… And talking about blogging-about-blogging - see immediately below - I am aware that the aesthetic appearance of this blog is a shambles, as is that of my other one. This is a particular embarrassment when you consider that design is one of the things I'm most interested in writing about here. I am sorely tempted to just write out a big cheque to Sekimori, who did the Samizdata redesign when it moved to MT, and have them fix everything up looking pretty. But a lot of work would be involved in telling Sekimori what exactly I wanted, because I don't yet know that properly.

I use Movable Type simply because Samizdata does, and that's how I got started with blogging. So what I want is an MT geek who lives in London who can sit down alongside me at my computer and sort it all out with me. That way, I can work it out as we go along.

(By the way, this is the sort of reason why work will never be done entirely in people's separate homes or offices by the seaside. The very thing, new technology, which is supposed to be the means of making all work into work-at-a-distance is one of the biggest reasons why we will still want a lot of our work not to be work-at-a-distance. Making technology work better, in new and at first unfamiliar waqys, is what modern work is now, pretty much. And you can't do that without regular hands-on meetings.)

Anyway, how would this magical non-worker-at-a-distance be paid? Well, ideally, he would be so pathetically grateful for all the gratitude I would pour all over him – here, at my education blog, and at Samizdata (which has a hit rate of about 2,000 per day and rising) – that he'd be willing to pay for the privilege of helping me, and displaying his logo on my blogs. (He's the kind of person who knows how to display logos.) But I realise that this may be too much to ask, so I would certainly be willing to talk money of the sort that would flow in his direction. About the same amount in total as Sekimori would cost - a couple of hundred quid? - but with extra face-to-face service added.

I already know people who can do this kind of thing for me. And they do, occasionally. But they are too busy doing other things, like earning a living, blogging for themselves, or disappearing for long periods to non-London places, which is no good at all. I need someone who lives in or near London and who can be summoned at a few days notice. I need someone who needs to get out more, not someone who already does get out.

Here is something that might encourage such a blogeek to present himself to me. I don't want to spill any secrets here, but let me just say that I have intelligent friends who are now talking around the matter of how to make proper money out of blogging. So, target blogeek, think of helping me - for some money but not for much - as a career move.