Yet Another Internet Diary. I appreciated the clean straightforward style of the page. Easy to read font for the entries and large clearly marked entry headers made finding my way around simple. The beginning of his About page is permanently displayed in the left column so I found out right away that I was reading a blog from John in Glasgow, Scotland. Now to this American, Glasgow sounds like an exotic location and I was hoping I might learn a little something about a place I have never seen. He has been writing here since July 2003.
I began at the most current entries with an open mind. But slowly I became disappointed. The entries cover all manner of trivial subjects, which include rants on tea, alka-seltzer, cheese and onion chips, expressing one’s anger by beating inanimate objects to bits and other scintillating minutia. It was rather puzzling to tell the truth, because our John is no dunce. He writes clearly, has an impressive vocabulary and is a fan of Bill Bryson (a personal favorite of my own), so why waste these talents on drivel?
There was one time that I laughed out loud while reading his diary. It was an entry posted on November 7, 2003. I wish there had been more stories like this one. For you see, there are amusing and thought provoking things that happen even in the most common of everyday things of life.
There is one entry where he writes that people have complained that he is not writing anything personal, and he basically tells them off. Which of course is his prerogative. It’s his blog after all! Then I found the quintessential kernel in his own words that sums up his site:
“I think I know what this diary’s main flaw is. I’ll illuminate it for you. See, I pretty much prattle on without a care in the world for anything.”
There you have it.
I suppose there is a place in blogdom for a person just to have a place to vent, which to be fair, is how he describes his own blog in his opening statements… “it has just allowed me to vent my feelings in a vaguely constructive manner.” So if this is his intent, then his blog is serving it’s purpose. But it’s not going to be very interesting for anyone else to read.