Hundreds and thousands

Not the colourful sugary little beads that used to (maybe still do?) decorate cakes, ice cream and the like, but the pageviews that have been raining on this largely moribund blog of late. More than forty thousand in the last month! Madness! I'm sure all of them, or at least, the vast majority, have been generated by 'bots', but why me, and why now? I spent a lot of time in the 'blogosphere' between 2010 and 2017, writing and publishing dozens of posts a month, at my peak, and was largely ignored, apart from a few hardy individuals (who I appreciated in spades, and still do, even though they've moved on now), but now, I seem to be 'flavour of the month'. It's all rather peculiar. It made me think of one of the episodes of the radio version of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy', where a couple of the characters find themselves in a disco populated by 'AI dancers'. 'But there are no real people here!', someone says. Quite!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A red-letter day

 One of the worst aspects of having a stroke, for me, is aphasia. Since that fateful day in October 2017, I've struggled with communication issues, most notably my speech and, in particular, writing. My original hope was to retire after forty years with my company, which would've fallen in 2019, and I had a daydream of writing a novel thereafter, but the health fates weren't with me. I was, at least, able to read fluently, so I've spent a lot of time reading other people's words, but coming up with new material of my own has been largely a case of (literal) headaches and almost infinite frustration. But, around six weeks ago, something clicked. I had a new story in my head, and found that I could progress, to the extent of writing almost every day since then, leading to today, when I published Cousinage in my fiction blog (the link is in the side bar, it anyone cares to have a look). It's not a novel, but is 44000 words long, near enough, and the thought that I could achieve that much in the time available is a minor miracle, as far as I'm concerned. Quantity is one thing, but I'm not making any claim regarding quality, although I'm pleased enough with it to go ahead with publication. Its existence is the key for me, rather than any expectation of approbation. It might be a one-off, but there is some hope that I'll able to add to my oeuvre, however amateurish, in the future.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Blood on their hands

Sooner rather than later, I fear. The American electorate has written the death warrants of so many women, non-white people, LGBTQ+ people, Ukrainians, Palestinians, the poor and/or dispossessed, and more. And it gets worse, at least potentially - if (when?)Trump dies/comes incapacitated, the proverbial 'heartbeat away from the presidency' adage would fall to Vance, who is an outright theocratic fascist. As ever, the main problem of democracy is that any moron can vote. Well, America, you've made your bed, now lie in it. 

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A very sad day for the whole world

I woke up to the biggest news item in years this morning, but it was a desperately disappointing result. A golden opportunity to rid the world of one of the most dangerous and toxic people in living memory, wasted. So depressing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Compare and contrast

It's a nice day today, weather-wise, so far (yes, we do get user-friendly days here, even in this predominantly grey and damp part of the world), and I was, rather vacantly, looking out of my sitting room window earlier on. My attention was drawn to one of the local cats, an animal I've seen regularly ever since I moved here. The cat was doing what domestic cats do best in similar situations, luxuriating in a patch of warm sunshine, before languorously washing itself. What a life, I couldn't but help reflecting, all wants and needs requited, food, shelter, affection, comfort. As opposed to my lifestyle, yes, I have got food and shelter, but apart from that, my circumstances aren't that great - no friends or acquaintances, apart from my daughter, who lives 250-odd miles away, indifferent health, even on a good day, a bad knee that makes even walking upstairs to the bathroom painful, and the coup de grace, my aphasia after my stroke, which hampers me so frustratingly in terms of speaking and writing, robbing me of what was one of my few strengths. I know this post probably sounds like self-pity, and maybe it is, but quality of life is a worthwhile aspiration, an aspiration I'm sorely lacking at the moment.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A bigot's charter

The current iteration of the Conservative Party has been a race to the bottom for years now, most notably during Boris Johnson's tenure, but with a General Election looming in a few months time, there's space for plenty of barrel scraping, seemingly. The next target is school sex education, from what I've been seeing today, the subject will be gutted, particularly in primary schools, but older pupils won't be immune, either - all 'children' are going to be banned from being taught about gender identity. It's not a 'Don't Say Gay' scenario - yet - but it's a patent grab for the Tories in terms of winning the bigot vote, the right wingnuts, especially the religious right, will love it. And if some young people get killed, by their own hands, or through bullying or even outright murder, well sobeit. Frankly, that wouldn't be a bug, but a feature for those scumbags. 

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

An utter surprise

For some reason, my largely moribund blog has been 'flavour of the week' - there have been more than 3000 views in the last four or five days. I'm sure it's just web crawlers crawling, but it has helped to push the blog, after 13-odd years, beyond 100000 views overall. Thank you for reading - even the crawlers!

Love & best wishes to all 

Sammy B