Sunday, June 17, 2007
Alastair Campbell and the Non-Blog
Alastair Campbell has a blog. Sorry, as you were, Alastair Campbell does not have a blog. One of the essential features of a blog is interaction, comments. But Big Al does not allow comments - well, he wouldn't, would he?This, therefore, is an announcement, a press release if you will, but it is not a blog. The style suggests I may have happened upon another Jeff or Amanda. Al is a rambler, never using ten words when he can uses a hundred. I have a particular dislike of this type of prose as it puts me to sleep. It is a strange failing for Al, a former tabloid hack. Perhaps he thinks it is good writing. Anyway, as a result of the sedative effect of his words, I can't report on anything he may have written, but I'm sure it's fantastically important.
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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.
Spot on, Bryan. And may the Lord have mercy on his editors hair.
ReplyDelete[Former Welsh footballer Mr L James, found DUI, two hundred yards from his new job as lollypopman.]
i think sometimes it's only possible to write openly if you don't have to fear response, if you have no idea about your audience, good or bad. On the whole a critical comment lingers longer than a pleasant one. Perhaps Alastair is a sensitive, floppy-haired type, a poet declaiming his verse to the cliffs & islands of Winander. Dressed in black velvet. With a sword.
ReplyDeleteYes, I see what you mean. He even has pictures of himself in a suit in his posts.
ReplyDeleteI don't think blogs that don't allow comments are properly classified as blogs, either. I do follow a couple (eg normblog, the blog of Norman Geras) but I don't like the lack of ability to comment (vent, chime in or garnish with wit).
If a politico such as AC starts up this malarkey, it is probably because he sees it as a "document of record" or maybe a part of reinvention of living history en route to his receipt of some honour or gong - to which end dissent and rudery in the comments would not be conducive ;-)
Today's opening line:
ReplyDelete"I don’t allow Mail newspapers in the house on account of the fact that I regard/view them as a rather unpleasant poison against anything that is good about being alive in Britain, or indeed anywhere else on the planet."
By which he means: "I don't allow Mail newspapers in the house because they are poisonous."
"Regard/view" is brilliant in its superfluousness.