Blogulike

In the days when I was a commuter I used frequently to get back later than anticipated and rather than wait for a bus and then change for another, I used to walk across town to get home, thinking shanks' pony a better alternative.

It was a pleasant walk for the most part...a little window shopping to be had in the centre, tree lined streets leading to another parade of shops with a late opening wine store and deli and then the trek past or through the park, depending on the season and the presence or absence of the local idiot fringe, to find the dogs waiting to mug me as I opened the front door.

But the first part of the walk was different....just outside the station there was a series of fast food shops...some local, some franchises.... from fish and chips (run by a Chinese family) past Kentucky Fried Chicken, a kebab house, a burger bar and the one which never failed to amuse me....Spudulike.

I used to wonder if indeed I would like their spuds and usually concluded that, as the title implied I would, from sheer perversity I probably wouldn't.

And Spudulike came back to mind today.

I thought I would do a little housekeeping on the blog and start by tidying away the blogs that have ceased to appear.
Inevitably, I started reading them - it's fatal to let me near reading material if there is anything else to be done - and found myself wondering about their disappearance.
Some announced their departure, others slid quietly away, but I miss them all.

So they're still there waiting for another housekeeping day!

Then I thought I'd go through the blogs I follow generally, whether on the Google thingy or on e mail as the Wordpress blogs seem to be....and I found a few that, on reflection, I decided to drop from my list as I wouldn't be missing them.

The difference between 'missed' and 'not missed'?

I think it comes down to a sense of contact between the blogger and the reader.

Not just common interests, because thanks to blogging I've had all sorts of horizons opened up by people who do what they do with passion, who make me see things differently, or for the first time.

I think it is the sense of privilege that someone is letting you into their world, enhancing your own.

The blogs that I am going to jettison are frequently very informative and well written, but the common factor is their distance - as I see it - from the reader.
It is not just a matter of replying to comments or not, though to me that is important if only as a matter of courtesy, it is more my feeling that the blog is complete of itself....needs no dialogue, wants no dialogue....hears no tolling bells.

I don't often, but should, look for new blogs, as there is so much talent and warmth in the blogging world, but don't really know how to go about it.

I have started messing about on  Wordpress (thank you Perpetua!) in an amateur sort of way and have been startled by the acknowledgements aimed at getting an increased readership by a sort of scattergun technique....not one I'll be using!

There are various 'catalogue' sites too...but I have problems there, all of my own making.
I cannot get to grips with the ways in which they use categories. I am category autistic.
None of them fits my style of blogging - as far as I know - and the categories I try don't throw up what I am looking for.

So if anyone knows of a sort of Blogulike site....I'd be glad to hear of it.
I have housework that needs to be avoided....

A Kindness of Bloggers....and a Fix for Blogger

Image via CrunchBase

In the relatively short time I have been blogging, since April 2009, I have noticed that the overwhelming number of bloggers with whom I have come into contact have been distinguished by their kindness and their respect for other peoples' views.

I have learned a great deal from them.
They have given me new interests, have opened my eyes to photography and styles of music I would never have turned on by choice - have even changed my mind, whose nature normally resembles that of a army pack mule.

Ayak, whose blog about her life in Turkey was one of the first I found, has singlehandedly turned me from someone convinced that if I pressed something the entire contents of the computer would disappear down the plughole to someone that can now copy and paste without having a nervous breakdown.

Phil, whose wonderful Blogitandscarper is in abeyance at the moment, opened my eyes to what could be done with images.

Owen, whose Magic Lantern Show made me use my eyes when out and about.

The Diary of Amy Rigby, which opened up worlds of music which had passed me by, not to speak of an introduction to living in the U.S.A.

Mark, at Views from the Bikeshed, who offered sound advice on layout and whose blog continually makes me think and assess.

I am currently indebted to Perpetua, who has not only kindly offered to lead me through the weird world of Wordpress but who has also signalled a fix for the latest Blogger problem.

If you have been affected by the roll out of assigning your blog URL to a country suffix rather than to the old blogspot.com, with subsequent loss of the easy change tools on your dashboard, then she has the answer here.
She has suggested that everyone passes the fix on, as we all have differing circles of readers, to give maximum help to as many as possible.

Steve at Bloggertropolis has been posting recently about the changes in blogging...the growing commercialism...and I'm sure that this change in Blogger is to enable Google to attract more advertisers by using the blogging community to better effect.

He has also noticed that a number of blogs he followed have died off, or even out, and I've noticed the same phenomenon.
Is it because people now don't have the same time for blogging...are too busy running to stand still trying to make a living, so that unless their blog attracts money it's not worth pursuing?

I blog less these days...partly as a consequence of my husband enjoying much better health.
Blogging was something that occupied the long night hours of waiting and watching, pushing worry away by concentrating on something else.
Now, I frequently think
'Oh, I'd like to blog about that...' but find that life is too full to make the time and the moment has passed.

I get rather put off by the 'big' blogs....the product reviews, the puffs for restaurants, fashions, etc...
There doesn't seem to be the contact with the blogger that you find on the smaller ones, which is what I value.
The exception to that being The Slog, imprinted as it is with the character of its author and on its way to be being a monster blog.


It is not to say that everything in the blogging world is lovely.....

Some of the 'living the dreamers' react with virulence to any explicit or implicit criticism of their beloved France, as if they had been poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

Some of the 'mummy bloggers' make you think yourself grateful not to be within reach of their backbiting and eye scratching.

But, in my part of the blogging world at least, things are civilised.

Thank you fellow bloggers!

Versatile, eh?

Ayak at Ayak's Turkish Delight has kindly passed me 'TheVersatile Blogger' award, for which many thanks, Ayak.

If you don't yet know her blog it is one of the best around...sincere, caring and funny. Get yourselves over there and enjoy meeting her.

But there is no free lunch. I have to tell you five 'quirky' things about myself and dob five more bloggers in it.

So, to divert attention from my revelations, I'll reverse the usual order and tell you about the bloggers to whom I would like to pass this award.


John Gray at Going Gently has a multifaceted blog...his work, his family, his animals,.his life in a Welsh village. It's a blog followed by many people, but if it hasn't crossed your bows yet, do take a look.

Genius Loci takes you on journeys with the author..journeys to work, journeys to go fishing, journeys to see family...journeys to the local park....and you'll want to journey with him on a blog I find so well written and rich in language.

Delana at du jour tells you just why a fifty year old woman CAN pack up and move to France. You've got it all here...super photographs and descriptions, and even cupcakes...whatever they may be.

A blog I enjoy very much is Chez Charnizay where Niall and Antoinette offer their observations on the seasonal round...deceptively simple and beautifully presented.

A fairly new blog you might not have come across yet is Secretly Skint, where it's all action, from helping with animals to fighting the tax man via family counselling...I'm beginning to think it might well be subtitled 'once more unto the breach'.....!

Now, with any luck you'll have become engrossed in one or all of the talented blogs above, so I can slip in the required revelations under the radar.

After years of eschewing their dark arts, I went to a hairdresser when in London this summer and had my mane cut and coloured. Felt wonderful.
Consequence...now have to find a hairdresser to repeat operation. Not so wonderful.

Having bought a pirate music disc on the local bus for the equivalent of one pound fifty entitled English classical music (in Spanish) I discovered that it was music 'classics' from the 1980s and that I enjoyed nearly every one of the 146 tracks. Some I even recognised.

I never thought I would taste a kipper again...you can rate friendship by the willingness of visitors to pack kippers in their luggage for a long flight to a hot destination....until we found a fish called cola de bagre which when salted and smoked tastes like the real, pre Mac Fisheries thing. (Yes, we salt and smoke it ourselves.)

I have consigned my non functioning Kindle to whichever circle of the Inferno will do it most harm.
Amazon were most helpful...but The Thing had clearly detected my apprehension of it and reacted like a rabid dog. Poxy object.

I am in disfavour with the local (American) expats...now why doesn't that surprise me?

Costa Rica Calling

Image via Wikipedia

I have given up hoping to wangle Blogger into putting up my Costa Rica blog so have followed the good advice of Perpetua and Phil...amongst others...and started all over again by importing its content into a new envelope, as it were.

It is still called

Costa Rica Calling

but it now has another URL...which looks like the sound I made when trying to shift it over.

Despite the clearly expressed advice I had managed to get it all arse about face and now am putting this up in haste as a thunderstorm is about to engulf us, making pulling the plug on the computer a matter of urgency...and also because I note that Blogger refuses to save anything I have been editing....

I shall try to contact followers on the old blog.....but, for the moment.....

URL!

There will be changes.....

Image by kahunapulej via Flickr

No...I'm not yet despairing enough to brave the horrors of Wordpress, but Blogger is getting me down.

I'm having trouble with my Costa Rica blog again....the people kind enough to follow it have no idea that the latest post exists as Blogger won't tell them.

I have checked settings until I am blue in the face and I am completely fed up with it all.

Unless anyone can come up with a solution -  forget Blogger, their idea of communication is to deliver self congratulatory posts on how clever they are - I am going to amalgamate the two blogs into this one and try my best to signal the content to avoid people interested in Costa Rica finding themselves in darkest France and people interested in darkest France being stunned by mention of public transport and high speed internet that works.

Oh...and one more thing.

I do get het up about things which don't necessarily fit into either French stuff or Costa Rican stuff and will thus put up a page from time to time, as the boiling point of blood approaches.

It's on the sidebar....under the archives...

Threads in the web.

Blogger is a wonderful idea...

It would be even better if those running it could help the IT autistics among us to cope with its little ways...

Costa Rica silent....

I really cannot fathom Blogger.

I posted on my other blog today...and it doesn't get posted to the people who follow it.

I've done all the usual voodoo....comments to pop up format....'yes' to post pages....edit and save as draft....take it off selected time to automatic and usually one or all of the voodoo elements works....but this time they don't.

And it's certainly no good asking Blogger.

So it's off for the wax and pins....unless anyone out there has a suggestion?