Sunday, June 17, 2007

Alastair Campbell and the Non-Blog

Alastair Campbell has a blog. Sorry, as you were, Alastair Campbell does not have a blog. One of the essential features of a blog is interaction, comments. But Big Al does not allow comments - well, he wouldn't, would he?This, therefore, is an announcement, a press release if you will, but it is not a blog. The style suggests I may have happened upon another Jeff or Amanda. Al is a rambler, never using ten words when he can uses a hundred. I have a particular dislike of this type of prose as it puts me to sleep. It is a strange failing for Al, a former tabloid hack. Perhaps he thinks it is good writing. Anyway, as a result of the sedative effect of his words, I can't report on anything he may have written, but I'm sure it's fantastically important.


4 comments:

  1. Spot on, Bryan. And may the Lord have mercy on his editors hair.
    [Former Welsh footballer Mr L James, found DUI, two hundred yards from his new job as lollypopman.]

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  2. i think sometimes it's only possible to write openly if you don't have to fear response, if you have no idea about your audience, good or bad. On the whole a critical comment lingers longer than a pleasant one. Perhaps Alastair is a sensitive, floppy-haired type, a poet declaiming his verse to the cliffs & islands of Winander. Dressed in black velvet. With a sword.

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  3. Yes, I see what you mean. He even has pictures of himself in a suit in his posts.
    I don't think blogs that don't allow comments are properly classified as blogs, either. I do follow a couple (eg normblog, the blog of Norman Geras) but I don't like the lack of ability to comment (vent, chime in or garnish with wit).
    If a politico such as AC starts up this malarkey, it is probably because he sees it as a "document of record" or maybe a part of reinvention of living history en route to his receipt of some honour or gong - to which end dissent and rudery in the comments would not be conducive ;-)

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  4. Today's opening line:

    "I don’t allow Mail newspapers in the house on account of the fact that I regard/view them as a rather unpleasant poison against anything that is good about being alive in Britain, or indeed anywhere else on the planet."

    By which he means: "I don't allow Mail newspapers in the house because they are poisonous."

    "Regard/view" is brilliant in its superfluousness.

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