Everyone has an opinion, and most of it is junk
Whenever I want a good dose of sheer self-confident ignorance on display, I visit the comments section beneath the news stories on the on-line version of The Times. I have a great deal of sympathy for the man who moderates those comments, and I have no idea how he gets through his gruelling day without the urge to reach for a revolver or a suitcase.
We are living in the Age of Opinion, when even those who don’t have two coherent thoughts to rub together scrub around in the nether regions of their brains and somehow come up with something. Then they scout around for a forum in which to make this opinion known to as many people as possible. They ring radio stations and broadcast their views on phone-ins. On air, they pester the hosts of day-time television shows. They send text messages to discussion programmes and get a thrill from seeing them scroll across the bottom of the screen in all their ill-spelt and ill-conceived glory. They accost vox-poppers in Republic Street so that the nation can be treated to yet another opinion that begins ‘Heqq, hu’ and ends ‘Opinjoni, hu.’
I used to think that this is a backlash against the days when there were no media except The Times, the political newspapers and Xandir Malta, and expressing an opinion was regarded as a wanton act of great recklessness and irresponsibility. What about your family, your job, your import licence, your second-cousin-once-removed’s application for a telephone line? Now, I’m not so sure. Many of the people who are keenest to demonstrate to the rest of us just how little they know and how low their IQ is don’t even remember those days, though they might have been in nappies or in primary school. They do what they do because they have learned since then of their right to express an opinion – something they invariably confuse with the right to have an opinion, as though there exists anywhere in the world a police state with the technology to monitor what people are thinking and what sort of opinions are forming in the seclusion of their minds. They have not bothered to learn, however, that it is always a good idea to ensure that their opinion is well thought out before they let others know of it. That, apparently, is an optional extra.
A well-reasoned, logical and coherent argument is now such a rare thing in the newspapers, on line and on air (and even at dinner and cocktail parties) that I want to lie down and cry. I find myself actively seeking out the company of people who have been educated elsewhere in the world for the sheer pleasure of listening to rational thought expressed rationally. I think to myself: people fought so hard for freedom of speech in the 1980s, worked so hard to broaden the media in the 1990s, and this is what we have ended up with: a cacophony of idiocy, a tower of Babel of foolishness. Freedom of speech without education and broadened horizons has turned out to be a painful circus of clowns and elephants and no trapeze artists.
A brief selection of opinions culled from yesterday’s offerings includes the points that ships should be arrested, that Marsascala should be renamed Marsascalambad or Mogadish Mark II, that the Armed Forces are soon to be welcoming ‘them’ with ‘their’ national anthem and flowers, that the ‘Meteoroligal office’ should resign for the failure, presumably, of those who work in it to inform the public that there would be a storm at midnight, an exhortation to the nation to stop moaning and groaning and do something about Them lest ‘we loose our Country’, that all Maltese ‘dermocrants’ are ‘lackeys to all foreigners’, that Malta should ‘send out Gozo Channel Ships’ to pick up ‘the foreigners’ and take them back to Libya, that the ‘particulars should be kept’ of a Romanian found guilty of theft ‘to prevent re-entry’ – this opinion having been expressed, it seems, by somebody with the right to do so but no equivalent interest in discovering that Romania belongs to the European Union, that Jesmond Mugliett is to blame for traffic accidents because he ‘put recycled glass inside the tarmac’ and this glass is ‘reflecting’, and that ‘Jesus did good in his time and they killed him and now they are doing the same to Mintoff’. You will have noticed that the use of clunking heavy irony appears to be thought obligatory, few of my compatriots having yet discovered the joys of subtlety.
Under a news story yesterday in which the finance minister reported how our economy continues to grow despite international instability, there is a veritable festival of foolishness. It appears that the inability to develop an argument is somehow linked to the inability to construct a simple sentence, but I have no way of knowing whether this is because insufficient education affects both, and logical thinking frames both the argument and the language in which it is couched. The news of economic growth, rather than being greeted with enthusiasm in the face of the dire situation elsewhere, seems to have been viewed by Malta’s new breed of opinion-mongers as something highly suspect – a ‘claim’ made by the finance minister, rather than a news report based on hard facts collated by the Central Bank.
And so we have this opinion, broadcast by somebody with the right to one: “I wonder where this Finance Minister got his economics education and expertise. One wonders with the type of statements coming from out his mouth. Didn’t he realise that every time he puts his foot in his mouth, the shoe on it costs more than what his economic figures are worth?” Then there’s this: “So a few days back the finance minister said that he does not have any figures and has to wait till the end of the year to give his reaction to the Government’s financial disasters. Today he says that the economy has grown by 3%. Where did you get these figures from? There was NO GROWTH, because according to the Eurostat, inflation is higher then 3%…hello!”
I don’t wish to be accused of political prejudice, but it goes without saying that these two people appear to support the Opposition party, and I did not draw that conclusion based only on their sarcasm. I also took in the fact that they don’t know what economic growth is, or that the finance minister can’t wake up in the morning and decide to bandy a figure about, a figure that he has just then plucked out of his imagination. Of course, we had to bring in the question of illegal immigration, because no opinion is complete without it: “I think Tonio Fenech got his words wrong. It should read THE POPULATION OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IS GROWING.” Our wit, clearly, is boundless.
I added my own six cents’ worth to the mix: “Whenever I want a daily dose of ignorance on display, I visit the comments section beneath news stories in The Times. Perhaps Tonio Fenech should have defined economic growth, for the elucidation of the masses, because the masses clearly have no other means of finding out – hence the embarrassing parade beneath.” Predictably, the usual responses came in, complete with that clunking heavy irony: “Enlighten us, Mrs Caruana Galizia”, and other such variations on the years-old theme of “You think only you can have an opinion” and “How arrogant you are; you think you know everything.”
These people come across as believing that an opinion is something one simply has, and not something that one develops after giving the matter some thought, considering the various options and permutations, and assessing the facts. It doesn’t occur to them that these opinions, to which I am supposed to believe that only I have a right, are not random thoughts that pop into my head over breakfast and are communicated in a semaphore mix of MSN-language, text-message spelling and first-grade grammar. After all, their argument goes, if ‘she’ has the right to tell us what she thinks, then why shouldn’t we have the same right? Quite apart from the fact that this is not about rights but about commerce – I sell my opinions, but they have no chance of finding anyone to buy theirs – I can see no reason why not. That’s what freedom of speech is all about. Implicit within that right is the freedom to make an absolute ass of yourself, and to advertise the fact that somewhere, somehow, the education system has failed you and you never bothered to set that right.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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‘Everyone has an opinion, and most of it is junk’ you say:
I would not say all opinions are junk. Unfortunately, the majority of Maltese were never educated to form an opinion and were totally conditioned by various institutions. I think that most Maltese do not really know how to express their frustrations and concern and they end up with writing what you call ‘junk’. We are mediocre to the point that if something is happening which places the present government in a bad light the other side enjoys the situation. We should instead unite and try to tackle national issues together and find solutions ourselves and not expect other countries to solve our problems. We have to grow up once and for all. By the way, I took the comment re Gozo Channel to be a sarcastic comment – the writer must have forgotten to put exclamation marks at the end of the comment. Daphne, do you have a clearcut opinion about the problem of illegal immigration ? Do you think that Malta should continue absorbing unlimited numbers of illegal immigrants ? This is a sincere question, no hidden agenda.
[Daphne – I have very clear-cut views about illegal immigration. Please read everything I have ever written about the subject – a Google search might be useful – because I can’t possily summarise it all here.]
Again Spot On Dear Daphne. However I do feel that being starved of a public opinion for so long, in the bad old days of the 80’s, still has an effect on our psyche as a nation. I remember the first discussion programmes on Radio 101, hosted by the erudite Georg. People were oohhing and aaahing the next day because some callers expressed a labour leaning opinion. It was ground breaking radio at the time, a significant step, only made possible by the momentous event of May 87. It was like someone with a mouth full of sweet teeth finding the cookie jar after a particularly long period of absistence. We gorged then, and we are still gorging now. The problem is that we cannot stop gorging, and the pressing need to put in out two pennies worth is like a drug. The need to express an opinion has become a right, to be loudly asserted at every corner.
In the case of newspaper and other blogs, it’s a way of getting a message through, and for all this media openness, I suspect people still do not feel that their voice is being heard, even if their opinion borders on the ridiculous. An American friend of mine used to say that opinion is the cheapest thing you can get, because it’s usually rammed down your throat. And he is right. It’s so cheap that it’s there all around us. I have no problem with that. I prefer to live in a country where opinions are cheap but offered than silenced by some Government or situation.I suspect that people who use the online blogs know that some powers that be may read them.
This is, in itself, a good thing. The powers that be, be they the civil service, or the politicians, know that people can vent their opinion and that it will be read by others, who will be in some way influenced. The days of fluffing situations and spinning them without comment by people “in the know” are numbered. That’s what the PN always wanted, although some might still hanker back to the good old days when the media was controlled in content. The only people that are not to comfortable with this are the MLP, or better still, its leaders. They cannot take dissenting opinion, because for them it means mockery !
If I have a gripe, I really would wish that whoever expresses an opinion in English THINKS in English before writing in the language, and not translate his Maltese thoughts verbatim into English. Let’s not bastardize this language, or Maltese for that matter, anymore. If after 178 years of colonialism and I don’t know how many else of education, we should have gotten the writing and speaking of the Queen’s English down to a fine art. Sadly, it’s not the case.
My OPINION ( cheap, cheap….) here is that we dont do enough reading as a nation. Books are a treasure we take for granted, and the internet or the newspapers are no substitute. Thank God we have some good wordsmiths to make a profession out of opinions. They show us the way. Thats as near as i can get to praising the owner of this block. I seem to have cheesed her off somewhat this week !
Emmmm – Point taken !!!!!
“It appears that the inability to develop an argument is somehow linked to the inability to construct a simple sentence,”
Add to that an over reliance on punctuation – especially exclamation marks – to emphasise a point, and an inability to address anyone properly. “Pope”, apparently, is a first name:
http://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080831/local/illegal-immigration-needs-political-solution-pope/
deniscatania@yahoo.com (3 days, 10 hours ago)
Thank you Pope,maybe the EU industrial nations and the nations that robbed Africa’s resources will start doing their part.
Mario
‘Gotten’ is not Queen’s English
^This is a huge generalisation but as a nation we call
ourselves friendly, christian, tolerant etc. In fact, I think we are arrogant, bigheaded racist and extremely
pleased with ourselves. Commonsense and logic don’t seem
to exist. The things we have that we can be so proud of
i.e. our wonderful heritage, we don’t look after and
vandalise. As I said this is a generalisation and I’m feeling too hot to go into detail.
The worst thing is when you read a comment beneath a news story that is unrepresentative of what you stand for ( for example, comments dealing with controversial issues such as immigration and hunting ) only to find that it is written by someone who shares your name.
I know one person who doesn’t talk to me anymore simply because he attributed to me a comment written by a namesake.
The title really hurts. I have opinions and have voiced them sometimes, I didn’t think my thoughts was considered junk by some readers when I got feedback.
What is the purpose of blogs in a computer literate society? I see the same names in this blog and it almost feels like being in a chat room. What can be done to elevate the level and make it more intelligent + enjoyable as opposed to thrashy-yet-enjoyable-but-only-to-some?
I’ve written this exact message in another blog because I really wish to get answers and because the blog-keeper mentioned how postings were unintellectual and uninformed.
(Daphne – Thank you for your views. Did you notice the word “most” in the title?)
we only do it because we know it annoys you precious 8)
What irritates me most is that this attitude seems to permeate throughout Maltese society. Ever cringed at the amateurishly-written works that are often parodied as academic publications? Take a look at what happens when one of these texts make their way beyond our shores and into the hands of someone who really knows what they are talking about (I apologize that I was not able to provide a link):
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 09:16:49 -0400
From: The Medieval Review
To: tmr-l@indiana.edu,
bmr-l@brynmawr.edu
Subject: TMR 08.09.03 Azzopardi, The Coinage of the Crusaders (Todesca)
Azzopardi, Emmanuel. The Coinage of the Crusaders and the World of Islam. Photography and Design by Daniel Cilia. Santa Venera, Malta: Midsea Books Ltd., 2006. Pp. 303. ISBN-13: 9789993270911.
Reviewed by James Todesca
Armstrong Atlantic State University
James.Todesca@armstrong.edu
This is a strange and flawed book. Azzopardi’s professed intention is to update Gustave Schlumberger’s Numismatique de l’Orient latin of 1878 by taking into account “new concepts” of more recent scholarship. He relies in particular on D. M. Metcalf’s Coinage of
the Crusades and the Latin East (though not on the revised second edition of 1995) and also on the Coins of the Crusader States by Alex Malloy et al. [1] Azzopardi, however, ranges more widely in space and time than Schlumberger, Metcalf or Malloy. He incorporates
coins from Muslim Spain, Imperial Rome, Sassanid Persia, twelfth-century Europe, and a long run of pieces struck by the Hospitallers from the beginning of their residency in Malta in 1530 until Napoleon’s occupation of the island in 1798. In the end, Azzopardi’s main purpose seems to be to illustrate coins from his personal collection for which he enlisted photographer Daniel Cilia.
Cilia’s images are indeed the book’s main asset. His photos are as clear as the specimens will allow and his enlargements of some pieces will convince skeptical classicists that medieval money is not uniformly dull. His detail of a gold ducat or zecchino struck by the Order of St John (126) is wonderful, though the caption does not clearly identify the specimen. (My best guess is that it
corresponds to CC393 on page 157.) Likewise, the blow up of a copper trifollaro from Sicily reveals a compelling image of a mounted Norman warrior (91). Since the caption calls this “a fine example,” I was surprised to find a much clearer specimen in the Fitzwilliam Museum’s on-line catalogue. Nevertheless, the worn smoothness of
Azzopardi’s piece gives the horseman an austere beauty that Cilia obviously appreciated. Photos such as these help demonstrate to the uninitiated reader that coins are a tangible, vibrant link to the past.
Azzopardi’s text, however, disappoints on many levels. Although it includes notes and a bibliography, the book is essentially a non-scholarly work. To this extent, puzzling statements such as “Europe was the last region to have come under Arab domination” (5) or “the Frankish empire founded by Charlemagne was to play a major role in the crusades” (6) should perhaps be forgiven. His certainty that Constantine’s mother, Helena, attended excavations at the site of the Holy Sepulcher where she found the True Cross (38) or his minor misstatement that “the eastern empire became known as the Byzantine empire” (37) might also be overlooked. Still these recurring faux pas undermine the reader’s confidence.
The historian might generously assume that Azzopardi’s strength lies in his handling of the coins themselves for he has the encyclopedic knowledge of a seasoned collector. Still, the professional numismatist will be alarmed by occasional sloppiness. In his catalogue entry for two Spanish Umayyad dirhams, for example, he describes the obverse and reverse simply as a “marginal legend in
three lines” which makes no sense when looking at the photographs (CC003-CC004). What Azzopardi means to say is the obverse and reverse have a three-lined legend in the central field encircled by a marginal legend, a common arrangement on Muslim coins. He makes the same mistake for his Almoravid and Almohad dinars, adding a typo in
the last description (CC005-CC007). Moreover, he gives no
transcription of the Arabic legends nor an English translation. A mishap in the opposite sense occurs with his cataloging of a gold tari of Fredrick II (CC087). Here he enters the obverse legend in English as “Frederick, King of Sicily.” In reality, the obverse legend says nothing; it is a series of “geometrical strokes,” what Grierson and Travaini called pseudo-Cufic. [2]
Another example of his less-than-careful handling of numismatic material can be seen in the statement that “the coinage of Henry of Champagne consists of three type (sic) copper pougeoise and a copper piefort” (57). Poor syntax aside, Azzopardi seems to say Henry struck pougeoises and a distinct coin called a piefort. He clarifies this in note 52 explaining that “Henry…introduced two denominations: the copper pougeoise…and the large copper piefort.” He fails to recognize that a piefort is not a coin; it is a non-circulating trial piece, or pattern, normally stuck on a heavy flan. Furthermore, Henry’s so-called pougeoise was not a copper piece but a billon denier. Metcalf suggests they circulated at half the value of other denarii in the Latin east. He reminds us that the chronicler Raymond of Aguilers wrote, “Erat haec nostra moneta: Pictavini, Cartenses, Manses, Luccenses, Valenziani, Melgorienses, et
duo pogesi pro uno istarum.” [3] Azzopardi misses the relevancy of Raymond’s passage which he himself quotes a few pages earlier (53). He clearly drew his account of Henry’s coinage from a slightly confused passage in Malloy which he has garbled even more.
This leads us to the most troubling aspect of Azzopardi’s work: inappropriate borrowing from others. Malloy had this to say about Henry of Champagne’s coinage: “The existence of these new types and denominations illustrates in part the influence of the coinages of France in the Latin Orient during this period after the Third Crusade” [4]. Azzopardi writes: “The design of these new types and denominations illustrates the influence of the coinage of France in
the Latin Orient after the Third Crusade” (57). Nowhere in his discussion of Henry’s coins does he cite Malloy, neither in the text nor in the corresponding notes.
Sadly, Azzopardi appears to have little knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism. The first section of his Chapter 4 is labeled “Baronial Coinage of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,” followed by the sub-heading “1124-1291: Lordship of Tyre.” Malloy’s Chapter 5 is entitled
“Baronial Coinage of the Latin Kingdom,” followed by the subheading “Lordship of Tyre.” Azzopardi’s section begins:
In 1124, after a long siege by the joined forces of
the crusaders and the Venetians, Tyre was finally
captured. The Venetians received one third of the
city together with extensive trading privileges
throughout the Latin kingdom, while the other two-
thirds began to form part of the Latin royal domain
(95).
Malloy’s text reads:
Tyre, known as Sur, its Arabic name, in medieval and
modern times, was captured in 1124, after a long
siege, through the combined efforts of the Crusaders
and a Venetian fleet. One third of the city was
given to the Venetians, who also received extensive
trading privileges in the kingdom, and the rest was
retained as part of the royal domains. [5]
Teachers will recognize from student papers that Azzopardi has rearranged and changed some wording but has otherwise reproduced his source. And there is again no citation of Malloy. Instead, in notes 4 and 5 for this page Azzopardi continues to closely borrow from Malloy’s text still without referencing it.
Moreover, as we saw above with Henry of Champagne’s coins, Malloy is not the best of sources. If nothing else, his work is now slightly outdated. In the case of Venice and Tyre, Malloy accepted the old belief that Venice held one third of the city of Tyre and its environs as allodial land, i.e., separate from the royal domain. David Jacoby
has since emphasized that in 1125 King Baldwin curtailed concessions to Venice in several ways including attaching military service to their holding in Tyre, thus making them fiefs of the kingdom. Jonathan Philips in The Crusades, 1095-1197 reiterated Jacoby’s position that Venice’s “privileges were not so sweeping as previously thought.” [6] While this may seem a small point, it illustrates the
weakness of Azzopardi’s uncritical, and at times near verbatim, incorporation of Malloy.
“Borrowing” from Malloy continues to be evident if one compares Azzopardi’s subsequent sections on baronial coinage in chapter 4 with the corresponding sections in Malloy. Moreover, Azzopardi cuts and pastes the various lists of rulers found throughout Metcalf without
citation. [7] I suspect other examples of plagiarism, intentional or not, can be found if one takes the time.
Finally, a word must be said about organization and editing. Odd non-sequiturs abound particularly in the early chapters. On page 43 the author discusses the conflict between Sassanid Persia and the Roman
Empire in the seventh century. Without warning the paragraph jumps to describing a fourth-century coin of the Emperor Vetranio. The next paragraph then resumes the discussion of Rome and Persia in the seventh century. I believe the three sentences dealing with Vetranio
were intended to be placed as a caption under the coin of Vetranio illustrated on that page but became part of the text instead.
Pages 50 to 51 offer a more convoluted example of this editorial mishap. Under the heading of “The First Crusade” the text first outlines the preparations for the crusade, abruptly switches to discussing copper follari from Sicily, returns to the crusaders arriving in Constantinople, changes course to discuss the Emperor Alexius and his son, and finally returns to the crusaders leaving Constantinople and crossing Anatolia. Again, the odd passages on
Sicilian follari and Alexius and John Comnenus clearly should be positioned under the three coins on these pages. Similar bloopers appear on pages 58 and 87-88.
The notes too are bewildering. Frequently they simply repeat, at times verbatim, what is in the main text. This is perhaps best illustrated if one consults the notes corresponding to pages 37-38 or those for pages 43-44. Something seems to have gone very awry in assembling the book. In addition to photography, Daniel Cilia is
credited with “design.” One wonders if these blunders came as he arranged and formatted Azzopardi’s text.
A sharper editorial eye may also have lent more coherence to
individual chapters. Chapter three is entitled “The First Crusade” which most historians would agree took place between 1095 and 1099. Azzopardi, however, includes subsections entitled “The Order of St.John in the Holy land: 1083-1319,” “The Seljuks of Rum: 1077-1307,”
“1104-1409: The Artuqids of Mardin” and, most bizarrely, “The Second Crusade: 1147-1149.” Covering a broad range of material, these sections often appear in random order. After a brief synopsis of the Second Crusade (where he wrongly identifies the king of France on the expedition as Louis VI), Azzopardi jumps to a section on the Principality of Antioch followed by a section labeled “1119: The Field
of Blood” (78-80). It is difficult to understand why these latter sections do not precede the discussion of the Second Crusade. Such haphazard arrangement of material is encountered throughout the work.
Azzopardi and Cilia obviously hoped to bring the crusades to life for a general audience by producing a volume abundant with color photos of coins and other illustrations. It is a noble ambition shared by many
collectors. Coins are palpable survivors from the past. Perhaps more than mosaics or manuscripts, they often emit a sense of having been in the thick of things. Who can say how many crusader hands a twelfth-century denier of Antioch passed through before it was hoarded away to resurface centuries later? There are many coins beautifully
displayed in this volume that will pique the reader’s imagination. Nonetheless, Azzopardi and Cilia’s book represents a terrific idea hastily executed. It must be used with caution.
——–
(Daphne – A scholarly work by a Maltese academic was recently reviewed in a journal to which I subscribe, Apollo. The reviewer praised the general findings, but said he was mystified as to why the book was not edited, and pointed out that it was written in a strange and archaic form of English.)
Anybody with at least one neuron inside the skull has an opinion. An educated, informed opinion is a priceless rarity. I earnestly urge owners of the latter commodity to constantly rebuff their very understandable suicidal ideations.
(Daphne – Too many people confuse ‘instant reaction’ with ‘opinion’. What most people seem to have, who comment beneath news stories, is a reaction rather than an opinion. It’s not considered at all.)
Daphne,
I agree with the gist of your article, but I beg to disagree on only 1 point – “that Jesmond Mugliett is to blame for traffic accidents because he ‘put recycled glass inside the tarmac’ and this glass is ‘reflecting’” was very clearly a humorous comment.
(Daphne – I’m afraid to tell you that it was, in fact, made in all seriousness. I pulled it out of a major rant against Di Governmen.)
The best thing about this opinion thingy is that come 2009 my namesake Charlon Gouder will, inschallah, be sharing his superior wisdom about Europe…from his OWN weekly The Times/The Independent column (with the trademark little photo at the top). How’s that for maddening?
(Daphne – Oh boy, I can’t wait. I’m really missing Lorna Vassallo.)
Dear Daphne,
You’ve read my mind!!! Reading the comments on the online Times is like sniffing glue – it makes you sick and yet you can’t stop! I find myself checking out the site many times a day just to see if something even more ridiculous or idiotic has been written!
The ignorance (and racism) in Malta is shocking. Empty barrels make the most sound they say … it’s so true!
I think it is the job of the online editor to edit or ignore comments which xenophobic, ill-informed or downright stupid. Admittedly, the drivel being posted on timesofmalta.com is rather hilarious although there are some cases where comments are well written and contribute to debate which is what an online forum is all about.
We are not alone in posting comments smacking of racism or ignorance and stupidity, just access http://www.timesonline.co.uk for a clear example.
Mario Debono – check your spelling its blog not block.
To add to Cikki’s comment, the Maltese seem to be stuck in a 1950’s time warp in some redneck racist town such as in the heart of Alabama or Mississippi. It’s unbelievable what you hear and see nowadays. And this is from the world’s ‘happiest’ nation. Give me a break!
The Maltese do not hold the monopoly on ignorance. Cretins flourish everywhere, as I found out much to my chagrin when I started living in what is supposedly, ahem chrrm, “the Mother of Arts, Arms and Laws”. To be fair, we’ve got a higher moron count per square km, and other nations do not have Xarabank, but you get my point.
(Daphne – There is a country with a higher cretin-count, and it’s got Oprah and Jerry Springer.)
Michaela, Blogs exist in order to log people’s thoughts and block them, that’s why they’re called blogs. A person who writes in a blog is a blogger, the person who censors the messages in the blog is a blocker, the group of people who hold fundamentalist views are called a bloc, if what they say is rubbish, it’s called bollocs. The purpose of a blog in a computer literate society is to alleviate boredom.
(Daphne – Blog is the truncated form of ‘web-log’, a log being a record of events or data.)
Thank you Gerald and Ethel for pointing out my bloopers. They are inexcusable. Thats what comes of peering myopically into a PDA whilst trying to write a piece :)
Aye promiss aye will do beter nekst thyme……
mario debono.. You are right. Everybody in the UK has a doctorate in |Queen’s english!