Footprints in the Sands of the Blogosphere

I do read other people’s blogs and occasionally, I even remember to comment (although I have been known to click the submit key and then close the computer down without ever realising).

Very occasionally, I get carried away when I comment. There are a number of people who know this, most of them vowing never to have anything to do with me ever again.

This morning, not only did I get carried away, I also felt the result was worthy of saving in my own blog.

I happened to visit the Richard Madeley Appreciation Society and read his account of his adventures while filming his wildlife documentary series you will be able to see on BBC Prime Time in the autumn.

He inspired me. For my comment, read on……

I'm incredibly jealous - of the project not of your encounter with the hotel keeper (see Note 1).

Some years ago I decided to take time out to travel the world and decided to hitch hike to Margate. I got picked up by a very friendly Hungarian lorry driver (see Note 3). He told me fantastic tales of the great ferret polo matches of his youth when whole villages used hoes to try and propel a pumpkin into the opposing teams well while mounted on a ferret.

I immediately vowed that I would try my luck as a semi-professional ferret polo player. Sadly, the money ran out just outside Lille (see Note 4) and I was forced to abandon my dream and ended up running guided tours in an abattoir until I could earn my fare home.

Note 1: Footnotes in comments on other people's blogs? Oh my god, perhaps Patrick is right and I am catching a dose of the Danielewskis. (see Note 2)

Note 2: Which should have been Note 1. I suspect there is more to this encounter than you are letting on such is the penchant for bathroom couplings in Eastern Europe and the communist legacy of the lack of shower facilities.

Note 3 : Who had a terrible sense of direction and we ended up sharing the last bed in a very peculiar hotel just outside Bucharest.

Note 4: As I said, the lorry driver, who by now had appointed himself as my trainer had a very poor sense of direction. (see Note 5)

Note 5: He was also very fickle. He abandoned me in Lille to take up with a young French boy who he said he would make star, however with a name like Eric Cantona, I doubt he had a hope.

Size doesn't matter

Let's face it, that is one of the phrases that a man never wishes to confront. It is right up there with 'I see you as a brother I never had' and 'OK, just as long as you don't wake me and pull my nightie down afterwards.'

However, we are talking blogging here, so I should gently divert you back onto matters more cerebral.

The date for my big event at the Oundle Festival of Literature is fast approaching. Somehow I have to find a way of filling two hours without my audience realising that actually I am just an ordinary, boring, old sod. It could be that the secret is already out there as Alexander Mccall Smith has sold out, but so far I have only managed to rattle off a grand total of three ticket sales.

Look my castellated yeomen, it is no good waiting to see if the tickets get cheaper - there are no discounts! Get your bookings in now - the booking office telephone number is on the web site.

Despite the apparent lack of audience numbers, I have been continuing my preparations and the research and the pretty slides are coming along nicely.

Last night, my daughter persuaded me that I should give Twitter a try.

Before you click on that link, it needs a health warning. This Twitter thing is terribly addictive and has the ability to sidetrack you totally from real life.

To oversimplify matters, the principle is that you 'follow' people on the site and you see what they are up to in their daily life in the form of short, 140 character messages and you then have conversations start up rather like sending text messages on a mobile phone.

In my first foray into the world of Twitter was a strange and surreal experience.

I soon started to follow Richard Madeley, who's blog I highlighted in these very pages after I discovered it in the Times Top 100 blogs. Then, much to my amazement, he started to follow me! Just what a megastar of daytime TV is doing following me is a bit of a mystery, but there you go.

Taking the opportunity, I decided to ask the question that has been on my mind ever since I first read his blog 'Do you write your own blog?' to which he replied 'Yes'. So loads of congrats and kudos to the guy. It certainly adds another dimension to the character you see on the boob tube while devouring your afternoon buns.

Anyway, back to the topic in hand. One of the strange phenomenon of the world of Twitter is the number of famous people you can follow on the site. In the real world it would be called stalking, but on this site it seems you can do it all totally legally.

Imagine the response you would get if you sidled up to a celebrity in a restaurant and asked if they wrote their own blog? The restraining order would be the least of your worries.

This Twitter thing is amazing. Next time you find yourself at a loose end and don't know if you want to knit some breasts or try something new on the computer, give it a go.