice that, within the alphabetic groups, I tend to place albums by the same artist together and, in some cases, organise these albums in order of release.

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SEND IN THE NUNS!

This is the first time ever that there has been a live update at the weekend. Of course, the entries have always been written, but never before have they been made live before the following Monday. So now for the fist time you can get your fix seven days of the week instead of just five—you lucky punters.