Norman Geras posted yesterday about a Sunday Times article documenting the alleged decline of blogging. I have to say that I, too, kind of agree, although I don't believe that blogging is going to disappear. Why is this happening? Well, there seem to have been a number of significant changes since blogging's inception almost a decade ago. First, blogging was often a means of recording links (take Kottke as an example), and this has largely been superseded now by sites like del.icio.us. Second, at the outset blogging was exciting because not many people were doing it, and there was a real chance of attracting a readership, whatever you were writing about. It was new, trendy, and subversive, and people like that kind of thing. But today, there is much more professionalisation of blogging — people earning their money through writing blogs. These sites attract large readerships and leave smaller, more personal sites looking inferior. People have got wise to what bad blogs are, and they don't read them any more. This isn't such a bad thing, I think. We have complex sites for ranking, indexing, and finding information, so there is less incentive to "surf" the net as we used to — we can go straight to information hubs and find what we're looking for much more easily now.

Third, though, there is a broadly cultural change, I think, although I may feel this because I began blogging when I was at school and (I hope) I have changed and matured substantially since those days. When the opportunity to blog first came along, I've no doubt it was a great liberation for a large number of people; I remember I used to read a blog by an anonymous gay twenty-something struggling with his sexuality in Glasgow. There was a therapeutic aspect to blogging, as well as an aesthetic one. In these people felt able to project and express themselves in a way they were unable to in real life. To generalise horrendously, I suggest we're collectively more cynical and disillusioned about this way of doing things now. Egotism is something very closely tied to self-expression, and a view of the blogger as some kind of egomaniac, who genuinely believes large swathes of the population will be interested in photos of their holidays, has become somewhat ingrained culturally, such that it is on some level the orthodox view of Those Who Blog. But something which is well written, and in which there is content of genuine interest and value to the lives of others, will always have the power to buck this trend.

In other words, I suggest there has been a shift over the last ten years, that the blogosphere has established for itself a set of aesthetics, or a standard by which to judge the quality of content. Inevitably, this will result in the falling-away of a large number of bad and poorly maintained blogs (this one, one day, you may pray), but this is surely no bad thing.

Tags: blog, weblog, quality, decline, normblog, normangeras, sundaytimes, newspaper, blogosphere, blogging, links

Labels: blogging

It's always an unexpected delight: the arrival of British Summer Time, and with it, lighter evenings and (as it so often happens), sunnier weather. Of a sudden all those myths of summer come to mind. I am transported back to last summer, which was not that happy, but which was full of enjoyable experiences nonetheless, such as tomato and mozzarella salads in the garden, which like my skin crackled in the heat, and walking and cycling along the Transpennine Trail. This summer will be different, when I do finally move. But for the moment I am still here in that same wonderful garden, admiring and photographing the flowers, attempting to arrest the flow and impermanence of time by inscribing its immanence on some glossy photo paper to try and make it indisputable. But here, for now, I remain, and, freed from the psychological bonds of living here, I forget all the reasons for moving in the first pace. But move I must.

Labels: stockport, summer

I'm shocked by how sparse my posting has been this past month. But life has certainly been on the insane edge of normal. However, the last few days it's felt quite liberating to be in limbo like this. Since I last posted, my doctor has advised me to get out of the flat as the deterioration of my asthma was threatening me with hospitalisation! Since Friday night I've been staying with Stuart back at the old house in Stockport. It's a good job we still get on as well as ever, or this really would have been a nightmare.

Anyway, with all my stuff at the flat and me here in Stockport with only coffee, my book and thirty poundsworth of asthma steroids for company, I've felt some kind of reconnection with that feeling of just living for the day and making the most of what is around you. Perhaps this is all a lesson that being "comfortable", "healthy" and "content" is often a long way from being happy and from enjoyment of what is really valuable in life. More to the point, it gives a pretext for getting completely slaughtered, as I did on Saturday night, apparently tipping a waitress excessively, talking too loudly in the restaurant and generally making a fool of myself all evening.

May such behaviour carry on coextensively with fate's continuing immersion of my valuable tamagotchi in the piddle-filled wine glass of life. /green wing references

Labels: chorlton, stockport

Oh dear, things are not going well. What were, on the face of it, fairly minor problems with damp appear to be having a serious impact on my health, and I've now got to work out what to do about it. I have gotten so used to my asthma being improved over the last few years that I forget I do officially suffer from extremely acute asthma. The last few nights I've been waking up struggling to breathe; waking at night is always a sign of very bad aggravation of the illness, and just living with it is not an option as this situation inevitably leads to chronic chest infections and other complications, quite apart from getting very little sleep.

I'm due to see a doctor later today, but undoubtedly the biggest challenge will be getting the place sorted out in terms of landlords and letting agents. Even if they are able and willing to carry out necessary repairs, this is by no means guaranteed, is likely to be a long process, and is not guaranteed to be sufficiently effective. There is apparently legal ambiguity about the extent to which landlords and agents are responsible for damp specifically. If it came to the crunch, I imagine I might have a case under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act that the property is unsuitable for habitation, but this would also involve a lengthy process involving local authority environmental health officers.

None of this really seems an option, so I think I'm going to have to try to negotiate, hope that the agents are sympathetic, and release me from my contract without penalty. This is all completely exhausting and depressing, not to say potentially highly expensive.

Encouragement encouraged.

Tags: damp, house, landlord, health, tenant.

Labels: chorlton

What a crazy few days. Stuart and I need to get very, very drunk some time very, very soon. My move is going okay, apart from some slightly distressing damp issues in the new flat. Stuart's, the while, is not going so well, on account of his prospective tenant having withdrawn at twenty-four hours' notice, leaving us in one dilly of a pickle. I never thought I'd say this, but after this weekend, I never want to see IKEA ever again. Anyway, should anyone know of someone looking for a very nice room in a very nice house in Stockport, please email me (replacing "[at]" with "@"). It's at a bargain price! (Click for more information).

On top of this is the inevitable emotional fallout; as the reality of leaving a place, life, and person you love hits home in the way reality can only hit home through its presence, immediacy, and tangibility in front of your very eyes. The walls are bare, everything feels empty, echoey and cold, and you start to believe you will never feel at home again and that there is no future. But there is future, there is always a way forwards. The darkness outside my new windows is for the time being a different darkness from the windows of this house; but over time we come to know a new environment, explore it, and eventually trust it. The shape and contours of a new place, with its smell hitherto alien, unfamiliar and therefore threatening, its unknown cupboards and mysterious carpets, are eventually all filled with a personal narrative and experience which makes them new, familiar, and innocuous; and this simply takes time.

Tags: chorlton, manchester, stockport, moving, tenant, housemoving.

Labels: chorlton, stockport

Just had a very pleasant lunch with an old friend from Leicester (you remember — the one I went to St Leonards with last year) at Tiamo's Café on Stockport's Great Underbank. I regret a little not having gone to Tiamo's more during my time in Stockport — I've probably only been three or four times — because it is so friendly, the food is so good, and what's more, you can get your coffee freshly ground to take home with you (which I did today). So here we go anyway: my final night proper in Stockport. I'm off shortly to sign the lease for the new place and to (hopefully) hand in my AHRC funding form to the postgraduate office, so that I can (hopefully) spend the next three years being paid to continue being a slacker of a student.

Labels: stockport