An anonymous Bob, from nowhere.com, left a comment this morning accusing me of ‘self-centred waffling’. It’s always a little unsettling getting such an anonymous comment, though thankfully, in this case, Bob’s IP address included what appears to be his real name (I’m guessing that his real name is ‘Mark’), so I know it wasn’t from a friend trying to tell me to quit.
That said, I think Bob/Mark’s observation is bang on the money. This is a blog and, like all blogs, self-centred waffling is its raison d'être. What would this site be if it wasn’t an expression of my deluded hope that somebody might actually care what I think or what my cartoons might say? The truth is that the world generally doesn’t give a fig. That is the world I recognise. My neighbour came around the other day to ask me to move my car. We’ve lived next door to them for ten years. I know all their names, their jobs, the names of their illegitimates. They didn’t even know that we’ve never owned a car. Isn’t modern Britain's Big Society just wonderful, Mr Cameron?
The other part of Bob’s criticism is easier to address. He asks ‘what app ? no links no info’ and that’s also right. I’m damn cautious about talking about my app because some Android genius in India would easily knock it together in a spare lunch hour and market it to the world. I know how this game operates. Good ideas are few and far between and I think I’m sitting on a $100 idea. If I market it right, it might even earn me $120 which is about £70 in these God fearing times.
I was in Chester on Saturday on the way with my sister to see her consultant. I was idling time browsing the small PC World next door to Nero and listening to a sales assistant explain how he was doing a computer course where they were being taught to write their own Android apps. There’s nothing quite like listening to salesmen in PC World making idle boasts to ignorant customers to make you realise how you’re actually achieved something barely worth celebrating. But I’ve said this before. Learning to write Android apps is easy. Mastering it is something else.
I suppose I should also be grateful for Bob’s aggressive comment for setting me right about this blog. I haven’t blogged properly in two weeks but my excuse is that I’ve just lost the will to work. I suppose years of rejection have finally got to me. I’ve lost the enthusiasm to write, to draw, and even, I suppose, to live and breathe. I just begrudgingly face each day with the realisation that it will involve yet more crap and gruelling misery. My sister’s treatment at the hands of the local GPs has reached the point where I’m considering seeking legal advice regarding medical negligence. This last week has been one of the worst and it seems that the closer the consultant actually gets to finding the cause of her problems, the problems actually gets worse yet are routinely laughed off by the local GP as ‘a bug that’s going around’. Last Thursday was very distressing and I needed help so I rang the local surgery for advice. They wouldn’t send anybody to see her and they told me that the emergency doctor only attends to the elderly. They suggested we stick her in a taxi and go to the walk-in centre four miles away in another town… A shame we don’t own a car, though that doesn’t stop the neighbours for giving me grief about my parking…
In the meantime, I continue to work on the app during the moments when I’m not sitting outside the doors of consultants and GPs, or building websites for people who tell me that ‘desire for greatness is to be on the right track. But if we are on the right track, we’ll get run over if we just sit there. Action is paramount for greatness.’ If you do a search (I did), you’ll know that it’s a hackneyed phrase used by business gurus to sell their particular brand of bullshit. Is it unusual to get annoyed by people who are constantly upbeat and wanting me to work in a team? I occasionally do a little work for an American who quite the opposite and I love that. I miss being able to rib somebody and trade mock insults. It doesn’t seem normal trying to be so smiley…
And that, I think, is my problem. That’s why Bob was probably annoyed with my self-centred waffling. As you can see, I do waffling quite well but I don’t do smiley bullshit. In truth, the app isn’t working how I hoped it would. It’s not good enough to talk about. Nobody but me would probably want to use it like few people really read this blog. But what the hell. I enjoy self-centred waffling. I’ll blog again. This has been cathartic.
In the meantime, if anybody knows how to remove a snapped bolt from an office chair, I’d be very grateful. I sat in my favourite chair last night and it went ‘thud’ and the back fell off. I thought a bolt had simply come out, as they often do. Only this one had broken half-way down its length, due, I think, to the bloody awful blue locktite stuff some firms insist on sticking on bolts. It stops the bolts from falling out but always makes them sheer off instead. I now have to figure out a way of removing the piece of bolt stuck in the threaded hole so I don’t have to buy another chair. Like I say: more crap and gruelling misery...
Yes, your blog is self-centred waffle. Yes, keep it up, because you make it very interesting and entertaining self-centred waffle; which is a lot more than can be said of Bob/Mark's conribution, or, for that matter, such self-centred waffle that emanates from such places as the Houses of Parliament, the BBC, etc, etc....
ReplyDeleteNever understood people who bother leaving comments saying how much they hate/detest the blogger. They seem to think they paid you to blog and they therefore have a right to demand you please them. Wonder what they're like in "real life", quite pompous & tedious i imagine.
ReplyDeleteAh, thank you. Reading that in the middle of Manchester, your comment cheered me up after another tough day. I intend to write more self-centered waffle tomorrow, possibly on a self-centered subject involving Yours Truly but in capitals and with the full bold italics engaged.
ReplyDeleteStrange business, isn't it? I mean, this blog earns me nothing but costs me a great deal. I try to be generous whenever I visit other people's blogs but this is the way of the world and why I find myself increasingly hating the internet.
ReplyDeleteGlad you left a comment. I've been meaning to email you but the last week was bloody awful and I haven't stopped running around blue-arsed-fly-like....
If there are enough threads open, use a short bolt or a few washers as spacers. The chair might not last too long but you''ll get a few weeks/months more out of it. As a writer, the chair you sit in to write is the most important piece of furniture you own. Sell the sofa if you have to, but get a good chair.
ReplyDeleteAs for self-centred bloggjng, I was under the impression that it was the entire point of blogging.
Were we supposed to blog about other people's lives? Even the ones who don't have any?
Ah, Leg-iron, about 12 hours too late. I've fixed the chair, though as my next blogpost will detail, fixing it wasn't the difficult part. A bolt and a couple of washers did the job but getting the end of the old broken bolt from the hole was a different matter...
ReplyDeleteYep, you're right about the chair. Which is why it hurt losing it even for two days. My chair is definitely my more important piece of equipment. This has been a great one and lasted me years, which is itself rare. I usually break new chairs inside a month because they're rarely built for people over six feet and wider than rake.
Ditto your comment on blogging. Blogging is like the old fashioned commonplace book, a place to put all your useless facts, observations, and idle jottings. Their eclectic nature is what makes them fun, I think. The worst just have the same stuff day after day.