If you plan on going to Ronnie Scotts (famous jazz bar in London) there are a couple of things you should be aware of, lest you get upset how the bouncers decide to treat you.

1. Do not take any photos, with or without flash.
2. Do not have a discussion with the people around you, if you’re going to talk, it better be for some fleeting moments.
3. Do not use your mobile phone, be it to text or anything else, you will be asked to leave.

If you follow these brief rules and sit still for 3 hours you should hopefully get through the entire night. Having said that the Yellowjackets yesterday were pretty awesome.

It’s all about the music in there, respect to the musician, respect to those around you that want to appreciate the music without being annoyed.

Or so Paul Boutin will lead you to believe from the latest issue of Wired. In what is clearly blog-bait, Paul does raise some interesting points although I don’t think his thoughts past the fact that blogging has had it’s heyday as we got to know them these last few years are all that poignant to be honest.

Sources

He is right that blogging isn’t as prevalent now as it was 4 years ago, but then again, very few things on the internet has got that much of a shelf life. He sites Technorati as a source, to which I say, who the fuck searches Technorati anymore? I mean seriously? I’ve not visited Technorati in like over a year probably, that site died a slow a mostly deserved death years ago (we can talk about the fall of Technorati, but honestly I don’t give a shit).

Methods of Expression

Which then leads me to his thoughts on what we should do. Go and tweet apparently; write stuff on Facebook and show my photos on Flickr. I think he’s missing the point here. I do all of that (except Flickr, can’t get into that site to be honest); the thing is all of my other outlets are connected to my blog. I post something here, it’s shown on Twitter. My posts show up as notes in Facebook. All of these services have their reasons to exist and provide me with a specific service, but they could never replace my blog.

Many have sited Twitter as the blog assassin. I don’t necessarily agree. It serves an excellent purpose, it really does. The thing is though that Twitter is filled with bollocks, but that’s what it’s meant to be. Intermingled within that bollocks are some pretty cool things for sure and he is right in that the vibrant feel of mirrors blogging four years ago, but its not the only method of expression, it’s but one method.

Is blogging as relevant as it was 4 years ago? No it’s not. Things have changed considerably, the blog isn’t new and fresh, because now it’s an established institution of the internet landscape. If you have a website then you have a blog. Some web magazines are now seen as blogs (like Treehugger), but blogs are the personal sites run by one man or woman, not a collection of writers churning out 30 posts a day.

Personal Experience

From my perspective, I have changed the way I use my blog. I’ve given up on services like Magnolia and Delicious. My blog is now my method of actually storing my bookmarks. I have words that I use to ‘tag’ the links and they’re easier to find and manage, this has actually prompted me to writing more (it’s been months and months since I’ve posted this many times in such a short period of time, consistently) but I’m finding that I am enjoying this more than ever.

In a perverse kind of way I am glad that the spotlight is off. It means that I can concentrate on all my thoughts and that eventually the people that comment on my site are either the ones that have been reading for a while and therefore have meaningful contributions or people that have found something useful in their search for other kinds of information.

Blogging was never about being the best and most popular voice on the internet, it’s about freedom of expression to the masses in a way that was never before possible. Saying that blogging is dead is like saying that the written word is dead; if you think like that then I have honestly nothing to say to you.

So today Morwenna and I went to Regent’s Park for lunch (this year’s autumn has been beyond awesome) and while we’re sitting there in Morwenna’s typical snide way notices a couple running in front of us, and obviously she couldn’t help but notice (and remark) on the fact that this couple had their hands tied to each other, with about half a meter of length, which was odd. As they progressed down the park, we started thinking of reasons why this would happen, were they training, was she training him, he was one step in front of her rather than the other way round etc.

Then they turned the corner and it then became apparent that she was leading him and then we noticed the white stick that he was carrying and it clicked, the man was blind. I just couldn’t help but admire that as a concept of a blind man running and how something like that was not going to stop him from doing what he enjoyed.

Needless to say I have an immense amount of respect and admiration for blind people as going blind is one of my ultimate fears in life, so when I see blind people doing mundane things that you and I take for granted, but which I know is extremely difficult for them, I have even that much more admiration.

While I’m on the topic, last week I noticed a blind woman walking towards me, she would have been in her early 30s, but the thing that I noticed and which I don’t really have an answer to, is just how well dressed she actually was. Colours were coordinated and her whole outfit suited her extremely well. How does a blind person pick out their clothes in the morning? How do they know which items of clothing work well with each other. How do they know what colours are and that blue and green don’t go together?

I know it sounds completely trivial, but it was one of those things that really made me stop and appreciate the senses that I have been gifted with.