[housekeeping] there were reasons

Sorry to regular readers - birthday and sickness impinged but hope to be in operation again by Thursday.

[russia] election looming

Well, we've now been invited to participate in the election of our new president - this little note arrived on the doorstep, saying where we could go to vote and what to do should we be too infirm to go anywhere.

Date - March 2, 2008.

Might mosey on over to the polling station on the day and give you a run down on what I saw. Naturally, at the moment, my Min and all departments are in a tizz getting ready and doing the last few days campaigning, which I've pretty well stayed out of.

I'm seeing him at 13:00 today, I'll ask how it's all going and report back to you later.

You can say what you like but the process in the last two elections [and there's no reason why not in this one] was quite stable and ordered, which in the light of Russian history is a blessing.

I went over to the polling station last time and it was just like a British election, except that names and photos of candidates were up on a huge chart and there were no canvassers outside.

You'd go in and read their blurbs why you should vote for them, you went in and voted in a curtained booth and put the paper into a letter box opening in the ballot box, away from the registration tables.

Security guards stood by the main entrance to the school chatting to each other, bored.

[pornography] or classic art?

Chloe, in Young and Jacksons

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written." [Wilde]

If you accept this premise, then does this also apply to more visible art works such as a poster in an underground station? Is it relevant whether children can see it and indeed must see it if they go on the underground?

Jams O'Donnell raises just this issue on the banning of a nude on the underground. The official line was:

"Millions of people travel on the London Underground each day and they have no choice but to view whatever adverts are posted there.

We have to take account of the full range of travellers and endeavour not to cause offence in the advertising we display," a spokesman said.

London Underground advertising is vetted by a firm called CBS Outdoor, and Venus seems to have fallen foul of the guideline that advertising should not "depict men, women or children in a sexual manner, or display nude or semi-nude figures in an overtly sexual context".

Venus, in the Royal Academy's show on the German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder

What of the famous Chloe, at Young and Jacksons, Melbourne? Technically she would only be viewed by over 18s because she's in a pub.

What of Donatello's David? Does the fact that it is one of the most famous art works ever excuse it for its pudenda?

What of the Venus de Milo? Or in literature, what of Pietro Aretino's lurid works? You'll notice I went coy on linking to his 16 postures.

You can keep your hat on.

What of this post on this blog? Has it overstepped the mark?

What of Life Drawers - are they all "pre-verts"?

Where do we draw the line? Is the line that when it draws attention to the erotic side it's questionable? I'd suggest that none of the works here are erotic but I'd also suggest that the first and last are pretty damned good.

Are we agreed that sexual acts [Aretino] are unacceptable for depiction in a public place? What of suggestion, e.g. a girl between two men in a soft drink ad?

I confess I just don't know.

[essence of life] wallace, gromit and freedom

Time to re-run the almost award-winning post from Tiberius Gracchus on two endearing characters:


Wallace and Gromit are a pair of characters that not many political bloggers post about (shame I hear you cry and indeed such cries are acknowledged), furthermore they are not a pair of characters that even the great Higham has deigned to grace with his type (even greater shame I hear you shout from the back row and its acknowledged) so I'm going to have to take up the pen and say something about how this duo, particularly in their first film, the Grand Day Out- offer a kind of defence of freedom that is very necessary to heed.

Lest you forget, and how could you, Wallace is an inventor with a mind filled with ideas, Gromit his dog is the more practical side of the duo forever shaking his head in disbelief at his master's antics (as shown above, Gromit ends up spattered with paint and used at one point as part of a work bench when Wallace has cut away the other end of the work bench). The story is basically thus- our heroes are in despair, in the midst of a bank holiday sitting with their feet up they feel the need for adventure (well Wallace does, Gromit looks quite happy!) and need a holiday, furthermore a crisis in their affairs has been realised- a crisis that involves the fact that though there is tea, though there are crackers in the house, there is no cheese, not one piece of cheese in the Fridge.

Having thought about Cheese holidays- they decide to go to the moon, they build a rocket and set off, watched by a group of rats in shades, and reach the moon without incident (though Gromit loses a tower made of cards in the process) and Wallace prepares to carve out some cheese from the moon. After a series of adventures with a robot confused by their presence whose lifetime ambition is to ski, they set off home again and the movie finishes twenty minutes after it started, with Wallace leaning back in his seat sipping a cup of tea, and Gromit fiddling with the controls, as the Robot skis up and down the craters of the moon on bits of metal it had tugged from the spacecraft.

The story really isn't the point here though- its the individuality, its the eccentricity (in England's that's a virtue)- there is a line in the Lord of the Rings when Gandalf tells Frodo that what's worth fighting for is all the absurd Bolgers and Boffins and Bagginses- that's the same sense you get from Wallace and Gromit. These two characters are crackers, they are mad, their lives revolve around inventions, cheese (particularly Wensleydale) and tea- but in some sense they are the essense of the whole of Western civilisation. Civilisation isn't just Michelangelo and Machiavelli, its Wallace and his efforts to get to the moon, its loving Wensleydale and its a dog knitting in a chair and rats with shades over their eyes, its merry eccentricity which is a value all to itself.

The absurdity of life is in many ways its essence- when we talk about freedom often we lose sight of the fact that freedom isn't just a political issue- its a personal issue as well. Put simply in a totalitarian state like North Korea, you can't live a life based on Wensleydale and tea- you can't just decide to build a rocket to go to the moon (theoretically you could in the West) and you can't be madly, loveably, endeeringly and frustratingly often eccentric.

That's the reason its important to be free- its so Wallaces and Gromits continue to flourish in our society.

[wheat and chaff] ensuring silence on the real agenda

I'd like to echo Cassilis when he writes:

Listen to any government Minister thrust forward to defend ... plans and they essentially use the same frame every time – ‘The threat is increasingly complex – only these measures will protect the public’.

Accept that frame and it becomes all but impossible oppose the plans without leaving yourself vulnerable to the charge that you’re ‘soft on terror’ or negligent with public safety. The debate is marooned on hypotheticals – anecdotal examples of suspects or investigations that might fall flat if the police don’t have enough time to question people.

It’s all but impossible to win any ground here because the focus is so nebulous. Whether the government have consciously constructed this frame to help advance their case hardly matters – the point is it works.

And let’s be honest – it works because on one level the government do have a point. If we give the police longer to investigate terrorist suspects then logic tells you that in some cases or at some point this will let them prosecute someone who would otherwise go free to commit atrocities.

The key then is to destroy that frame and explain that the root of most people's objections to these plans isn’t their efficacy but the fact that they disrupt the balance between liberty and security to an unacceptable degree. A national curfew at 21:00 for all adults would undoubtedly see a dramatic reduction in street crime but that’s not the point – most people are want a sense of balance in these things and will happily live with the nominally increased risk in exchange for the commensurate freedoms.

The whole thing is about balance and there’s absolutely no evidence that that balance needs to be altered in the favour of the police.

My focus is a little different. Yes, in a perfect world, the "whole thing is about balance" but this is a world where there is an agenda or rather a series of agendas and none of these allow for either the existence of an intelligentsia, personal freedom or the power of free action.

By this latter I mean the power to act independently of the euphemistically termed Nanny State. Even if you don't need nannying, the sheer weight of 3000 plus new convictable offences since Blair came to power, the restrictions on everything from travel to commuting and so on and so on lock you in. And where can you go to live?

The EU?

Living here in the former SU, we are still blighted by the soviet legacy and I can report it really was dire. Good things were the availability of basic foodstuffs and pride in the Red Army, together with a more innocent society, morally but the horrors outweighed that. It seems the poor Russian people are out of the frying pan and into the fire of aggressive western consumer debt economics and are rushing, lemming like, to their doom in a year or two.

Naturally, the money does not wish to have the likes of relative "nobodies " utilizing the net to remind people that no wars could be if they were not funded, that the whole terrorist thing, while an actuality, like the Deobandi in Britain still covers a plethora of real legislation for the removal of freedoms and the press-ganging of the populace into a new dystopia.

America is not free from this process by any means:

A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks. The document says information is "critical to military success"

Bloggers beware.

As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer. From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.

The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap". It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act. Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.

The next conflagration would, on current trends and Miliband's pronouncements, be between blocs, rather than nations but how to prove what they are doing behind the scenes? To quote Svali, who wrote of the type of thing we're up against:

A top western financier would secretly meet with an Eastern or Russian "adversary" during those years, and have a good laugh at how the "sheep" were being deluded. I am sharing here what I was taught, and also observed.

You can show them photos of underground tunnels near Los Alamos, and they will say, "Isn't that interesting. Must be some government project." They can be shown the scars on a survivor's body, from cigarette burns in childhood, and old lash marks that have healed on their back, and the question would be "are you sure it wasn't self inflicted?"

There will be massive bankruptcies nationwide. Europe will stabilize first and then Germany, France and England will have the strongest economies, and will institute, through the UN, an international currency. Japan will also pull out, although their economy will be weakened.

She said these things in an interview with HJ Springer, Chief Editor CentrExNews.com. in 2000. And here's a good one from their own site in Europe:

Council of Europe launches game for children in thirteen languages.

Well, isn't that lovely, everything turned on its head and the wolf becomes the sheep:

It is a fundamental step in the Council of Europe’s efforts to curb the grooming of children by abusers through the internet.

Lucky kiddies to be in the hands of the CofEU or ENYMO. First the Merkel administration paedophilia recommendations, now a fun game for the tots. And what, not 12 or 14 languages? Wonder why not? And parents clearly can't mentor their own children, can they? After all:

One of their hottest policy issues is the threat of a war between generations, triggered off by the looming financial melt down of the state pension scheme.

They know all about that, yes? And where does the money come from for the initial Eastern European thrust [where the sex slavery of young girls is endemic]?

The success of mentoring in these countries is due to two specific ingredients: a) money available from the Open Society Fund of Mr. Soros, the Hungarian emigrant and Wallstreet maverick who has financed a host of other programs with the aim to open up the East European Societies. b) a single person who managed to sell the idea to important people in these countries and to make them implement it with the help of the money from Mr. Soros.

That person is Ms. Dagmar McGill, long time director for foreign relations in the head office of Big Brothers/Big Sisters in Philadelphia and now director of Big Brother/Big Sister International.

Well, scallops rock me tadger - isn't that altruistic of George and Dagmar? Don't you just want to get up and rush over to Europe, offering your child for state "grooming"? As a parent, you're clearly incompetent to do it.

I'd be inclined to dismiss there was anything nefarious in any of this if:

1. I was already in a dog-eat-dog, hedonistic, acquisitive, step-over-your-rival existence and couldn't see the forest for the trees;

2. Had an immediate nuclear family who needed protection and therefore I'd "choose' not to believe, thinking that acceding to the new society would buy me some peace out of the limelight as long as They left me alone;

3. The things which have clearly been going on since the 60s, from the dumbing down of education through PC feminism driving a wedge into the family unit, to rampant pornography, drugs and the zombyization of today's youth.

Returning to the Cassilis dilemma - if these things really are happening under the guise of the terrorism threat, then logically They're going to make damned sure no evidence sees the light of day and that people capable of exposing it are either brought to bay or neutralized through a variety of means, not least being vilification and mockery.

That's one reason why this blog will and must go down sometime, not because it has much influence but because it's an annoying loose end. The reason it's survived so far, IMHO, is that it has a small readership and not many take this sort of post seriously without specific names, dates and when they did what they did.

[knickers] survey results

Which should a man wear?
Selection		Votes
Boxers	50%	6
Briefs	25%	3
Thongs	0%	0
Nothing	17%	2
Something else	8%	1
12 votes total

But I don't want my equipment swinging wildly in the breeze as I walk! Couldn't I compromise with a pair of closefitting boxers? Dave Peterson answers:

Don't see this being a big deal. We can all wear what we want based on what we feel comfortable in.

It's not like most of us are that bothered about what we are wearing. Hell, I wear jeans all the time at home and a suit when working. Only special people get to see my underwear and I'm sure that they are too shocked by the rest of my naked body to worry about if I have briefs, boxers or even a thong on.

[tramvai of dreams] there and back by taxi

Wednesday notes

Only spent three hours outside today and the three conditions whenever one ventures outdoors here were duly fulfilled:

1. It's never boring, either positively or negatively;

2. Something superb, beautiful or funny always happens to you;

3. Something else more dire cuts the euphoria.

The last one came first. So warm you couldn't wear a hat and the jacket was like a furnace - the temperature was up to zero and the snowline is beginning to recede three weeks too early. Deep depression. Our beautiful snow - please let it snow tonight.

Only went in to the uni for one group - new girls in the third course and today was their first day, not only at the uni but also in this city. It felt strange explaining "my town" to eleven newbies who will take some time to get used to the big smoke, even though they're Russian and I'm not.

Instant chemistry - girls here are receptive and giving - except for one who might be a bit of a handful later. So in a great mood, made better by the car actually being in the right place at the right time, it was back to the shop near my place and the penny dropped about what I really enjoy over here - it's the amateurishness.

Allow me to explain. Did some shopping in the minimart and then went to the counter where they serve the meats, cheeses, salads and so on. There's a new girl there and we talk about this or that but every time I order a salad, she packages it up, clingfilms it and then the machine breaks down on her - this was the third time today.

So she goes all complex and red and scurries away to get someone to fix the machine and then takes it personally, as if she was responsible. At the check out, a girl comes over and reaches into my basket and pulls out the pizza I'm buying, turns to her friend and says that this is the new stock they got in today.

Two other girls come over and one looks at me and asks if I like that flavour. Then the first puts it back with one hand and the cashier continues checking.

I know that sort of thing happens in parts of Britain but I couldn't see it happening in America. You can't get angry though as it's a form of acceptance. Welshcakes has a lovely piece in a similar vein about Sicilian and British culture.

The pizza wasn't all that good, by the way.

Thursday notes

It's snowing, it's snowing and heavily too - the air's full of it. Hallelujah and my French lady has just departed and her perfume was magnificent and her accent sends me quietly crazy.

The coffee was excellent, courtesy of my best mate who had earlier given me a birthday package of chocolates, wine, coffee and so on, knowing this lady was coming later and she also came with little prezzies - naughty after I warned her not to. Everything has "gelled" so far today [touch wood], even down to the taxi driver literally taking me door to door. Phone call from the love of my life and her voice went through me too.

The taxi driver was talking of his idea of heaven on earth on the way - shasliks, snow-laden forests, skis, cognac and one's girl. Had to agree with him that that is as close to "rai" as one can get here. So, a bit more on the book and visit a few of you as well.

Hope your snow is nice over there. Oh yes, happy Valentines Day. Forgot about it.

Happy Valentines to all you Valentines out there!

[new arms race] why? who?

The new homeland

Russia is expending its resources into putting down trade roots:

According to a study by the Moscow School of Management and the New York-based Columbia Program on International Investment, four oil and gas companies, led by Gazprom and Lukoil, and nine metals and mining firms, led by Rusal, the aluminium giant and Severstal, the steelmaker, together accounted for more than 78 per cent of total assets of $60bn held by Russian companies overseas at the end of 2006.

As I'm tangentially connected with the international trade area over here, I hear foreign policy everyday and there's no doubt that Russia sees its expanding influence in the world not unlike a tree's roots spreading far from the source.

There is great emphasis placed on the trade sector, not least the EU and the people who come in this door resemble a who's who. It's no secret that we're heavily involved with the EBRD and sundry other bodies and bilateral agreements are all the rage.

Massive resources are being expended in infrastructure so that Russia resumes its role as a major player and so the U.S. fuelled arms race is a major ploy to stymie this process. Thus, Putin says, admittedly coming up to elections:

“Nato itself is expanding. It's approaching our borders. We drew down our bases in Cuba and in Vietnam. What did we get? New American bases in Romania, Bulgaria. A new third missile defence region in Poland.

“It’s already clear that a new arms race is being unleashed across the world ... It’s not our fault, we didn’t start it,” he said. “We are categorically being told these actions aren't directed at Russia, and therefore our concerns are completely unfounded. That's not a constructive response.

The global arms race is something getting in the way of this and the ones to blame are the sources of money behind the scene but that's another issue not dealt with in this post. Clearly national and global interests are not necessarily compatible and Russia is a country with a strong sense of nation.

Mr Putin ... met Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, in the highest-level talks between the two countries since 2004. Both sides sought to mend relations frayed by US plans to deploy missile interceptors in Poland and by Warsaw’s veto under its previous prime minister of the start of talks between Russia and the EU.

Mr Tusk said after the meeting that it was clear “both sides were bored with the cold atmosphere”.

And this cold atmosphere is clearly being engendered by someone. Here are some of the things happening in the Asian sphere:

Since 2000, five of the six countries involved in the six-party talks in Asia have increased their military spending by 50% or more. The sixth, Japan, has maintained a steady, if sizeable military budget while nonetheless aspiring to keep pace.

The United States, China, Russia, and Japan - confront each other. Together, the countries participating in the six-party talks account for approximately 65% of world military expenditures, with the US responsible for roughly half the global total.

Japan's army is now larger than Britain's, and the country spends more on its military than all but four other nations. (China surpassed Japan in military spending for the first time in 2006.)

Thanks to Boeing, however, the first KC-767 tanker aircraft will arrive in Japan this year, providing government officials, who occasionally assert the country's right to launch preemptive strikes, with the means to do so.

A light aircraft carrier, which the government has coyly labeled a "destroyer", will be ready in 2009. The subs and missiles, however, will have to wait. So, too, will Tokyo's attempt to take a quantum leap forward in air-fighting capabilities by importing advanced US F-22 stealth planes.

Last month, Japan installed its third Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) surface-to-air interceptor and plans on nine more by 2011. The more ambitious part of the program, however, is based at sea. In December, Japan conducted its first sea-based interceptor test.

Between 1999 and 2006, South Korean military spending jumped more than 70%. In 2007, at the launching ceremony for a new Aegis-equipped destroyer, which brought South Korea into an elite club of just five countries with such technology, Roh declared, "At the present time, Northeast Asia is still in an arms race, and we cannot just sit back and watch."

South Korea has embarked on an ambitious $665 billion Defense Reform 2020 initiative, which will increase the military budget by roughly 10% a year until 2020. most of the extra money will go to a host of expensive, high-tech systems such as new F-15K fighters from Boeing, SM-6 ship-to-air missiles that can form a low-altitude missile shield, and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles.

Beijing's spending, claim these sources, is really in the $100 billion range. With this money, China is pushing forward with an ambitious naval program that will include the addition to its naval forces of five new nuclear-powered attack subs, a mid-sized aircraft carrier, and - clandestinely - the supposed construction of a huge 93,000-ton nuclear-powered carrier by 2020.

The Pentagon can't use its big naval destroyers against al-Qaeda; Virginia-class subs can't do much to fight the Taliban or insurgents in Iraq. Yet these systems figure prominently in the Pentagon's long-range plans to build a 313-ship navy.

And the U.S. response?

Democratic Congressman John Murtha says: "We've got to be able to have a military that can deploy to stop China or Russia or any other country that challenges us," he recently told Reuters.

In addition to the $12.7 billion for new warships, there's $17 billion for new aircraft and over $10 billion for missile defense. The administration wants to increase the army from 482,400 to 547,400 troops by 2012.

And China? Separate question, separate post. That's the current scenario and the result is that:

The world put 37% more into military spending in 2006 than in 1997.

[knickers] the great dilemma

Boxers or le slip?

As regular readers well know, I'm deeply concerned with underwear and have often posted on the topic:

Here ... here [with links here - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] ... also here , in which the point is made, quite reasonably, I felt:

C'est pourquoi le slip est encore fort apprécié, malgré une très forte percée, cette dernière décennie, du shorty. "En grande distribution, c'est encore le slip qui se vend le plus", précise Estelle Cortier, responsable marketing chez Hechter Studio. Ailleurs, c'est le shorty qui sort grand vainqueur toutes catégories ; chez Hom, il représente 52 % des ventes, contre 33 % pour le slip et 8 % pour le string.

The point is made that comfort is what it's all about for the male:

La forme shorty fait l'unanimité chez les jeunes; chez les plus âgés, elle plaît plutôt aux citadins. Les coloris les plus appréciés sont les traditionnels blanc, bleu marine, noir ou gris. Les fantaisies couture doivent être discrètes et surtout ne pas nuire au bien-être. "Pour l'homme, la mode n'est pas un facteur déterminant, constate Marc Lefèvre. Au contraire, l'effet de style est plutôt rébarbatif. Son premier critère de choix, c'est le confort de la ceinture, des coutures, de la découpe."

Now it seems to me that there is a sort of knicker mafia in operation here which decrees that boxers are go and briefs are nowhere. For example, one Yahoo forum asks:

Women: Is there no love anymore for guys who wear briefs??

... to which responses ranged from this:

I prefer guys who wear neither...it's not the underwear that's important, it's what lurks underneath it that matters.

... and I'd agree - I wear knickers in bed on my own and nothing when with a lady ... to this:

personally, when meeting a guy, personality matters more than underwear... aside from the fact you dont usually know what underwear he is wearing when you meet them, the underwear doesn't make the man so to speak ...

... so that was encouraging at least. Then I googled "briefs destroy sex life" and "briefs impotence" and came up with nothing so now it was time to look at the abundance of questionnaires out there which tell your personality from your underwear.

This was the one near the top of google first:

* If you are a man who wears boxers, then you know how to let loose.

* Most girls tend to wear bikini briefs and that's because they are just the right fit between coverage and still being feminine.

* Guys who wear boxer briefs are typically cool, collected (sorry, our minds are sick) and organized (*snicker*). They typically are the leaders of a group and orangize friends when it's time to hang out.

* If you like to go commando then you either have forgotton to do laundry completely, or you are our rebel.Holy tighty whities! Did you get those from your Dad? Wow. Sorry to be harsh, but seriously, who wears tighty whities? If you do, first, you must be 75 years old, or in need of some mental attention.

* If you love wearing thongs or g-strings, we can pretty much assume that you are obsessed with flossing.

Wonder what this man thinks of that? But let's continue:

* It takes a brave man to really put himself out there, with nothing between himself and metal teeth [no knickers guy].

* We're not going to say something obvious about how you're more of a tomboy for wearing boy shorts. Whoops, we mean we ARE going to say that [referring to girls].

* String It Up - You're all about letting the world see everything that other people might hide. And you're not ashamed, even if you should be ...

At this point I'm getting a little worried about the occasional shots of half-naked teenage girls in underwear and check the url - oops!

Out of there like a shotgun.

So, let's try another questionnaire where you have to fill in your details - sex, preferences and so on plus your underwear and they tell you which celebrity you're most like.

Right. Well I filled in "guy" rather than "girl" and " black briefs" and hey presto, apparently I'm most like Orlando Bloom:

You are Orlando Bloom. You are charming with your boyish good looks, and come across as sweet and innocent.

Well, scallops rock me tadger - there's something wrong there and then I see my error - I should have filled in "man" instead of "guy". So I quickly change it and now I'm most like Heath Ledger:

You are Heath Ledger! Your rugged good looks have girls going gaga!

... but that can't be right as I'm not gay. So, in the end, the research was a bit of a washout and the only thing to do is run my own serious questionnaire which you can find at the top left of this blog.

[debate] does that mean flaming?

You know, ever since one commenter's comment:

What is missing in all these pages is something that certified bloggers always miss, the addition of concurring comments, more links to useful information, stuff that creates synergies.

But any site that relies on visits from other bloggers, to the extent that this one does, will fail. False agreements of support will fail in the real world ...

... I've been reflecting on the "character" of blogs and the people they attract.

Relying on other bloggers

This site does not get so many fellow bloggers visibly appearing, which the comment above erroneously suggests it does and very few visitors comment, compared to, say, Mutley. In any hundred visits, there would be 8 to 12 blogger visits.

One commenter said there was "something wrong" with a site where there is no debate. I think what he means by debate is "flaming", with people throwing insults all ways, as he seems to enjoy. Synergy, he'd term it.

Links

He seriously suggests I don't link to further information or to other sites? And yet it's true there really is little debate here and I wonder why.

For example, the post on groupthink was one of my more serious. Now, glancing at the zero comments until last evening, one could be forgiven for thinking that no one was interested. Not so. On "entry pages", this post was leading by a long way.

Nature of this blog

From the beginning, my friend over here was worried about the unpredictability and the vast array of topics covered - worried that if you were interested, say, in ceramics, there'd be a post here on it with links and labels to other posts on it but it wouldn't be a "definitive work" on the topic. This is the Achilles Heel of a wide-ranging blog.

On the other hand, this blog assumes that the visitor does not have a one or two track mind, that when he/she comes here, his/her interests might be wide-ranging enough to find something else readable as well as the central theme.

There are five threads running through this one, other than the lack of debate:

1. wide array of topics and unpredictability in their choice;

2. a more 'ladies and gentlemen' tone than the in-your-face blogs;

3. a tone which suggests the blogger is of a certain age and outlook;

4. little time to get about and interact - maybe the big killer;

5. time zones - I'm asleep when the Brits are getting ready to debate.

In the end, I'll stick with the type of blogfriends I have, thanks very much. There might not be so much Tim Ireland/Guido litigation fun but I think I'd prefer what there is. I find all that slanging off at each other and threats of lawsuits tedious. And I would suggest that the post which brought this post on in the first place was an example of debate.

Each to his or her own, I suppose.