On reading blogs

There’s always a twinge of hurt when a respected friend says they don’t read my blog -- ‘Are you still doing it? how’s it going?’ But they are people who have jobs, unlike me who am more or less retired. And I don’t even read theirs regularly, much though I enjoy them when I do.

It isn’t just a matter of people having the time, though objectively many people don’t. It’s also the sort of time we count it as. Certainly in my case, there’s a sense that while blogs (the sort I enjoy) are not frivolous or trivial, nor are they books and only books and substantial articles count as serious (still a live category in my old-world weltanschauung) and as contributing to my ‘getting on’ in the sense that was instilled into me at grammar school.

Blogs I classify along with serious newspaper articles, of which those in the Guardian, Observer and New Statesman exhaust the time I'm prepared to spend on keeping generally informed rather than seriously deepening my knowledge or understanding. Worthwhile, but only up to a point - time on them should be rationed, I feel. And when I add factual television programmes to that time budget, it’s more than full. So no room left for even friends’ blogs.

In order to justify watching and enjoying The Inbetweeners or Campus I have to put them into the ‘serious art’ category -- or else regard them as popular culture products warranting my ‘serious’ sociological attention.

Just listen to me -- talk about a relic of bygone times. Getting on! -- I'm nearly 70 for god’s sake. Getting on to where, do I imagine? which is the question I ask of Tennyson’s Ulysses and get no sensible answer.

So if you’re not reading this, you’re forgiven.