First Musings

Always a bit tricky as to where to start these things, getting the ball rolling as it were.
I don't want to drift into meaningless domestic trivia like hassles with my boiler or new needles for my decks - nor do I presume to be a weighty commentator on matters of state.

But there is a great deal that intrigues me about the blogsphere.....

Firstly - there is a real libertarian-free-speech-access-to-democracy kind of feel to it still. Remember the days of the really early internet - how we all felt part of a global online community as yet untarnished by mammon? (I'm not saying that the commercialisation of the internet was a bad thing...I'm just saying it changed it) The fact that there are bloggers in countries with desperately repressive regimes able to access the right to free speech (now matter how odious that speech may be) I think gives me a good reason for once to be a part of this phenomenon. I'm not saying it is a movement in an 'Alice's restaurant burn your draft card kinda movement' (showing me age there chaps) but it is I think on the whole a good thing. Is it a killer application? (E.G: Email or EBay? Time shall judge).

Secondly - and I think it is a contributing factor to the first point in ways too numerous to expound - this is an anonymous media - in the way that much of the internet is. This creates a social reaction that I think is unique to the Interweb. Much of what is odd / unique about how a lot of people communicate via the interweb is that this anonymity allows them to either create false persona or characters (Bad) or - more intriguingly - to allow facets of the views / beliefs / personality to be reflected without fear nor favour of ridicule of their peers, colleagues or society in general. In interwebland you can be who want to be and say what you want to say. Now, provided you do that with the unwritten rules of interweb land - ie: maximum respect for other's privacy, rights, freedom of speech and moreover - their right to be who they are without prejudice and who you are is not judged by a free society to require removal or restraint in free society - then you have the right for you and your views to be respected.

I have been an interweb user for a while, and this is a recurring theme. And one that is positive, and hopefully I will explore as the weeks wear on.

Back to why I am here.

I thought it would be good to participate and I reckon I have something to say. Plus a good 'friend' said I was funny and should do it. I wanted a snog off her, so I wasn't going to argue.

So - to home, and to see where my muse shall take me...... Intelligent erudition and sparking wit... or the sordid ravings of one mired in hades. Let's see what a half decent bottle of burgundy, plenty of fine cheese and exposure to more exotic corners of my imagination does for the old cogs.