Sunday, November 12, 2006
Heidegger-Archer, a Tenuous Link
Look I know I said we should leave him alone, but the great Jeff just keeps coming back to haunt me. First, the celebrated Guido Fawkes manages to publish a post that actually sounds like Jeffrey Archer on speed, though, if anything, more self-promoting. And then Iain Dale, our other great political blogger, suddenly announces, 'Every few weeks I take a look at Jeffrey Archer's blog to see what he's been up to. It's rather good actually.' (My italics.) Finally, going back to the source, I discover that, after another alarmingly prolonged silence, Jeff has suddenly emitted no fewer than three posts, all, it goes without saying, classics of the genre. Jeff's blog, since you ask, is rated 2.6 millionth in the world, with traffic that is a fraction of even mine. Yet, somehow, it is so there, like Heidegger or Katchenjunga - vast, remote, inscrutable, known by all, yet approached by so very few.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Soon there'll be more bloggers than humans. Though I've heard rumours that some of these bloggers actually are human. I think I experienced an almost instant and pleasant soporific change in consciousness upon entering Jeff's site- perhaps a faint echo of what it is to be Jeff. How do you know what kind of traffic you are getting, Bryan?
ReplyDelete'emitted' - amazing how one small word can say so much.
ReplyDeleteMy traffic is done by what is known as stats software, Andrew. But I can find traffic of any site in the world, perhaps reliably. And, Clare, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI know many people link to Jeffrey Archer, which is not the same as saying, of course, that they visit him. I pop in, see he's done nothing new and exit again.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why it is these bloggers are interested in us and what it is they are actually trying to communicate. I've even heard the theory that they passed on some of their knowledge to the authorities back in the 1940s and 50s so as to open the doors for this communication- a kind of technologically assisted telepathy if you will. Interesting how science demonstrates the reality of such things as telepathy via things like radio and television but few seem to notice the implications. Millions of thoughts and images instantaneously and invisibly passing thru the ether and all that. Almost like the universe is one unified mind of synaptic pathways. But of course this is a material and dull reality which is but the random banging together of little bits of randomly created energy undirected by intelligence of any kind.
ReplyDeleteA variant of this post didn't go through the first time; I hope it does *this* time!
ReplyDeleteThanks to your refs, I decided to look up J. Archer's blog. It was...ineffable. So amazingly pompous and dripping-with-names-dropped that I cannot even find a word to describe it adequately.
But then it dawned on me. Jeffrey Archer is a comedian -- the most deadpan comedian there is. You have Sacha Baron Cohen (my son's favorite English comic) and then you have Jeff Archer. He *knows* you're linking to him and he's having you on. The belly laughs he's "emitting" must rocket around the drawing room of his country manor ever time he reads a thread like this one.
You see, knowing the few English folk I do -- all of whom, admittedly, are working- or middle-class -- I simply cannot imagine Archer being such a twit *for real*. It has to be a joke. In my experience, to act superior in England is to invite yourself to be knocked down a peg -- or six -- by the public, virtually any member of the public.
What do you think? Could I be right? Jeffrey is the subtlest comedian in all of England?
Archer the ironist has crossed my mind more than once, Susan, but I can assure you the man himself is quite devoid of humour or self-knowledge. If you want to see what I mean, check out the post and comments under the heading Snowdon, dateline 21st September. All the commenters are ironists from my blog. He doesn't get it at all. I am 'an admirer'.
ReplyDeleteAgh! I'm scared to look.
ReplyDeleteBut I will. I will have to. I know it.
Strange how names you haven't thought of for ages suddenly jump out and ambush you - Heidegger for example; had a vision this morning of a philosophy lecturer towering over a student exclaiming...
ReplyDeleteAnd Which Part of 'Being and Time' Did You Not Understand ???
...
and then this crops up.