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Last entry: 02 January 2008. Site Map
I'm not going to try to justify the idea of reviewing the progress and status of my own site. It just seems like a good idea.
Reviews:
April, 2008: (Working on it...)
02 January, 2008.
Review: April, 2008. (In progress)
Soon enough, this site will have been up and running for three months -
On the principles of China and Climate Change, it looks like I'm preaching to the converted. The methods remain open to argument. Brown is a busted flush: the big question is what we get instead...
Writing a journal is probably doing more for my education than it'll do for anyone else's: I've discovered that on some issues I'm part of a far wider wave of opinion than I'd realised - on some of my core topics I'm not saying much that's new or controversial.
Errors - harvests, ID cards and surveillance
On climate change, I made the mistake of thinking that, because Exxon and Bush (along with the Daily Mail and a few 'opinion-formers' like Andrew Neil and the Lawson family) deny that we face a crisis demanding tectonic action, ordinary folk might be reassured or even taken in by these people. Whether or not folk are doing anything, or know what to do, may be another matter, but what's on the web and growing in the media suggests that they're not fooled.
Blair? Brown?
But liberties - people aren't getting it...
Change of direction?
Review: 02 January, 2008. (Next review: April)
I started writing about three months ago, so this is as good a time as any for my first effort to try to look at what I've been doing as objectively as possible. The fact that it's the new year clinches it. I'll have to think a bit before the next time I try this exercise as to what I think I'm assessing; but Aims, Presentation and Achievement will do for starters.
Aims:
I started the site because of my sense of foreboding about the physical future of the planet and about the social/political future of my country.
It may be that these aims are more separate than I thought, albeit with areas of overlap. The problem is that I haven't kept my entries distinct, which may mean that the site is more confused than it need be. Should I divide the site into two? Should I focus on one or other of the two aims? Or is my classification system going to keep things in order?
It's a bigger job than I realised. I spend about 30 minutes here most days, an hour at most. I write about whatever comes to mind at that time - but there is so much that I think of (at odd times, mostly in the shower) that never make it here. Another reason to limit my ambitions?
And then I keep writing about things which have no bearing on my professed aims - theology (such as it is), I notice, over the last few days. Should I actively not write such items?
I would like to write about any old subject that takes my fancy. Sooner or later I'll have to decide: Focus or Fancy?
Presentation:
I've consciously not gone out of my way to visit other sites for a few weeks, so that this site starts as free as possible from outside influences - not because I don't want them, but to build up my own confidence. When I have visited other sites, however:
1. On the whole, they seem much more professionally presented (and technically superior) compared with mine. I'll want to do something about that, but I don't think it's urgent. In fact, I'm not sure whether it matters, so long as my site is competent. Question: Is it?
2. More importantly, some of them are clearly very well researched. I don't think I'm researching enough - I'm conscious, in fact, of a certain immaturity about my site: focus would go some way to tackling this - but then again, would I lose spontaneity? Come to that; is my site a notably spontaneous one?
3. What really matters is my writing style, which I acknowledge can be quirky. I can't be objective about that, so I'll have to wait on criticism by others.
Perhaps I ought to change the top panel of each page, which still reads 'Diary' rather than 'Journal'. However, it was my first bit of design (!) connected to the site - I was only fooling around - but I've grown quite fond of it.
Here's a question. Would a first-time visitor to the site get a clear and immediate idea of what the site is meant to be about? I have to admit that I don't think so....
Achievement:
Not a whole lot, so far.
However, I have at least kept writing for three months, which proves I can do it without much pain; and I do find it a very cathartic activity, so on that basis alone it's worth doing.
Have I changed the world at all?
No.
It's time to work out how I might do that, I suppose. And to work out how I reconcile myself to the surreality in society that led me to my very first entry ( An Introduction : The World is Changing).
Things Left Undone:
I haven't explained in so many words what I think the plague is, yet.
18c.