tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-152484352024-03-07T19:53:42.953+13:00Rob's Blockhead Blog"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
- Samuel Johnson -
Did he get paid to write that?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02397480700716013852noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15248435.post-79389346762259540682015-08-22T09:30:00.000+12:002015-10-26T19:28:29.677+13:00Migration to Wordpress : https://robhosking.wordpress.com<br />
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">I started this blog back in the middle of the last decade when my Better Half was quite unwell and it became a surrogate social life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">It</span><span lang="FR">’</span><span lang="EN-US">s become somewhat moribund the last couple of years as other things have taken over, but it is 10 years old this month and a decade is kind of a put up or shut up point.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdFkCo83uFH-Q7Ln2bXhje_QtN_vSwLUMzXyVpLXyaEL33Zm2pJ5UxqujkaOwqxL5YQ87KngoJIh_pSy4m_3Q8qW_1NpoZ-28WTV813WZGQnYlmxSyEIgdLi_-pAPWCnVDK6yQ/s1600/keyboard.m4v" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdFkCo83uFH-Q7Ln2bXhje_QtN_vSwLUMzXyVpLXyaEL33Zm2pJ5UxqujkaOwqxL5YQ87KngoJIh_pSy4m_3Q8qW_1NpoZ-28WTV813WZGQnYlmxSyEIgdLi_-pAPWCnVDK6yQ/s320/keyboard.m4v" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Having pondered the matter for a while, I'm doing the Wordpress migration. This blog is now at <a href="https://robhosking.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">https://robhosking.wordpress.com</a><br />
<br />
Do not expect frequent posts. I usually do something on the weekend, but not every weekend.<br />
<br />
It's a hobby. I'm not going to make the mistake of thinking of it as anything much more than that, even though it is, obviously, a hobby which dovetails very closely with other interests and with work.<br />
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">For those who read it </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">–</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-US">all eight of you </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">–</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-US">you may have noticed I tend to do less politics these
days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">Partly -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>a very big part, in fact - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is
too much like the day job. When the blog started, I was still doing mostly
weekly print work. The work work which was online tended to be business,
finance, superannuation and insurance stories. Since around 2008 the online
political work has taken off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">But there</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US">s a bigger, more important reason. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="IT" style="mso-ansi-language: IT;">Blogging</span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span lang="EN-US">in the New
Zealand context has come to be associated almost exclusively with politics. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">For a whole lot of reasons I</span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span lang="EN-US">ve never liked that and, more recently, its come
to bug the hell out of me</span>. </div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">It annoyed me a lot, last year, when there were
a few feature articles about the New Zealand blogosphere and it focused
almost totally on the political ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">This was well before what people had been
writing on blogs became - for the media around and about two thirds of the
political class anyway - <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the</b> story
of the election campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">There are plenty of other things to write about,
argue about, even get quite angry or excited about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">But so much of New Zealand political blogging
seems dominated not only by politics, but by a particularly inane high school
gang/sporting team level of debate it is rather deadening to the mind and soul.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">There are many different types of bores in the
world but one of the worst type is those who think their poltical views are the
most interesting thing about themselves instead of </span><span lang="EN-US">–</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">
</span><span lang="EN-US">usually </span><span lang="EN-US">–</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">
</span><span lang="EN-US">one of the least interesting.</span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="Body">
Which does not mean one cannot have an
intelligent interesting debate about politics on the blogs. My word, one can.
But it should not be allowed to dominate quite to the extent it has in the New
Zealand social media.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<span lang="EN-US">The blogs I have always enjoyed often have a
political aspect, and are frequently written by people with strong political
views. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">But they keep politics in its place. Where it should be. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">I'll write more on this, somewhere else, some other time. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02397480700716013852noreply@blogger.com0