I Made The Shortlist

No, not for the Man Booker Prize but for the Lit section in the BIBs – Brilliance in Blogging Awards.

I would like to thank all those of you that stirred yourselves to vote for me against an undoubted plethora of good reasons not to.

I’m not sure what anyone can do from this point onwards. Voting closed on 30th April; now I think the judges just cogitate and ruminate on the finalists before naming their champion of champions on the 22nd June.

I guess the last few weeks are up to me.

If I knew who to bribe and sleep with I’d be emptying my pockets in more ways than one and doing it. Alas, the most I could offer anyone is 39p and about 15 minutes (tops) of full-on pash. I’m not sure such gifts would at all be first prize-worthy so it’s just as well the judges are not known to me and are beyond my paltry reach.

All I can do is keep blogging and hope that the gods of blogdom eventually recognize my small votive offerings.

That and like the smell of the fatted calves that I regularly sacrifice on a stone altar for their vicarious blood-thirsty pleasure...

How To Win Friends And Influence People

Do I really have to lay down some ground rules?

It seems that I do.

This is my blog. It's my forum to moan, celebrate, criticize, lampoon, fantasize, parody, showcase and divulge whatever happens to be manifesting in my tiny mind at any given moment. It is not your blog and I do not take kindly to attempts - especially anonymous attempts - to hijack it in an attempt to perpetuate yet another blogging war that I have had no real stake in. If you have a beef that you want to shout about then kindly get your own blog and use it.

I am sick and tired of all the back-biting and bitching that is currently infesting the blogging world like a case of Herpes. In the last month I have heard of 4 blogs / bloggers who have been attacked, ganged up on and have suffered internet campaigns against them along the lines of attacks on public forums and bad reviews on StumbleUpon, etc. Their crime? Expressing opinions they are entitled to on their own blogs. At least one of these bloggers has closed their blog as a consequence after offensive comments were even directed towards their children. For Heaven's sake! What is wrong with you all?

Do you know why I started this blog? It wasn't to make friends (though friends I have made). It wasn't to achieve fame or notoriety. It wasn't to make money or sell other people's products. I really don't give a shit about any of that. It was simply to write and have my work read by (hopefully) likeminded individuals with similar goals. That is still my aim.

I am not interested in who did what to whom or who said what or even who is right or who is wrong in any given spat. I am not interested. And neither is the outside world.

I had the misfortune to get caught up in a blogging spat last month and without doubt it was the most tawdry affair I have ever been involved with during my time writing this blog. In the end I wrote about it (no, I am not linking to it: it's done and dusted as far as I am concerned) and received over 80 comments; the most comments I have ever received for a single blog post. At first I was pleased. So many supportive comments from people, most of whom I didn't even know. But then slowly the comments became darker. They were from people who just wanted to add their own twopenethworth to the row; to have a pop at so-and-so and perpetuate the whole nasty affair. These people have never been back to my blog since the affair died down and have not bothered to comment on any of my other posts. That says a lot doesn't it?

Well, I don't want these people back. They plainly have no interest in my blog or what I write. I'm not so in love with my stats that I'd regularly court that kind of trouble.

A couple of days ago another blogger wrote a post about the trouble I'd had and the trouble another blogger is currently having. The post expressed their dismay and was far gentler in tone than the one I'm writing now. It was a fair post too. However, they too have now been attacked and effectively blackballed. I received an anonymous comment last night on my previous post from the "blackballers" basically defending their position. They expressed no interest in my post at all; they just wanted to use my blog as a wall upon which they could scrawl their graffiti.

Well, I'm not interested. And I'm not allowing it on my blog.

This behaviour is petty playground tactics, people. It is not what I came to blogging about and it is not what I want to blog about. And if that means I get a bad review on some web site somewhere so be it.

I am happy with my little coterie of like-minded bloggers. I'm not interested in upping my stats or endorsing consumer products. I'm not interested in blogging awards or getting in with the blogging "in-crowd". I'm interested in the writing.

If you're not then simply go read someone else.

Take your gang warfare where it belongs - back to the gutter.

Guest Blog Post: Lord Sugar Speaks

First off, right, I’m sick of all this mouthiness that is infecting my blogging boardroom at present. If I wanted that kind of earache I’d spend more time at home wiv my missus and my kids. It’s like a bloody East End market at present wiv everyone giving it the ol’ rabbit and making out that their stall is better than everybody else’s when nobody, from what I can see, is flogging anyfin worthwhile.

Well, I don’t need that kind of aggro, right? You lot need to get wiv the programme and start working as a team. Together. Cos I don’t care who done what to whom or who said what to whoever. Bovvered I ain’t, you got that? I got bigger fish to fry. If I spent as much time as you lot did arguing the toss abaht who bullied who or who slagged off which slag I’d never have enough time to keep me beard in the tip top trimmed condition that you lot see it in every bleeding Wednesday night on your tellys.

It ain’t how I do business, you capiche? You gotta prioritize. That’s the first lesson I learned when I was hawking me barrow around Chigwell market when I were a young nipper no bigger’n knee high to a grasshopper gor blimey gov. You puts your stuff in your shop-winda and you sells it. You saves the argy-bargy for private when you’re at home or dahn the boozer when you can glass the odd chav wivout the rozzers jumping onto you the minute the claret hits the pavement. Take a tip from me, have a good getaway driver lined up wiv a towel and bowl of soapy water cos you’re gonna need it. DNA has tripped up even the best of businessmen these days. CSI Bloggosphere is the next big fing I’m telling yer.

So what else can you do abaht it?

Well, if you wants to keep your ‘ands clean, you comes to me to sort it aht in my capacity as a peacekeeping troubleshooting mediator. And that’s what’s happened here, see. This bloke, Steve What’s-is-face has come to me cap in hand like a good little Jewish boy even though he’s bleeding C of E, moaning about all the back biting and the conflicts that are currently doing the round in the blogging world. He’s harping on about the bloody Clone Wars or somefing, I don’t know, all I know is he’s given me a nice little back hander and said he’ll endorse me latest Amstrad gadget the iSugar (a nice little app to sack lightweights from the comfort of your raspberry or whatever they’re bleedin’ well called). Anyway, this Steve fella knows how fings works, see? You get your back scratched and then you get your fingernails dirty wiv someone else’s skin. It’s how it bleedin’ works, right?

But what-bleedin-ever. The point is I’ve ‘ad me stalwart assistants, Nick ‘Hewn From Rock’ Hewer and Karren ‘The Brady Bunch’ Brady, keepin’ a close eye on the activities of the two blogging teams out there – the pink mumsy bloggers and the bluesy everybody elses and I ain’t liking what I’m seein’. There’s a lot of posturin’ and a lot of scratchin’ and bitin’. But what profits are you lot showing? There’s a lot of hot air but no-one’s balloon is being floated up to the highest height if you get my meaning. It’s like everyone’s intent on knifing Caesar but nobody knows who Caesar bleedin’ well is.

Well, take it from me, I’m the only Caesar around ‘ere and no-one is sticking a Stanley knife between my unwaxed shoulder blades anytime soon.

So put up, shut up and get on wiv your business. Now bugger off back to the house.

Right. That’s that sorted then. Karren, get me a mug o’tea darlin’, one sugar please. Geddit? Did you see what I did there, Karren, luv? No? Well, you’re bleedin’ well fired then. Get aht!

Return Of The Blogging Jedi

So last week I felt a tremor in the Force; you know that weird mystical energy that binds all blogs together, that flows through and around them? It’s called the internet or something...

Anyway, it gave me bad dreams, nightmares, a strange prescience of the blogging world that is to come. My master told me to quieten my mind and accept what I saw, to let go of my blogging attachments. “The Future it is that you see in your mind. Your fears let go of you must. In the Force trust you may.”

I told him to go and get stuffed. I don’t know about you but I don’t take orders or advice from someone who looks like a talking sprout and talks like a Norwegian exchange student.

It was possibly the worst move I ever made. I can see that now.

I was wholly unprepared for what happened next.

Out of the technological darkness came a dark shape. All in black. A cape. A mask. That anonymous heavy breathing that I normally only hear on the phone at 4am in the morning. We fought. Our light sabers clashing and humming like vibrators at a Hugh Hefner private video party.

I confess, I got cocky. I thought I was already a Jedi and could do anything, that I was unassailable. But I slipped. I fell. I found myself on my butt, on a gantry suspended thousands of feet above a man-made electronic chasm.

A black gloved hand reached out to me.

“Steve, Steve, the blogging Force is strong in you. Join with me and we can overthrow the rulers of the bloggosphere.”

“No!” I cried. “I’ll never join you!” I tried to raise my vibrator saber again but the battery was flat.

The mask spoke again. “Obi Wan never told you the truth about the blogging world...”

“He told me enough!” I snarled. “He said that you corrupted all the mummy bloggers! That you destroyed them all!”

“No, Steve.” The mask shook its head and thrust its gloved hand towards me one more time. “I am your mummy blogger. Join me, we can rule the internet mummy blogger and... er... daddy blogger.”

“Noooooooooo!”

What could I do? What was left to do?

I hurled myself screaming and nauseous from the gantry and after a fall of what seemed like aeons I found myself back in the garbage dump where I’d originally started – surrounded by all the usual stuff I write about: crap times at work, poor finances, all the women I fancy off the telly and all the drunks and oddballs of Leamington Spa.

And a cat in hell’s chance of ever being offered the chance to endorse the latest Nestle breast pump or Palitoy home liposuction kit.

God it’s good to be back.

A Black Day For Blogging

It’s a black day for blogging, folks.

It’s a black day when one blogger can accuse another of bullying and yet use the tactics of the bully to try and silence them.

It’s a black day when everyman’s right to free dialogue and to express their own opinion is gagged.

It’s a black day when, here in England, freedom of speech is denied.

It’s a black day for blogger’s everywhere when one blogger seeks to dictate what another blogger can write about on their own blog and threatens both Police and legal action should they ignore this dictat.

Where to begin?

I don’t intend to rake over the entire debacle here – and believe me it is a debacle. It all started on Wednesday when Heather posted a witty and cutting post about some horrid Shhblogger site that was seeking to stir up trouble. I didn’t read this blog myself as I couldn’t be bothered and now it has been judiciously removed.

Heather’s post stirred up a lot of commenters and one of these caught my eye with the amount of punishment they were dishing out, rightly or wrongly (who knows?) to other bloggers. You can follow the link and read it all. I am not going to paraphrase other people’s words for fear of casting my own bias upon them. In the interests of free speech and individual opinion it’s important you make your own mind up if you have a care to dig deeper.

Anyway, this commenter went by the name of 20somethingmum (I’m not going to link to her as I don’t think she’d thank me and I see little point in not naming her; follow the link and you’ll soon identify her for yourself) and in one of her comments proudly proclaimed she was a chav from the chav motherland. Ill advisedly – I admit – this tickled me and I responded with something along the lines of (yes I’m quite happy and legally entitled to paraphrase myself): interesting name but you do realize all them beer and fags will make you look like a 50something mum?

Yes, I admit it was childish. Ill thought out and, in retrospect, better left unsaid. But you know, sometimes you are fed a line and the innate stand-up comedian in you has to come back with something. Unlike 20somethingmum I’m happy to be open and honest about all this and take whatever brickbats or laurels you, my blogging peers, care to thrown at me.

More words were said. I was accused of being a bully. An accusation I thought a little unfair. A pisstaker yes – but a bully? Am I really? I then made the point to ‘20sm’ that her own comments on this post were full of far more invective towards other people than my comment had been to her. I thought that might be the end of it. A little mid-week diversion. One of those curious little spats that sometimes erupt in the blogging world.

I got on with my day.

Later in the evening I was warned that 20sm was having a go at me on Twitter and demanding my email address! Presumably so she could write to me and give me a damned good telling off! Now, I don’t know about you, but giving my email address out to all and sundry is a big no-no. Private and personal data and all that. If someone wants to have a go at me there is my blog sitting quite happily on-line for people to avail themselves of (and believe me they do). I was dismayed at the sheer number of Tweets this person was generating towards me. I – again, ill advisedly – decided to reply; to stick up for myself rather than leaving it to my friends to do so. So I sent some Tweets back along the lines of ‘aren’t we making this bigger than it ought to be’ and ‘isn’t it about time we all moved on, I was sorry they were upset it was just meant to be a mild pisstake’. I’m sure my Tweets are still online for those of you that want to read them. Again, I’m happy to make this whole process transparent and take your censure on the chin.

I thought that this then, finally, would be the end of it.

Not so. 20sm has published a post about the whole thing on her blog today. As she has a perfect right to do. I wouldn’t dare challenge her right to put her own view across to her readers. It is her blog, this is a free country and she may say what the hell she likes. I might not agree with it but she has the right to her views and the right to express them.

Again, I’m sorry, but I daren’t link to the post as I fear legal action might be taken against me – instead you’ll have to do your own digging to find the post should you want to read it. It’s not difficult to find if you know what you’re doing. Again, although my name has not been mentioned, I’ve been accused of bullying and various – quite nasty – slanders have been made against Heather and her blog. It also transpires that 20sm blocked my Tweets and reported me to Twitter for bullying!

I am aghast! It’s perfectly acceptable for someone to generate countless Tweets slagging me off and demanding that my email address be made public but when I try and enter into a discourse with this person I am both silenced and reported to the authorities for being the author of it all!

20sm went on to accuse her tormentors (me, I suppose) of acting out of jealousy towards her because her blog is so successful and is furthering her aspirations to become a published writer. She ended her post on the moral high note that it was a shame that so many people have taken to behaving like children this week.

I left a comment on the blog. Come on, now, you didn’t expect me not to, surely? Here it is below for your judgment:

I don't suppose you will publish this as (unbeknownst to me) you blocked my replies to your accusations on Twitter - I didn't harass you I was replying to the astounding number of Tweets you were generating with my name on them. Before this point I had never sent you a single message. Seems freedom of speech is only a right afforded to the chosen few. I'm glad you have linked to the blog where all this began as it will give others a chance to make their mind up about the whole thing rather than having their mind made up by others. You were not bullied. I made a single - if ill advised - joke centred around the non de plume you use. As insults go it was so mild I doubt a vicar would have felt his eyebrow ruffled. Your comments to other people on the other hand were nasty and childish. Ironic given the pay off of this post. Most of my comments to you on Twitter were along the lines of "let's not make a big thing of something that is tiny and let's all move on". I had. Shame you haven't. And, lastly, as for being motivated by jealousy, I have never heard of you or your blog before Wednesday and knew nothing of your literary aims or successes until directed to read your blog today by a friend. Jealousy did not come into it. A simple exercise in humour and a play on words did. I have saved a copy of this comment and will publish it on my own blog as an "open letter" if you haven't got the decency to publish it on yours. You have made a molehill into a mountain. Still, if it creates a buzz for your blog - and mine I suppose - then both our literary aspirations have been well met, haven't they? I wish you luck with your writing career. I doubt very much our paths will cross again. Perhaps a good thing, eh?

It didn’t get published. In fact another paragraph was added to the original post along the lines of none of my comments or the comments of any of my supporters will get published on her blog. Fair enough. It’s her blog and she may moderate as she sees fit. We bloggers, every one of us, all have that right. Fair enough, good for her. However, she then added that were I or any of my friends to publish our own posts relating to these events and in any way identifying her (though she herself has quite happily linked to Heather's original post where she is quite easily identified) then she would seek legal and police action against us as is her right!

What!?!

Nobody, but nobody, has the right to tell me what I can and can’t write about on my blog! And to have this injunction put in place by someone who professes to be a fellow writer thoroughly astounds me. This is not Central America. This is not China. This is England. Free speech, Goddamnit!

So not only am I not allowed a fair and open dialogue with this person but I cannot even write about it on my own blog for fear the police and cyber bailiffs come round to close me down! Well, if my blog disappears sometime soon you will know what has happened. The thought police have done their job and I am languishing in a cell somewhere, being waterboarded with Milton Fluid and formula baby milk.

How can all this have got so out of hand? I am appalled. I am amazed. I am (certainly) ashamed of my part in it. But mostly I am furious that one single blogger feels they have this much power over the rest of us. The same blogger who also used the argument that I was a guy and she a girl and therefore what I did was totally out of order because as you know, you poor little women are weak and woolly and cannot possibly hope to defend yourselves against big butch comments from big butch males like me.

Excuse me? Most of the blogs I read are by women and there isn’t a single one of them who strikes me as weak or helpless. My God, if I ever got into a fight, I’d want you all alongside me.

Oh, yes. Quite right. I have got into a fight.

So what to do? Well, no point pretending to ruminate, I’ve done it. This is MY blog. I’ll write what I like. And anyone – yes anyone – may comment. I’ll not gag or silence anyone. Neither will I seek to get them thrown off Twitter or Blogger or dragged through the courts by the family solicitor. Because (a) this whole tawdry affair isn’t worth the time, effort or money and (b) as a writer and an Englishman I believe passionately in freedom of speech.

And if I’m to be hanged for it I’ll go down talking as loudly as I can.