I’m A Party

I know I’ve said this blog is changing and going off in a new direction. It is – but not quite yet. So, in the meantime I have once more succumbed to posting a comment on a newspaper site article – this time, though, it is The Daily Telegraph, and an article on how political parties should be funded.

This is my comment:

It is quite simple. All parties should only be funded by membership fees, with the only legal stipulation being that the annual fee be the same for all members so that the millionaire pays exactly the same as the manual worker, or whatever.

This means that all parties must broaden their appeal and become mass movement parties once again (and, therefore have some real rather than assumed democratic legitimacy). It also has the advantage that any party that cannot fund itself through getting enough members will go out of business, and if political parties are actually necessary (and this is debatable), new ones will arise to fill the void.

The only problem with my scheme is that the present bunch of incumbents - on all sides of the house and in all current parties - will never dare risk discovering how unpopular they really are.

***

Obviously, it is not quite as simple as that* – which is one of the reasons why I am far from gruntled with the average blog-type posting - which often come out as much less than a newspaper-length article. As I also increasingly find purportedly serious newspaper articles disappointingly bland and superficial these days, it has become a state of affairs that leads more to frustration rather than elucidation.

This is why I want to move to less frequent, but longer, essays (blessays even). I want to do this even though I know the longer a piece is on a computer screen (a blog especially) the less likely it is to be read. However, that is in itself the subject for another – hopefully quite long – essay. For now, though, this will do.

*Just by way of example, there are things like election costs and party administration, which the politicians would claim need a great deal of expenditure. But, I’m not sure how true this is, or would be for a truly mass-appeal party.

[BTW I’m a Party – see here (track 3)]

This Silent Blog (Continued)

(Continued from here – sort of)

I think I have decided what this blog is going to be for from now on. It is an idea I’ve been toying with for quite a while, in fact it was one of the ideas that I wanted to try when I began this whole blogging business back with Stuff and Nonsense (now long deleted) a few years ago now.

However, it seems that one rather intellectually cuddly person (amongst no doubt several others I have not come across) has already beaten me to it, coining the rather lovely term Blessay (blog essay) in the process.

In short this is what I want to do from now on, longish (by the standards of the average blog post anyway) essay-type pieces on subjects as and when they occur to me, and not particularly tied to anything in the news or in the MSM at the time.

Of course, this will mean that new posts will be rather haphazard, appearing whenever I have completed them, rather than to any fixed schedule. Therefore, in which case, if you are interested, then the RSS feed will be your friend.

I am already well into the first of these new style posts, so it could be along any time soon (or, rather, soonish).

See you then.

Recent Publications (to 26/11/2007)

[The previous Recent Publications Post.]

I had hoped to do this update more often, but circumstances have not been too good, of late.

However, here is everything published since March 2007.

• Poem: A Sign - Cauldron Issue 316 Spring/Summer 2007
• Poem: She Is - ABCTales magazine No. 5 October 2007

My recent ABCTales publications are:

• Poem: Beachcombing - Submitted on April 16, 2007
• Poem: A Slight Delay - Submitted on April 23, 2007 *cherrypicked*
• Poem: Sea Horses - Submitted on April 30, 2007
• Poem: A Ghost Song - Submitted on May 7, 2007
• Poem: Snow Storm - Submitted on May 14, 2007
• Poem: Sheets - Submitted on May 21, 2007
• Poem: Flying - Submitted on June 4, 2007
• Poem: Kneeling - Submitted on June 11, 2007
• Poem: The Note - Submitted on June 18, 2007 *cherrypicked*
• Short Story: Rain On The Window - Submitted on June 19, 2007
• Poem: Princess - Submitted on June 25, 2007
• Poem: Footsteps - Submitted on July 2, 2007
• Poem: Shoreline - Submitted on July 10, 2007
• Poem: Circumnavigation - Submitted on July 16, 2007
• Poem: Memories Into Touch - Submitted on July 24, 2007
• Poem: She Is - Submitted on July 30, 2007 (see above ABCTales magazine No. 5)
• Poem: Drowning - Submitted on August 6, 2007
• Poem: Our Lives - Submitted on August 13, 2007
• Poem: Dark Shadows - Submitted on August 27, 2007
• Poem: Ambition - Submitted on September 3, 2007
• Poem: Images - Submitted on September 25, 2007 *cherrypicked*
• Poem: Dead Leaves - Submitted on October 29, 2007
• Poem: Bare Rooms - Submitted on November 5, 2007
• Short Story: Socks - Submitted on November 12, 2007 *cherrypicked*
• Poem: Shadow - Submitted on November 19, 2007

*’A cherry-pick, represented by a lovely bunch of cherries, is given by the editors of ABCtales to recognise pieces of writing that they really think that other people should read.’ (from the ABCtales FAQ)

On Why This Blog Has Been Silent For So Long

Boredom with the whole blog ‘concept’, I suppose. Regurgitating half-chewed globs of ‘news’ from the msm and them adding a snide comment or two on to the beginning or end of it has lost its novelty value for me.

However, this (long) piece from The Register – an interview with Adam Curtis touches on many aspects of my disenchantment, not just with blogs, but with what they feed off, too.

At a time when there isn't anything to give you confidence beyond yourself - you live in the "empire of the self" - then it is inevitable that you will seek those like you, because it will give you a sense of collective purpose. It will give you a sense of collective security.

And that's exactly what the internet is about - "If you like this book, others before you have bought these books..." And it works to create those little circles. All those little radio stations which tell you, "If you played this, other people have played this..."

On the internet, you're constantly monitoring other people's choices to see what those people who you think are like you do, and they say, "OK I'll do that to be like that". And what that leads to, again, is Balkanisation.

And it's what advertisers rather like, because it gives them a definition.

Ok, then… well so what?

I would like to use this thing for something far more interesting – at least to me – than just a glorified linking page. I’m not sure what it will be yet, or even if it will be anything at all.

We’ll all just have to wait and see what happens.

In the meantime, I’ll use it to list my recent publications on the web and elsewhere.