October 22, 2004
On the tendency of Important Postings to never get posted

I am now going to do two postings, about two quite distinct subjects, one after the other, and if I don't feel free to hunt me down and shoot me. With a gun I mean, not a digital camera.

Subject one concerns a troubling syndrome which I have noticed in myself, and expect that others may recognise also.

There are many ways in which I mentally classify my various blogging efforts, but one subdivision is: important postings, and unimportant postings.

The unimportant postings are easy. I just do them. They aren't important, so it's not important for me to do them perfectly. I just bash them out and forget about them. Hey how about this! Interesting, yes? No? Oh well, I liked it. Blah blah blah. Finished.

But the important postings are difficult. These are the ones that make an Important Point. These must be got right. People must be made to agree with me about how important it is, so they must be written well, linked impeccably, and perhaps illustrated exquisitely. Result: again and again, these important postings don't get written at all.

So for example, last weekend, I went to see a play. That's right, I Got Out More, as I always tell myself I ought to, and actually saw a play, in a theatre, on a stage. True, it only involved one actor, and he was seated at a drab desk in a drab room, surrounded by junk and doing work that depended entirely upon electronic equipment, so the culture shock for me was not as total as it might have been.

But imagine if there had been lots of smartly dressed people saying Elegant things while sipping Elegant Drinks in an Elegant Drawing Room with Large and Elegant Windows! I would probably have died of the shock and had to be stretchered out.

Earnest.jpg

So, anyway, I went to the theatre. So, this was my chance to do a Theatrical Review, immediately afterwards. Like they have here. Wow, I could be a real Culture Blogger!

However, this would have been an important posting. It would have been my debut here as a Theatrical Reviewer. It would have to have been dazzlingly written, to have made all its points (a) properly and (b) in the correct order and (c) other things I have now forgotten but which are just as important.

So, it never got written. Well, it got half written. But it didn't get wholly written and it didn't get posted. Until today, when, I have resolved, I will write it and I will post it. It is important that I write it and post it. However, it order to get it written and posted you and I both will have to resign ourselves to it being written and posted in the Unimportant Style, i.e. the way this posting was written. And posted. Facetiously, and perhaps with Too Many Capital Letterised Words, to name but two defects Among Many of the Unimportant Style.

Another feature of the Unimportant Style is Abrupt Endings.

Posted by Brian Micklethwait at 01:27 PM
Category: Blogging