Virtual Methodist

When I was a child at home we only ever had 2 newspapers come into the house... both on a Sunday. One was the News of the World the other was the Sunday Post. My mother endeavoured to never let me or my brother see the News of the World... that was Dad's paper... but every week we were allowed to read Dundee's finest, which included "Oor Wullie" and "The Broons", although even as a child I could see that "The Broons" consisted of one story about jumping to conclusions being repackaged a hundred different ways... Actually, I'm not too sure that a weekly diet of the Sunday Post is any more healthy than that of the News of the World... its like a moral choice between a diet of pure candyfloss and pure vodka... Both entirely legal, but neither good for you... The former moralising, the latter amoral... both appallingly parochial with no breadth or depth of perspective... both knowingly giving their contituencies what they want, because that sells, ...

Well, it's been a while... Haven't been blogging much for a combination of reasons... First I was quite busy last week in a way I haven't been for months. Then, this week, I have been feeling a bit down again and just haven't had the mental energy for much more than crawling out of bed (just call me yoyo man). And finally, I've been doing a bit of thinking about the motivations for, wisdom and etiquette of blogging, prompted by a couple of events and conversations... First, a friend of a friend found herself seriously burned by the print media because of a blog she had been writing... no names, as I don't want to play by the same appalling sensationalist rules the papers do... Essentially she'd been writing a blog based on her life against the background of the current economic ills. It had recieved a little attention in the Sunday Times business section last November, but last week the Guardian/Telegraph/Mail and Express (and probably a few others that I ha...

Acheived a lifetime ambition yesterday in making the back page of a Saturday newspaper... OK it was the religious section and not the sports section of the Grand Rapids Press ... But a man can dream. Mind you, it should have been the fiction section as it begins by telling readers that I "fled" Northern Ireland in 1985... For those who want a laugh the link to the internet version is printed above, although I'm not sure how long it will stay live... so I have also included the text below. Neither includes the best part of the paper version: a photograph of me in the sanctuary of Faith Church which is one of those rare ones that don't make me want to run out and buy up every copy of the paper and destroy them all! It's the text that makes me want to do that. A classic case of a reporter hearing what he wants to hear through a filter of years of dramatised/romanticised accounts of our conflict. The quotes from me are generally verbatim, but the surrounding bits are ...