A Blog about Blogging

Apparently this is my 400th post.

I seem to have blogged about almost everything including 'Incest and Morris Dancing' ....but I don't seem to have blogged about blogging.

So here are some crucial questions about blogging

1: Why do we blog? Do we all want to be Charlie Brooker or Lucy Mangan?

2: How on earth do people manage to blog and work for a living?

3: Do you suffer from Blogger depression? You can download this pamphlet to help.


4: How do some brilliant bloggers manage to be witty and entertaining without pictures.

5: Do commenters ever return to read the replies? Statcounter can't tell me as it's always full of Brazilians looking for photos of their footballing hero who plays for Man City - the one with the wag who eats pies.

6: Has the new sophistication of Google Reader taken the spontaneity out of blogging? And why is blogger.com taking so long to load these days.
Is it just me?

7: Will Twittering kill Blogging?

Answers please to -

a.k.a.
KAZ

Alone again

** I'm home alone **

Kev's stayed in Spain to ride his bike, play his guitar and have rampant sex with smouldering señoritas.

You can congratulate me on three weeks of successful cohabitación and be happy for me that I now have some time in my own little place with my own front door. And when Kev gets home he'll have his own front door as well.

I'm just not very good at sharing my space. I did it for 48 years and that was enough.

But I have been very, very good.

When asked how I manage to get through 'a whole jar of marmalade' in two days - I counted to ten and did not retort by substituting the words bottle, wine and 10 minutes.

I have listened with hardly a yawn as Kev practised his rusty, circumlocutory pedagogical skills on me. I refrained from suggesting that If he misses teaching so much he could go back to work.

So now there will be pizza eating, re watching of the History Boys, Christian Bale and (possibly) Withnail and lots of unstructured time and spontaneous outings.

Who knows - I may even have a day out in Oldham, Rochdale or Ramsbottom.
KAZ

Salad days

The French taught me how to love a salad.

When I was growing up in Lancashire everyone hated salad.

The 'RULES of SALAD' had to be observed.

1: Salad must only be served for Sunday tea when aunties with names like Annie and Ethel were involved

2: The ingredients must be kept strictly separated. No minglement of items was permitted.

3: This must be placed in the centre of the table.

Here's how to make an Old Skool salad:

Collect ingredients.



Put on plate.

Then try to make polite conversation

Tomorrow I'll be off to France for a lovely 'salade composée' then travelling abowt bit.

So I'll seeya soon back in lovely Manchester (thanks Kev).

Be Good.
KAZ

Bomb Crisis

An Introduction to Catalan vocabulary.

1: Kiosk on the roadside.

I've heard about being hoisted with your own petard.

According to Chambers:

Petard: noun historical - a small bomb for blasting a hole in a wall, door, etc. hoist with one's own petard blown up by one's own bomb.

So this is a roadside bomb shop! Well - nothing in Spain would surprise me - they have Europe's worst safety record and their roads are carnage.

Mr Chambers adds

ETYMOLOGY: 16c: French pétard from péter to break wind, from Latin pedere.

Hmmmm.

It turns out that petard is the Catalan word for banger or firecracker. The sound is deafening.
They were available for a few days before the Fiesta of Sant Joan, (Joan = John) the pagan festival of fire. After that the shop was taped up by the police.


2: Sign on local market.


Kev (the Spanish speaker) said 'Oh yes - crease resistant '.

Kaz (the non Spanish speaker) replied.

'Er I don't think so. All fashionable clothes are supposed to be creased these days - in fact you probably have to pay extra for it. Rebajas means sales. So these pantalones are going to solve the financial crisis.'

'We must e mail Alistair Darling.'

'Don't call me darling' said Kev as he consulted his Spanish pocket dictionary - 'it's so bourgeois'.

I was right of course.

And I don't think those pants will crunch your credits.
KAZ

GULLiver's Travels

We arrived at the usual piso to find all was well.

Until I had to visit to the restroom which was out of order - or 'the bog was bust' as we Brits would say. The local plumber couldn't come until 7pm the next day.

So, the following day we drove to the Parc Natural where we saw purple heron, marsh harrier, spotted crake, bee eater, roller, hoopoe, reed warbler, fan tailed warbler, green sandpiper etc...(do you really want to know all this?)

Then home to get out of the heat and wait for the plumber ...... and look what I found.


He was a very brave herring gull with a damaged wing - so he couldn't escape from the terrace. Herring gulls are big birds - he was knee high, had a fearsome beak and was looking at me expectantly.

And I was fresh out of herrings.

What to do?

If he stayed there he would die - slowly.
If we managed to lift him over the wall he would fall to the ground and die slowly.

I couldn't find the number for the Spanish equivalent of Bill Oddie or the RSPB ... and he was still looking at me.

Should we let nature take its course?

NO!

Averting his eye (and beak) I threw a sheet over him, lifted him into a box and we drove back to the visitors' centre at the Parc.


A nice señora inspired our confidence as she took him in. I doubt if the wing could be fixed - but the vet would do the right thing by my new friend.

He's probably in Herring Heaven by now.

How did Gulliver know we were birders?

The plumber didn't show up - but the loo miraculously started working again.
Excellent - I needed a rest.
KAZ

Would I Lie to YOU?

When I’m planning to go to Spain - I’d rather not tell you about it.

You would only go on and on about my carbon footprint and idle lifestyle or say it’s all greasy food and penduline tits.

Then there would be the insinuations re Kenneth Noye and Ronnie Knight style activities on the Costa del Crime. Do you really think I’d associate myself with the ex Mr Babs Windsor?

Anyway, I go to Catalunya not Malaga - my only criminal activity is stalking the lovely Thierry in Barcelona.

I could always carry on writing about football and rain and Manchester.

I could tell you about Britney’s visit on Tuesday to our M.E.N. Arena when she jumped on stage and shouted ‘What’s up London?’


You’d never know where I was if it weren’t for that sneaky statcounter showing the red and yellow flags.

But I won’t be flying to Spain next week

!! Because I’m already there !!

....... And I’ve brought my laptop with me.

KAZ

Eavesdropping.

The bloke next to me on the bus was talking very loud French into his téléphone cellulaire. He shrugged and gesticulated as only a Monsieur could - and, as he signalled the word 'gauche', he nearly knocked me off my seat.

The Chinese girl behind me shouted loud, consonant free Chinese into her 手机, as a giggling gaggle of Somali girls squealed and screamed in Somali (?) while they climbed to the top deck.

None of this is unusual in Manchester and I walked down Market Street to the usual background of Spanish Polish Russian Punjabi Arabic Guajarati etc.

But nothing prepared me for what I was to hear in Debenham's later.

Mum to small son:

"Ok Geezer. Yer not avin ennyfink coz yer won't wait nor nuffink. Lor' luv a duck! Just keep yaaahr norf an' sowf shut . Know what I mean. Nuff said yeah?

(O.K. I exaggerate a little but at least I didn't mention a J Arthur.)

A cockernee in Manchester?
Previously unheard of.

Then it occurred to me that some of my blogging pals are from the deep South. Do Geoff, Rog, Dave, NiC and Scarlet all put batter on their bread instead of on their fish?

And is anyone saying ‘Hoots Mon’, ‘Why aye Man’ or ‘Golly Gosh’ as they read this post?
KAZ