Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

What do you think?

So, here it is. I've been writing this for a good couple of years, and it's been fun. There are about 10 times more people reading this blog now than there were a year ago, which is quite something.

But I'm kind of at a bit of a crossroads with this, and with everything else at the moment. I won't bore you with personal shit and I'll try not to sound wanky, but I really don't know where any of this is going.

I think if I keep this going, I might need to expand the scope of it a bit. I like being a so-called 'political' blog but that way lies dragons - or, more precisely, trolls. I don't know how much happiness there is for me in endlessly debating "Yes it is" and "No it isn't" below blog posts for the rest of my natural life. It's a thought that fills me with dread and sadness, because I don't really enjoy that at all, I might as well tell you.

Not that I don't appreciate feedback, as of course I do - but I look at the more successful political blogs, particularly on the left, and how they become basically battlegrounds for the kinds of arseholes I despise most of all in the world. I don't know if I have the will to deal with all that here, if this became a more successful 'political' blog. I don't know if I could. I do this in my spare time as it is, and it's got to the stage where it's a bit wearying seeing dozens of comments to be looked at and moderated - which is the only way to do it, in my opinion, as I'd never want to do the 'see no evil' business, as I regard it as essentially deceitful.

Sorry. I said I was going to try and make sure this didn't sound wanky, but it sounds wanky already. No point trying to correct that, though, so I'll just plough on through this...

What I'm trying to say, I think, is that I don't know where to take this. I think it's important to try and address the misdirection and distortion of things you read in the papers and online, but there are a lot of other people who do that. I kind of want to write other stuff, and I hope that's all right with you. I don't know why I'm even asking, I should just do it. But I don't know.

The thing is, in my 'real life', it turns out that I have no skills or experience which are of any interest to potential employers and that I am doomed to remain in my existing job, which I find somewhat tedious and unfulfilling, until I get made redundant, or lose the will to live, whichever comes first. I won't bore you with a tale of woe and I'm not looking for sympathy. Don't feel sorry for me. Because here, writing this, I have found something which I enjoy, and which other people actually seem to like me doing. Here, I don't get judged for decisions I took 15 years ago or what university I went to; here, I either write something good and you like it, or write something shit - like this - and you don't. I rather like that because it seems like a level playing field. It seems the only place where there is one.

So, the thing with this blog is, I do love it. And I want it to be more successful so that there's that the ever-dwindling possibility that I might ever be able to write things for a living doesn't disappear down the toilet altogether, I might want to write about more things than just tabloid bollocks, and politics. It's not that I won't do those things any more, I just won't do them as often. Less often, but better, maybe.

And I know the layout isn't very good, and I have no way of rectifying that really, because I have no skills in designing things like this, so my efforts are fairly poor. So you'll have to bear with me on that until I can learn to make it better. But I will, eventually, make it look a little less amateurish, even if I can't make it read that way.

If you've made it this far, thanks. If you have any suggestions or ideas as to where I can take this or what I can do, then you can email me at the address at the top of the page and let me know. Normal service will be resumed later.

My top 10 of 09

I see other bloggers have done a top 10 posts of 2009 thingy, so I thought I'd put mine up. These are the top 10 by traffic, mind - not by how good I think they are.

1. Why there is nothing 'natural' about the life of Jan Moir - Jan Moir wins new internet friends
2. Hmm... Remember this? - tabloid hypocrisy over Nick Griffin on Question Time
3. 100 Reasons why the Express isn't the world's greatest newspaper - climate change arguments and a history of rubbish from Desmond's organ
4. A whiff of something unpleasant - a news story led to fairly thinly veiled racism in the papers (and almost entirely unveiled by Rod Liddle)
5. A new low for the Express - Dunblane survivors daring to act like normal 18-year-olds
6. Don't let the facts get in the way of the scare story - vaccination lols with our responsible friends at the Mail
7. Spot the difference time - looking at the arguments as to whether a minaret ban in Switzerland was a nice architectural bit of preservation, or something slightly more sinister. Yes, people actually argued about this.
8. Who fancies a quiz? - Can you tell Melanie Phillips from Geert Wilders?
9. Why this isn't about a 'bad apple' - More on the Dunblane story and the ineffectiveness of media self-regulation
10. Let's chortle at the poor - with the same article twice - Jan Moir again, copying a previous "Ooh look, pound shops!" story

When vanity isn’t enough

I'm joining Tim and asking for this site not to be included in the Total Politics poll of political blogs.

I did take part in it last year, and it was quite exciting from a vain point of view, and I even put the little widget on the website. It was very nice.

But the longer time goes on, and the more I learn about Iain Dale, the less I want to have anything to do with him. I couldn't give a shit if I don't therefore get the links that give me a little bump up the Wikio rankings. I'd rather have nothing from Dale and his mates. He didn't invent blogging and I don't even think he's particularly good at it. There's no reason for anyone who has a blog and who wants it to be successful to be in thrall of him. Moreover, there's every reason to keep away if you want to have any integrity.

Here's a man, after all, who said there were 'no border controls'. A man who vilified Tory MP James Gray, whom he doesn't like, when he was *falsely* accused of having claimed a remembrance wreath on expenses, yet said nothing when Boris Johnson, whom he does like, actually *did* claim a remembrance wreath on expenses. A man who regularly links to John Redwood and Nadine Dorries, as if they're people worth reading rather than laughable fools.

Do I really want anything to do with his shabby blog poll this time around? No thanks.

Look over here…

The first Mailwatch post from me is up there - go and have a gander.

New Mailwatch is go, go go!

Go and have a look. I'm on there. But never mind that, it's very exciting.

500th

Astonishingly, this is 500 posts in just under a year. Not bad going at all. Anyway, thanks for reading (some of them, not all of them - you'd have to be bloody mad to have read the lot. Some of them are really crap, and I wrote them).

So anyway, there'll be something along in a minute about the Daily Mail. But till then I'll just crack open the Double Diamond.

Blimey.

Now officially the 146th best blog in the entire world.

Thanks for the votes!