Thursday, 3rd August, 2006

Booze Up

Preston tries to ban drinkers from standing at the bar — I should warn my colleagues, if this spills over to Leeds there'll be mass hysteria (via we make money not art)

My hygiene hell

"This preoccupation with cleanliness has turned Britain's markets into soulless, sad places that clamp shut my wallet and turn my taste buds to mush." — (Comment is free)

Well Bugger Me

photo

I really wasn't expecting this to ever materialise

Damm. Spotted It's actually a huge cheque.

Free From Author

Arse. I linked to that Comment Is Free piece above to illustrate a point, without reading it through properly and spotting that it is, perhaps, not the best example of something that annoys me, to choose.

I really like The Guardian's multiblog. I don't read anything on it (I must confess), but I sit here and drool at how gorgeous it looks. I've been wondering for a while just what it is about it (and some other blogs come to think of it) that stops me from immersing myself in it ... and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the reason is that it seems pointless.

I should clarify that a little, perhaps.

(But first, I just want to say that that is probably the worst title for a post that I've ever made)

It's not that the articles are pointless, it's that the form in which they're, um, diseminated is. There seems — to me at least — to be no conceptual difference between a lot of the articles being published in this "commentable" form, than being slapped into a Berliner in [insert The Guardian's typeface here when you can be arsed to look it up] and left to the mercy of the letters page.

Because in a large portion of the articles — specifically the ones that garnish the most attention/comments/slagging matches — the author never follows up.

Which makes me wonder if the whole blogging 'phenomenon' has missed a bit of a trick — instead of opening up new ground in debate and communication and social interaction, it's being adopted into the mainstream as Just Another Content Management System.

I'm also wondering if it does exactly the opposite of what it's intended to do — that instead of demonstrating a more open and (urgh) democratic (I want to use a different word there) engagement with readers/communities, it actually reinforces existing barriers and heirarchies.

Maybe Comment Is Free is a bad example to use here Maybe I should pick the post from a different blog that sparked this in my head and sent me scurrying to look for examples¹ at Farringdon Road's finest...

The Tao of Linden

(Yes, I know, it's a Second Life thing I know 98% of my readers groan and switch off whenever I bring that up as a topic — but this isn't an SL thing, it's about the structure of the page)

OK: Big, exciting CEO of a big, exciting company uses a blog as a way of getting some information across to his customers. But instead of it being a lovely and open way of addressing a debate that's going on within the dark recesses of a forum, and bringing it out into the open, all that happens is a few of these customers start a discussion that's tacked onto it.

I'm trying to think of an analogy — it's kinda like someone walking into a press announcement thingy, making a statement, then as questions are thrown open to the floor they stand up, walk away, and totally ignore any post-discussion.

Which (to me) instead of making things look more 'open', makes them look more 'aloof'.

¹ Admittedly, I didn't look hard enough, did I?

By your lights I don't think it is — there's precious little social interaction or engagement or openness.

But, of course, who the hell am I to judge what is or isn't a blog? For a start, I don't think there's still any clear, unified position on what a blog is, and also, I've never really been one to insist that this thing of mine is a blog.

But I don't really think that's what's important — I'm just lamenting the Blog As Panacea™ attitude that seems to exist in some quarters. The "if we have a blog then everything will be good" approach to publishing.

I think that there's almost a belief that adding a bit of technology to something acts as a cure-all — which ignores the most important thing about blogs (to me) — the people.

Pop Quiz!

Not actually one with pop in it (although it nearly did), but you get the idea. For some reason last night, before I went to bed passed out with the light on, I had an idea to try and sum up some of the blogs I link to via the International Language Of Creative Commons Licensed Flickr Photos™

Were I the sort who could be arsed, I'd make this into a clickable thingy with forms and radio buttons and submit buttons and the like, but I'm not¹.

I just thought it would be rather fun to see if anyone could work out who these pictures are representative² of:

	(a) Troubled Diva (b) Jon Hicks (c) Fairly Odd
	(a) Karol Cross (b) Becky Envérité (c) Tom Coates
	(a) Joanna Nicholls (b) Loz Flowers (c) Torley Linden
	(a) Miss K (b) Looby (c) Kris Jenkins

¹ You know, one of these days I must do something properly like that. I've got a little thing that me, Becky , and K collaborated on a while back that I've been meaning to post for ages

² "representative" in my head. You may disagree with me. But that's just tough.

I've seen you, late at night, supping when you think no-one is looking. It is your secret shame

Oh cheers — I've just given myself RSI trying to do that finger-twiddly thing

You know, it's just occured to me that in order for a quiz like this to work, you guys actually have to read each others blogs. Do yous do that? Or am I (as I suspect) the centre of the universe and the total focal point of all your attentions?

you regard as cheesy, or who's congested

Ah, I should maybe point out that it's more literal than that — as in they're things those people are fond of — rather than metaphors. My brain is a million miles away from being cryptic at the moment.

And yes, the Real Ale one is Looby