Dishonour

What a crap month January was! I woke up all miserable and hungover on New Year’s Day and stayed like that for pretty much the rest of the month. I had little money to do anything with and my social life was fairly non-existent due to most people I know feeling similar to me. I have been bored and bereft of imagination. This is one reason I haven’t posted for a while but not the only one.

I was very grateful to receive an award from my friend Speculator who writes a lovely blog here. I’m not confident about my writing and it was nice to have someone telling me that they like what I do, especially someone who writes so well themselves. This post was to feature my acceptance of the award and a few crap jokes about placing it on my mantelpiece along with my other awards such as Playmate of the Year 1984 when I had really big hair and my commendation from the UN in recognition of my services to procrastination and misanthropy. I would then add my nominations and thoughts on what I believe make a good blog and it is here that I have problems since I only read two blogs – my nominator’s and someone he has already nominated.

I set off out into the blogosphere to find five worthy recipients to whom I could forward the award, as per the conditions of my acceptance of it. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for but hoped that something inspiring might jump out at me, a bit like my method for choosing presents when I’m Christmas shopping. I think I was looking for blogs that were a bit like mine. I didn’t want to select any that were written by someone who obviously took their writing more seriously than me for fear that they would think Who the hell does this idiot think he is? You’re not fit to commend my writing! Get off of my page!

I just wanted to find blogs where the author finds joy or beauty or absurdity or anything else in their day-to-day existence. There were precious few of these that didn’t fall foul of the condition outlined above. Maybe my search techniques were lacking but what I mostly found were blogs that were lacking in wit or creativity and were often horribly self-indulgent (yes, my irony detector siren is wailing loudly here too but I don’t care). Our lives are inherently interesting but you wouldn’t know it from the drivel that I took many hours ploughing through whilst hunched over my laptop. This is another reason I haven’t blogged in weeks. My next post had to be about this subject and I couldn’t post until I’d found some blogs I liked.

I found a total of two blogs that I enjoyed reading. That’s a poor strike rate. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like blogs. I’ve also concluded that the problem is with me and not with the bloggers of this world. I find it difficult to be interested in other people’s love lives. Or in their computer games. Or which restaurants they like. Or what their children are learning at school. Or their music tastes. I’m definitely not interested in their music tastes. I concede that there must be loads of worthy blogs out there but you really have to work hard to find them unless you know where to look. Which I don’t. I would rather be reading books. I love reading books. My boring year has allowed me time to read ten books so far. I love books. I don’t like reading blogs nearly as much.

I feel terribly rude about this but I can’t accept the award. I’m unable to fulfil the acceptance criteria: I can’t find a total of five blogs to nominate and, since it’s clear that I don’t actually like blogs, I can’t very well publish my thoughts on what makes a good one. I’m not the right person to ask. I’m truly sorry. I always hoped that if I ever turned down an award it would be from the Queen, and I would refuse it on moral grounds (although there's no way I'd really do that. Mum wouldn't understand). That would be quite noble. This isn't. Speculator, I'm sorry.

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In other news: I have a car! I’ve been a public transport user for four years and thought it was about time I had a car again. Where I live is quite isolated so it makes sense. And I love my little MX-5! So does everyone else who has seen it. I’ve certainly never owned anything quite so lovely before and can’t wait until summer so I can cruise around with the roof down. It might even make me more attractive to women! Well, slightly less repellent anyway. I can live in hope.