Goodbye... for now

"There's a world of deluded weirdoes out there in cyberspace, endlessly posting as if what they think matters two fucks to the rest of the world." (The Friday Thing)

And I'm one of them - or, at least, I have been. The more observant among you (ie the half-dozen people who actually read this blog) will have noticed that blogging action on my part has been, shall we say, light recently. No, shall we say completely non-existent, which is far more accurate?

Here's how it is. My career in the frightening arena we bloggers sneeringly refer to as Real Life has taken off to the extent where I am busy three weeks out of four. Proper busy - eight hours a day busy. Aha, you cry, not too busy to blog, then? Eight hours' kip a night and you'll still have eight hours for blogging! Well, yes, but I do have a two-year-old and a partner who's quite interested in remembering what I look like.

But there's more to it than that. Look at some of the blogs on the left (esp. in the must-read section) and you'll see some really high quality journalism there. Justin of Chicken Yoghurt would put most writers of any description to shame with his punchy, witty but thoughtful (and incredibly quick) responses to current events. The same goes for most of the rest of them. I've tried to compete, but the amount of time and effort needed to make a worthwhile contribution is beyond my resources. It's not that I'm not capable of writing as well as them - it's just that the amount of work and hours I would need to put into it is more than I feel I can spare. There's no point in wasting everyone's time producing a second- or third-division blog when the first-division people are doing so well and really saying everything I want to say, only doing it better.

To cap it all, I'm getting so disillusioned with everything I want to write about. Blair's government is beyond satire and there's little point in writing critical posts about how awful they all are when the only people who want to listen are, really, other bloggers. I've tried to preach to the unconverted on the messageboards I frequent and all I get in response is a lot of shoulder-shrugging. People either feel there's nothing they can do, or they believe Cameron offers a viable alternative (boy, are they in for a shock). There's little sense arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, when the rest of the world can't even see the pin and is more interested in who's the next one to be kicked out of/invited back into the BB House.

So I'm letting this blog go on ice for the time being. I may be back - I think it's almost certain. I've managed to keep this blog going for over a year, which is some kind of achievement in itself. But if you want tip-top political comment, or just want to read about what an awful journalist Lucy Mangan is, you'll have to find it elsewhere. Start on the left.