Saturday, November 20, 2004

This Time, It's Official

Gone for Good.

Well, that's short, sharp, to the point, and up to the usual standards of accuracy around here. But it is time I took an extended and official break from blogging.

I admit the timing's crap, for two reasons. Anyone who's feeling a little bummed out at Chris Sheil's recent departure from the 'sphere has just been handed another bummer. It's not exactly the best way to respond to all the encouragement and compliments I got on Thursday night from them as attended the meet up at the Golden Terrace Restaurant. It's way overdue.

Sorry folks, but the ideas just aren't coming. It's that simple. Looking back over the posts of the past few months, and looking back on the writing of them, I've come to the conclusion that I've been trying too hard. The horse I've been flogging might not be quite dead, but it's certainly in a critical condition. To put it another way, no-one's going to be fooled by nailing the parrot to the perch – especially not me.

By way of passing on wisdom to other bloggers, I'll restrict myself to two simple apposite rules:

Don't force it.

Know when to stop.

Disabling comments doesn't seem to be an option with Haloscan so I've banned you all instead. Or tried to. We'll soon know if this last petty act of censorship and suppression of free speech has worked.

I'll probably update this post later, with links to the all-time greats; you know penis-gourds, possum-packers, libertarians at yum-cha, drunken bankers ...

Penultimately, the fact that this post has been the easiest one I've had to write in a long time ought to tell you a lot about why I'm off.

Finally, and most important, a big apology to David Tiley, Nabakov, Boynton and Helen from Cast Iron Balcony who are among those who came up with encouragement and compliments.

ve been going through the archives to locate a selection of better than mediocre posts from the past. Perhaps it's my personal bias, but there appear to be a few more than I thought, so this could take a little while to finish.

Here's the first batch from 2002:

Penis Gourds

Spy for the Dole

Modern Wage Theory

Slavery and Double Effect

The Courage of a Modern President

Walking Through Wills

Coiffeuses sans Frontieres

2003

The Tug Boat History of Australia