‘blame the extended gestation.…’ seemed a rather curious title for a blog, and not one that gave any real clue to the content that was to greet me. As a reviewer one is tempted to groan when a blogspot url leads to yet another genetic blogger template, we just see so many of the same repeatedly. That said I moved on in search of an about me section, there wasn’t one. These aren’t essential to any blog, but they help to give a reader a little background information on the person behind the words. I then headed off in search of that crucial first post hoping that there might be so interesting background information there, again there was none to speak of.
The interesting thing for me was that on first observation of the site I didn’t think it would attract me the way it did. But some people manage to make the dullest things sound interesting, and more often than not Jim manages this here. His posts are often short, to the point and with no word wasted. But this is a definite advantage bearing in mind the subject matters he tends to cover – you can learn a lot about this author with just a few postings, especially his political affiliations and so on. The content in summary is a lot like the title – short and quirky!
There isn’t a great deal I can say about the site design, it is in fact a generic blogger template, which are frequently seen and not very individual. I’m not a great fan of light text color on dark backgrounds, but this one is clear enough and easy to read, so no harm done. All the links work, even the archives thankfully (it is quite often the case with blogspot that archives are neglected leaving broken links).
Amazon advertisements in the left hand column show what the author is currently reading or listening to, and some interesting links to other sites can be found further down.
I was pleasantly surprised by some of the content here, which certainly managed to exceed my earlier expectations. I’m not sure that it would be a blog I would visit on a regular basis, but it would manage to be an interesting diversion every once in a while. Not bad at all – 3