Material Witness

A love letter to Spain - cada día te quiero más

A decade in Spain. Well, where did that go? It only seems like yesterday that I was nervously giving the airport taxi driver my new address in Madrid, using French pronunciation that stumped us both for a short while. 

In the 10 years since I’ve managed to move on from “una cerveza por favor” all the way through to swearing at footballers and (nearly) mastering the subjunctive. It’s been quite the journey. And I’ve learned much more besides about this wonderful country and its people.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that when I first came to Madrid – for an interview in July 2012 – I didn’t really have much of an idea of where it was. In Spain, and not on the coast, but not a lot more than that. (I did know where Spain was.)

We had made a decision to move overseas – somewhere, almost anywhere – as a cultural and educational experience for the family. Among those cities previously considered, but that didn’t come off, were Munich, Helsinki and Delhi. We weren’t really that fussy.

But we got super lucky, as a Spaniard speaking English might say. Madrid, about which more another time, was the perfect destination for us for many reasons. Happily it turned out the capital was right in the middle of the country!! And that gave us the opportunity to explore all four points of the compass.

It takes a bit of work to discover Spain. It is not to be found on a sun lounger on the Costa Brava or wondering the Barrío Gotíco – although, Lord knows both are reason enough for visiting. When we arrived, we didn’t even know what we didn’t know.

 

The north looks like New Zealand or Cornwall or Brittany, and has the country's best beaches in Galicia, and so what if the water's a little colder than it is in Alicante. The south east looks  enough like the old west that the spaghetti westerns were made there. The Basques speak a language that looks like it belongs in a fantasy novel. Beautiful, wild Teruel is so remote and unknown that its tourist board once marketed it with the slogan Teruel Existe. And on the southern coast the shadow of Africa looms as a reminder of a rich and diverse history fashioned by geography. 

Fall asleep on a beach in Formentera and you could wake up believing you were in the Caribbean, or Italy, such is the volume of tourists seeking the western Sardinia. Take a siesta in a village in Castilla La Mancha and you're right back in the 18^th Century.  

Don Quixote’s windmills can still be seen on the plains close to Toledo, and the most wondrous Roman ruins in Merida, Segovia, Tarragona... There is skiing within an hour of Madrid, and in the south within an hour of the beach and the best and friendliest resort I’ve ever visited at Baqueira in the Pyrenees. And some of the worst football I've ever seen is played in the best atmosphere I've ever experienced just a few kilometres from here. And I wouldn't miss it for the world. 

La Rioja in the autumn, when the harvest is coming in and the vines burnished in shades of red, brown and yellow, feels like the most beautiful and bountiful place on earth. Although for drama it cannot beat Ribeira Sacra (left) where the vineyards defy gravity, clinging on to the steep canyons.

Ronda is extraordinary, Córdoba even more so and Cadíz is bursting with history and grandeur. Cáceres might be the best preserved medieval City in a country packed with them, and also a marvellous place for a sundowner in the Plaza Mayor. And Sevilla apparently might be the best of all, but I’ve not made it there yet.

The Alhambra is majestic, El Escorial imposing, La Mezquita simply spell-binding. My favourite Cathedral is in Toledo, but everybody says this is only because we didn’t have time to go into the one in León. Burgos, a place that far too many people drive by – including us for many years – also has a Cathedral worthy of the diversion. It’s almost enough to turn one to religion.   

In Bilbao the Guggenheim shines with the optimism and modernity it has brought to help renew a great City. In Madrid, a young capital by European standards, the nation’s cultural heritage and history lines the walls of the Prado, from where Las Meninas calls like a siren.  And in Barcelona, you could probably visit La Sagrada Familia weekly for years and discover a new view on each occasion.

And for me there is always joy at being on the open road. Spain is a land of vast and empty landscapes, of light and shadows and there is something new to be found at every exit. We’ve been exploring for 10 years, and need another ten at least. And more still  for Portugal. 

Exploring has been wonderful, stopping just as good. There’s nothing better than taking tapas on the Calle Laurel in Logroño, unless it’s eating oysters in Vigo, navajas in Asturias or cochinillo in Segovia. Or take a beer with the ghost of Hemingway in Pamplona's Café Iruña. 

Your jamón should be from Extremadura, cherries in season too - oh my goodness, the cherries - wonderful olive oil from Jaén and beef from Ávila and Salamanca. And calamari sandwiches in Madrid? Perhaps that is one for the locals. There are too many memorable meals to mention, but I’m not sure we’ll ever beat the time we came across two men roasting whole fish on barbecues fashioned from oil drums outside a roadside shack on the coast north of Santander. Better tasting or fresher fish, I’ve never eaten.

And of course the vineyards are not just for show. Spain produces the best value wine in the world, and there’s probably nowhere in the world you can get a better bottle for under €8, and for €30 something really outstanding. I have developed a preference for reds from Ribera del Duero and whites from Ribera Sacra, but really, you cannot go wrong. Early on in our tenure here I did an experiment to see exactly how low you could go and the wine still be drinkable. It’s about €3, although the €1.50 rosé from the corner shop in Cangas was useful for cleaning the barbecue.

And Spaniards are very gregarious so there’s always a good opportunity to take a copa or a gin and tonic (which is taken very seriously). And no better people to have it with. All we have found since we came to Spain is kindness and generosity. There’s a healthy outlook on life here. People are more relaxed than their northern neighbours, live longer and seem happier. And why not? The sun almost never stops shining, and it is the land of plenty. The “relaxedness” shouldn’t be mistaken for idleness though, as it too often is. Spaniards are as industrious and efficient as any other Europeans, in my experience, they just choose not to let it interfere with life as much as the rest of us. And more power to them for that.

So to all of them and everyone else who has made our time here so enjoyable - and in particular to the four of you who came with me: Muchísimas Gracias.

And for those of you who'd like to pay us a visit: there's plenty of room at the inn, but time may be running out...

An overdue overhaul for Material Witness

New design, fresh intent, some new content, revised ratings policy

Material Witness has been running now for just shy of eight years, which makes it one of the older crime fiction blogs on the net, although it's a long way from being the most frequently updated. 

During its eight year lifespan it's only had two different designs, and hasn't been changed for a number of years. Both previous designs were a little on the dark and gloomy side and I've long been dissatisfied by could never quite make my mind up what to do with it. Finally today, with the help of some props arranged on my treasured Edwardian revolving bookcase, I've given it a lighter and more personal feel. 

With the change in design, I'm also rededicating myself to the blog, which I still enjoy hugely but in the past couple of years have simply not had enough time to write as regularly as I would like - indeed not enough time to read, never mind write. With everything a little more settled and with so many great books about, I'm going to aim this year to write at least twice a week, but by changing some of the content so I'm not quite so reliant on reading new books to produce reviews. 

Content: 100 word reviews; 50 Books

I'll continue to write about new books - hopefully from new writers - and to interview authors hopefully, but in addition add a couple of new features to start with, and perhaps more later.

The first is that I am going to review every book I read - which I've not done before - but some will simply be 100 word reviews - that's exactly 100 words. This is partly a challenge to myself to try and find the essence of a book in just 100 words but also keep the reviews short (some previous ones do go on a bit), but partly just to make it easier to find the time them.

Second, I'm going to write about the 50 books that have been the most influential in my life. Books from all genres, fiction and non-fiction, childrens and adults. I'm really excited about this and I've had great fun starting to build a list which contains books read to me as a child, books I've read to my children, school texts as well as some of the crime fiction I've written about here. They'll be produced in no particular order - and this is a project I hope to finish by the end of this year.

Ratings

I've never produced a definition of the ratings I give books before, and I've decided it's time to address that. In the past I've rarely given low star ratings - 1 or 2 stars - primarily because I tend only to read books I know I'm going to like and I've become fairly good at avoiding stuff I won't. I realise, however, that a slew of 4 and 5 star ratings isn't necessarily very helpful to the reader, so I'm going to set it out. below. I've raised the bar for reaching four and five stars higher than it's been in the past.

* - I either didn't finish the book because I hated it or wished I hadn't bothered at all. This is rare, for me. In the past 8 years I can only recall two books I didn't finish because I lost all patience with it. One of them was The Da Vinci Code. 

** - Underwhelming. Nothing terrible, but nothing special about the book either. Think twice before spending your hard-earned here. 

*** - A decent book I've enjoyed and I'm pleased I read it. Most will fall into this category

**** - This is a terrific book, one I thoroughly enjoyed and likely was upset that it ended. Thoroughly recommended. 

***** - Desert Island material. You just have to read this book. It has enriched my life and has something very special about it. Only three or four books a year tend to come along like this.

Reviews policy

I've never set out a reviews policy before, but I recognise I need to do this, but just need to give some more thought to it before setting it out in stone.

For now, however: I get a lot of review copies through the post, more books than I could ever read. The very great majority I have not asked for, and I have no idea how some of the publishers or publicists who send me them managed to get my address. 

I don't guarantee reviewing any book I receive or reading them, but those I do I will review honestly. 

If you'd like to submit a book for review, please contact me at [email protected]

 

 

 

 

#youdunnit? Crowd-sourcing crime fiction...

An interesting project kicked off on Twitter, Facebook and other online properties today as Penguin and Specsavers joined forces for #youdunnit, a crowd-sourcing project which will result in published novellists aggregating the ideas of social media punters to write mystery novellas.

During this afternoon dozens of crime fiction fans have been on Specsavers' twitter account offering their ideas on the nature of the crime - murder, kidnapping, missing person -  the location and a clue found at the scene. On Tuesday 17th the project will move on to discussing the nature of the crime-solving hero of the novel. (My vote is for a pork pie hat-wearing, hose-wielding, alcoholic former detective in a cadillac - he's never let me down yet).

Ther best of the ideas will be chosen and handed on to "three outstanding writing talents", according to the press release: Tim Weaver, Nicci French and debutant novellist Alistair Gunn. Their work will then be published as an eBook in October.

Crime fiction writers and their publishers have been exemplary in the use of social media to interact with their legion of fans online and this is another resourceful use of the media to engage. Specsavers, which is a strong supporter of the genre with its televised Crime Thriller Book Club starting this month on ITV3 as well its annual awards ceremony, commented on Twitter that its involvement was because: "Many first notice vision problems when reading, so we're creating the 1st UK Twitter crime thriller with @PenguinUKbooks #Youdunnit."

With such strong writers involved it seems highly likely the end product will be good. Certainly the online response today has been very good with tweeters highly engaged in defining the plot details. And Specsavers investment is already paying off as the new tweets are burying all recent criticism of their service!

 

 

 

Carnival of the Criminal Minds: No. 6

Welcome to the Carnival of the Criminal Minds, the Grand Tour of the crime fiction blogosphere impeccably organised by Barbara Fister who has persuaded the finest criminal bloggers on the planet (as well as me) to take readers on a tour of their favourite online places. The Carnival arrives here in England after the shortest hop from Ireland, where a typically good craic was provided by Declan Burke of Crime Always Pays.

It's that time again: either hell on earth and too little goodwill to around, or, to quote Eddie Pola and George Wyle, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." It all depends, I guess, on where you are and what you're doing.

If you're in Lakeside or Bluewater desperately seeking the last Nintendo DS Lite on the face of the earth and in the company of 125,000 crazy people, you're probably thinking about murder as much I am.

But there is an alternative.

Imagine a gentle, relaxed stroll through an atmospheric European Christmas market - perhaps in Austria or southern Germany. Snow is falling silently, the band is knocking out Silent Night, the cider is spiced and warm, almost as good as those tempting little pastries.

Well, what we're going to do with this leg of the Carnival is a little both. A little of Satan's shopping mall as well as a leisurely tour around the Salzburg winter fair side of the blogosphere, and stop to sample the very best it has to offer from some of the marvellous writing talent in the ether: some of it with a Yuletide theme, some of it.

And the first stop is also one of the last stop, Femme Fatales, hosts of the fourth leg of the Carnival. where Charlaine Harris has discovered that Christmas is not merely a time for giving but also for listening, particularly for writers:

"Holidays are especially fertile times for eavesdropping. People are reminiscing, and thinking about each other, and anticipating good times. This leads to some rich (and public) conversations. I hear some discussions that just beg for further explanation." But for further explanation, you'll have to visit Femmes Fatales.

She is absolutely right of course. And there is another, certainly here in London where the party season is in full swing: alcohol loosens tongues. In more way than one. Charlaine's post reminds me of a little scene I encountered about this time last year: The Office Party Affair.

In our household, Christmas is also time for lists: presents, guests, food, cards, tasks. You name it, there's a list for it. And criminal minds like lists also - perhaps it's a need for order and organisation. One I've enjoyed is over at Crime Fiction Dossier, where David J Montgomery, who also doubles as a critic for the Chicago Sun-Tribune, has persuaded an impressive cast to tell him their three favourite books of 2007. Part one includes David's own choices as well as those of Tess Gerritsen, while part two features  the marvellous George Pellecanos and Ken Bruen.

Another one I like is a discussion started over at Crimespace by Daniel Hatadi, who recommends Citizen Vince by Jess Walter, one of my favourite little-known works.  So good, does he find it, that Hatadi decides "I really should get off my arse and read some of his other work as soon as possible". Very true. And nicely put.

The idea of Books for Christmas is a good one, because it serves two purposes. The first is obvious: everyone's out there wracking their brains for ideas looking for that special gift for someone special. The second is that at some point over the holiday period, you are going to want to be alone for a few moments and disappear off somewhere quiet. Why not take a good book? And every recommendation helps. 

Perhaps the best of these Christmas bazaars is to be found at It's a Crime! (or a mystery) where Rhian persuaded a star-studded cast to reveal their Christmas best, including Andrew Taylor, Zoe Sharp, Steve Mosby and Donna Moore.

But what would Christmas be without a little musical interlude. So please let me introduce you to  Straight No Chaser, the wonderfully harmonic and inventive a capella choir from Indiana University with their unique interpretation of the 12 Days of Christmas.

As you peruse the stalls of the market, however, be sure to spare a thought for the staff, and be courteous to them at all times. I have worked in a men's clothing store over the Christmas period, and trust me, however little fun you are having searching for gifts, the person on the other side of the counter is sure to be having a more miserable time. Jeff Kingston, propietor of the Rap Sheet, seems to be enjoying his stint working in a local book store, but found himself holding his tongue when a customer asked him what he thought about three particular books, none of which Jeff had read. "Gee, for someone who works in a bookstore, you sure don’t read much, do you?" was the customer's response.

The Christmas season brings with it an interesting contrast, between the messages of hope and spirituality inherent in the new testament stories and in the Bacchanalian rites of the modern festival: eat, drink, be merry, but most of all shop, shop, shop.

With the world economy seemingly on its way to hell in a handbasket, there's been a lot of hand-wringing this year about just how consumers and retailers will cope with it all. Well, enough hand-wringing to infuriate Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs books, and blogger over at the naked truth about literature and life. She writes an impassioned polemic against the modern materialism so evident at this time of year, and believes she has found the root of a phenomenon that does have a dangerous tendency towards obscenity.

"Something is waaaay out of whack here. And one of the problems is stuff. Most of us have got too much stuff. We expect even more stuff at holiday times, and we are breeding new generations addicted to stuff. And why are we all grabbing more stuff than we can possibly ever need? Arguably, it's to fill that great big hole somewhere inside that can’t be filled by all the money and stuff in the world." Go over there and read it, it's well worth the time.

And it would be a mistake to believe that everyone is happy at Christmas, however much stuff they get. A former colleague of mine was married to a nurse, who had to work in a central London hospital on either Christmas Day or New Year's Eve every year.

She, and her colleagues, hated both, and not just because they had to be away from family or parties at that time of year. Christmas was miserable and sad because of the number of elderly people who were simply dropped at the hospital and left there, not because they were unwell but because their families had simply had enough of them. And New Year's Eve was considered slightly better, if somewhat more dangerous, as drunken hooligans required dodging and torrents of vomit were fought off with the assistance of wellington boots and aprons.

And so it's little wonder that this time of year has provided its own crime canon. It's probably even less of a surprise that it is being catalogued over at Euro Crime, where Karen keeps one the most comprehensive blogs on the web. Of the four books she's unearthed this year, I particularly like the look of Cyril Hare's An English Murder, which does sound quintessentially English.

Well, that's just about it for the carnival from me. All I can tell you is that after a cold European Christmas, what could be better than New Year's in the sunshine. And that's where the Carnival is off to next, south Florida, courtesy of Book Bitch.

Happy holidays. 

Books beyond borders: how the 'net is being cast ever wider

Material Witness is being featured as a guest blog at the 2007 Love of Reading Online Book Fair, which opens today and runs through until Friday. It's a great idea with massive potential and they have some terrific events going on for the next three days.

On a rainy night in July this year, I was hanging around in a bar in the Crown Hotel in Harrogate, sharing a beer with Steve Mosby, author of the excellent but too little known thriller The  50/50 Killer, waiting for Laura Lippman, Mark Billingham and others to take the stage for the celebrated Foul Play feature in the Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

Steve introduced to me his Dutch publisher, Steven Maat, who began filling me in on some of his other writers. Among them was Australian Peter Temple. I admitted I had heard of Temple, but had not read any of his books yet.

"You must," he said. "You must read Peter Temple."

And so I did, picking up a copy of The Broken Shore, and I very quickly discovered why Steven had been so insistent.

As the famous ad goes: Ticket to Foul Play at the Harrogate Crime Festival - £7.50. Beer in the bar at the Crown Hotel - £3.50. Rail ticket to Harrogate: £37.60. Getting a hot recommendation for an Australian writer from a Dutch publisher in a bar in North Yorkshire: Priceless.

Priceless, perhaps, but inefficient and rare. The Harrogate experience was terrific. I picked up recommendations for perhaps half a dozen other authors I hadn't heard of, or only vaguely knew of. But Harrogate comes but once a year. I need recommendations for new authors all the time, and not just from publishers, literary critics and the featured writers' table at Borders. But from others who share my fascination and love of crime fiction, and who are prepared to look past Dan Brown and Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly and find the hidden gems.

And that, of course, is where the internet plugs the knowledge gap.

It's been going on for a while, starting with the great retailer in the ether.

There are those in the literary and blogging community that view Amazon as Iran views the US: the Great Satan. For their discounting of books and application of heavy unbearable pressure on independent booksellers. For taking the romance out of buying books.

I've never taken that view, regarding Amazon as an efficient, inexpensive source of books and a lifesaver at Christmas, keeping me away from the misery of the holiday shopping season.

But early on, Amazon introduced me to some of my now favourite authors - Robert Crais and Laura Lippman among them - through their "people who bought this book also bought books by x, y and z". Shameless marketing, yes of course it is. But it's useful.

In the very early days of the internet retailing phenomenon, someone at Amazon was clever enough to recognise the power of the community, of the independent recommendation and harnessed it in a very clever way.

But as people have come to understand the power of the internet as a marketplace for the exchange of ideas, the community has become ever more sophisticated and found news ways to interact. Blogs are, of course, a big part of it. Material Witness was started as a place for me to fill what I perceived as a gap in the literary criticism landscape here in the UK.  The mainstream media, I feel, devotes far too little time and space to genre fiction, making it difficult for those with an interest to find new books and authors.

Once I started doing it, I was thrilled to discover that others were doing the same, and was delighted to become part of a wider community bouncing ideas and recommendations back and forth between themselves.

And more resourceful people than I have found ways  of both extending the community and at the same time drawing it tighter together. Barbara Fister's Carnival of the Criminal Minds is just one such example: a fortnightly tour around the crime fiction world, starting off in Australia, moving on to the West Coast before moving on to the Windy City. The Carnival is coming to a blog near you in about a month's time.

And now we have the Love of Reading Online Book Fair, opening today. I missed last year's event, and I'm fascinated to see how it works and to pick up some new ideas.

And the best part of all this? We're really only at the beginning. The internet is still in its infancy and we've only just started to work out how we can engage with it, and by extension, the world.

Enjoy the Fair.   

Join the party: the 2007 Online Book Fair is imminent

The way in which the power of the internet is harnessed to bring people and ideas together is changing rapidly, and many industries, interest groups and communities are beginning to find innovative and exciting uses for the online exchange.

For about 18 months now I've been using Material Witness as a means of talking to the world about one of my great passions: crime fiction and associated genres.

It has had its successes and failures. I know I have introduced  some readers to authors and books that might otherwise have passed them by, and similarly I have had my eyes opened to things I otherwise would have missed.

What it has demonstrated is that there is an online community hungry for new ideas about books, and willing to look around to find them.

So hats off to FSB Associates, the pioneering online publicity agency for the publishing industry, which has given the community an event at which it can come together and celebrate the hugely positive collaboration between books and the web: the Love of Reading online Book fair, which runs for three days from Wednesday November 14.

I was honoured to be asked to be both a sponsor and guest blogger during the fair, and delighted to eb able to agree to both.

Full details for the book fair are below. Enjoy the show!

Love of Reading Online Book Fair

Second annual fair celebrates and connects online book community with three days of non-stop events

The second annual Love of Reading Online Book Fair will be held November 14-16 at www.loveofreading.com from the hours of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.

A cause for celebration and connection for the burgeoning online book community, the three-day fair has something for everyone, according to Fauzia Burke, a pioneer in online book promotion and president of FSB Associates, host of the successful event. With its “Love of Reading” theme, the event is designed for a wide audience—authors, publishers, booksellers, bookworms, bloggers, reviewers and anyone looking for a gift for the holidays.

“Participants will have non-stop interaction and information at their fingertips,” says Burke, along with a variety of special events and giveaways. Among the online happenings:

*Free raffles—including 3 free books an hour and one large prize giveaway per day

*Ongoing Podcasts and author readings by popular authors such as Alan Alda, Kim Edwards and Pulitzer Prize Winner Rick Atkinson.

*Guest bloggers and reviewers will blog at the fair

*Forum and discussion groups

*Reader’s Choice Award for favorite book jacket. Last year’s winner was the mega bestseller, The Thirteenth Tale.

*Roundtable discussions with topics including How to Get Your Book Published

“Today’s online book community is more vital and vibrant than ever” says Burke. “Throughout the book fair, we want to celebrate their increasingly important voice and connect people who love books in a whole new way."

Roll up, roll up for the crime carnival

One of the elements I've really enjoyed in the 18 months or so I've been writing this blog, is the sense of community online, and I've really appreciated the support of fellow bloggers. So the opportunity to take part in the Carnival of the Criminal Minds - an idea conceived by the admirable Barbara Fister.

The carnival is essentially a tour through the crime fiction blogosphere, with a different host each fortnight. The first stop on the tour is an antipodean roadhouse, Austcrimefiction. There's a lot to admire about this site, but at the moment I'm struggling to get past the wonderfully-named sponsor, Snake Gully Cider. Marvellous. As a former resident of Somerset, the premium cider-making spot in England, I have always taken a close interest in cider, so much so that most of my early hangovers, during the formative drinking years of my mid-to-late teens were inspired by Sheppys, the pride of Taunton Deane.

Anyway, back on topic, the carnvial's next stop will be the Rap Sheet - a site so good it makes me wonder whether I should really bother in my small corner of the world.

But I'll have to keep going for a little while at least , because I've promised to host the carnival in mid-December.

On blogging: a tidal wave of creativity

Last week I prematurely decided against jumping into the row about blogging that blew up in the aftermath of the publication of Andrew Keen's book Cult of the Amateur: How today's internet is killing our culture.

Keen's conclusion, or one of them, is that the blogosphere and YouTube, Bebo and so on have unleashed "a tidal wave of amateurish work", which threatened the future of the traditional media.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of serious bloggers had something of a hissy fit about this, and it sparked an ill-tempered debate that engaged the community for a few days. Dan Gillmor, a pioneer in citizen media and a fine journalist who used to write a column for me when I was an editor on the FT, made an impassioned defence on his site: Center for Citizen Media.

It is difficult to argue with Keen's assertion that there's a lot of crap out there. Those of you who read this blog regularly know that only too well.

And I don't feel I have any great philosophical contribution to make to this debate, there are others far more qualified than me to do that. But in the last couple of days I've come across sites that are packed with great content, and obviously put together by very talented people. And they prompted me to respond (in this very small way) to Keen's thesis and give a cheer to some people out there doing some great work.

Exhibit A is 24homers, a satirical site offering a spoof blog from eccentric Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez. I came across this this morning and it had me in stitches. It's not for everyone, I appreciate that, but it's clever, funny and well-observed. Whoever's writing it has real ability.

Then there's Order-Order, the UK parliamenary blog written by the now famous Guido Fawkes. More often than not I find this guy so smug  and self-satisfied I wonder how he fits blogging in with looking at himself in the mirror and agreeing with his reflection about how wonderful he is. And I'm not a massive fan of his politics. But he's clearly well connected, he writes brilliantly, picks his targets well and anyone who pricks the pomposity  of our politicians is a greater force for good than evil.  Guido Fawkes has also proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the citizen media is having a major impact on the traditional media, beating them up regularly.

Then there's this: PostSecret.  I don't know quite what to make of this. But I found it oddly compelling.

And there's other stuff. If you've never been to Petrona, or any of the others in dazzling array of sites written by Maxine, then you really should. Or try Greenbang, Dan Ilett's new site aggregating environmental stories and initiatives. Then there's Wildflowers, a lovely, gentle blog written by a woman in the southeastern US. I didn't even realise I was interested in wild flowers until I went there. But I find the tales of armadillos, droughts and flowering dogwood most engaging. (Skye needs to get back online now she's back from England though.)

It's all out there, it's all free and a lot of it is really really great. The internet has empowered individuals to be creative, bold and to go public. Blogging has helped me make some friends and reach people and exchange ideas in a way that simply hasn't been possible in the past. And I love it. I can't imagine not writing this anymore, it's become a pretty important part of my life. And if only a few dozen people read it at the moment, so what?  The fact that anybody does is pretty cool, and I enjoy their company here.

Thanks to all of you.