The amusing thing about that Tumble/Rambleblog entry was the reaction on a couple of blogs, namely Jamie and Marv, expressing confusion that this apparently new thing was, well, it was just blogging, the sort of blogging they and to be honest most people do. Which is quite understandable but you have to bear one important thing in mind.
The sort of people, and I include myself in this category, who get excited about this sort of thing are, generally speaking, tossers. In fact the Americans have a term for it: “circle jerking”, which I believe is the practice of a bunch of blokes sitting in a circle getting so excited about something that they all have to masturbate furiously. It’s not a nice image, I grant you, especially as we’re talking about blogging here. So you should always remember that when people who have been blogging for a long time, usually about blogging, talk about blogging, they can frequently be ignored, or at least patted on the head in a condescending manner.
What the whole Tumbleblog thing is really about is actually quite simple. These people, when they started out on their wildly successful blogging careers, just posted a load of shit on their blogs like everyone else. But then this great illusion of weblogs being the next big thing, storming the barricades of respectable society with their revolutionary new ways (boy, that does sound familiar [cough]comicscirca1989…) they began to write “properly” treating their blogs as publications, taking great care over what they wrote and giving everything proper titles with their complicated content management systems and so on. And now they look back on those freewheeling days of freedom to just write rubbish with nostalgic dewey eyes. If only they could just write whatever they wanted without worrying what their readership (read: ego) thinks.
But as long as they clearly delineate between their grown up sensible blog and this random rambling then they can! And because they’ve spent the last five or so years living in the neologism garden they shall give it a new name and all will be well.
The rest of you, just carry on as before. Nothing to see here.
Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to start up my Fartleblog or whatever but I have been practicing. Check out the tumble-quality of these three:
Another thought on the sw**ring thing that always bugs me (if you’re going to swear then fucking swear already!). Sometimes putting asterisks in your curse can be acceptable when you want to give the impression of muttering it under your breath in exasperation.
Fireworks are here again but they’re not bothering me this year. Last year they were going off in my neighbours gardens and exploding outside my window shocking the shit out me. This year they’re in the distance and no bother at all. Ah, suburbia, how I don’t miss you…
I was once asked what the indications were of being “grown up” and a new one came to me today – when your parents reach sixty years of age. Paternally this happens to me next month (7th Nov if anyone wants to send a card) with Maternally following next September. They will have free bus passes. This is odd. (This indicator only works if your parents had you in their 20s, I feel.)
wordings
tumbling – if what they are would that I were
this!
deserability & rambling & procrastination all rolling around in merry jelly
jelly once squeezed through teeth
a bit fell off my tooth with the filling the other month & I’ve still not figured out a dentist, y’know
if I knew I’d be bored
the ‘c’ key sticks
i broke the ‘enter key’ at my work keyboard
then i got locked in the server room
A circle jerk is a bunch of guys masturbating one another in a big circle, see, so it all goes around. It’s interactive but it’s still just jerking off.
What Matt said. It’s about giving your neighbour a helping hand. A bit like line dancing.
Hartlepool, Fartleblog, Random Thought of the Day. Here’s a suggestion for implementation. Write a bunch of these spontaneous extemporised entries, and put them in a database that serves them up like aphorisms – one a minute, one a day, whatever. That way, like true random thoughts, they can show up apropos of nothing at all, but like words of wisdom, they can actually have some content. And they only occupy a tiny bit of the landscape.
How hard would you hit me if I said I can’t tell the difference between your regular stuff and your practice attempts?
On the sw**ring thing: absolutely agree. Very disappointed today to see that Posy had self-censored (I presume, the Grauniad doesn’t give a fuck after all) and made one of her characters say “f___”. Having seen Posy give talks a few times I find this rather surprising as she’s fucking ace at swearing herself.
Off at a tangent, I once went to a training day in Birmingham, when Water$tones brought in a new computer system, and the woman kept referring to this: * as an “asterix” and it became harder and harder not to correct her in a very loud voice each time she did so. And, I forget why, but something about the system meant that it involved a lot of “asterixes” so she said it an awful lot. By the end of it one more mention would have seen me starring in my own Discovery Channel special: When Pedants Attack.
I always thought Asterix and Pollocks were witty euphemisms.
Circle jerk: Ah well, you get my point though.
e-tat: nice idea, but not really what I’m going for. I like the idea of a date-stamped stream. If I was really gadgetted up I’d have a fancy mobile and do it from that, but I’m not so the Moleskin will suffice.
Hg: Not that hard. The idea is their posts that haven’t been thought out too much, I seem to be spending an hour or so on most things on this site (believe it or not) and it’s cramping my style.
Dave: Yeah, I noticed that. Very strange of her. Might be a Cape thing since her books probably fall into younger hands from time to time.