As a latecomer to the world of social networking and public blasting off (or bleating) in the blogosphere, I have tended to allow others to present my activities and work in the third person – even on my website. I have, it is true, begun tentatively to ‘tweet’ and enjoy the limitation of the fixed number of characters that Twitter demands. But whilst enjoying the odd low fat warble, I have remained aware that being clever in a few words – or providing a sensible and succinct solution to a pressing world problem in no more than160 characters – is sometimes just an excuse not to think issues or feelings or reactions through, and, rather, to pat oneself on the back for at least having ‘said something’. Cruise ship topples; twittered about that; end of story. Whereas, having myself sailed to New Zealand and back three times on ocean going liners, a more in depth reflection on – and description of – the nature of being on a large boat in, for instance, rough weather (the closest I have come to an ‘abandon ship’ situation) might be of greater interest than a few cryptic, character-counting comments. Not that I am going into the Concordia catastrophe now, as this is merely a preliminary dabble in the blogging bath – a dipping of the toe in the longer stream of words that constitutes a blog. The idea is to present comment and conjecture, as well as reflections on now and recollections (or reconstructions) of then in fact and fiction, alongside more purely informational statements elsewhere – i.e allowing myself to expand on the wisdom (or foolhardines) of being richard by being me now and then.
richardwoolley 