blogging birthday

A year ago today, I started this blog. I didn't know what direction it would take and very much doubted that anyone would read it. I'd been at a seminar where somebody worried that blogs were ephemeral and open to breach of copyright. That sounded fine to me. Someone else mentioned blogger.com as a way in which anyone could blog - implying, I thought, that sophisticated bloggers understood computers and wrote their own programs. I jotted down "blogger.com" and, that evening, went to my computer to find out what blogging was all about. I didn't even know the subject of my blog but the phrase "quaker fencer" came to mind, and that gave me a subject.

I started looking at other people's blogs, and they started reading mine. Soon we were posting comments. Hello in particular to early blog-friends: Beth on Screw Bronze; Jim, The Gray Epee; Brian, whose Big Book of Epee I still miss; and Dave, The Quaker Agitator. I value your friendship. Please keep blogging.

And hello too, to more recent readers and to anyone whose just dropping by. If you're new to blogging enjoy it.

If you like this blog, you may enjoy the blogs I link to in the sidebar, though I need to update the lists and add more. One is a more personal blog that I started on Boxing Day last year and there's another, which addresses politics, to which I contribute.

For the moment blogging seems the nearest there is to a democratic literary space where people can exchange views freely and form friendship. It's anarchic, which can cause problems, upsets and dangers - but it also offers bloggers the freedom to set their own rules. I don't know how long this will last; companies are moving in and governments are doubtless watching anxiously and, at times, intervening. For the moment it's a form in which I as a Quaker - and a fencer - feel very happy.