WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BLOGGING?

/ dinahmow

I suspect many of us are enticed away by the quick-fix of Instagram and suchlike.

And, of course, Facebook has ensnared many bloggers. Yes, I have a presence on that platform, but I have culled a great many contacts who were buying into the bitch-fests. I don’t like hateful comments, especially from people who can’t spell! And it does seem to be a magnet for Brexit and Trump and climate deny-ers and Flat-earthers…

But we’re not about blame here at the Idle Thoughts. Actually, we (and that’s “we” used in the Royal context!) don’t seem to be about very much of anything. Another two months gap in posting. Slacking, Dinah!

A quick update…it has not rained since last Friday. What this means is that I am back to watering some plants! With drinking water! Sacrilege!

I have a few photos to share…undefined…More Yellow Fellows. Dysphania numana cats.

Tithonia, aka Mexican sunflower or tree daisy. Tied back from the driveway and still flinging its gorgeous flowers about. A bit of a thug, but I do love it.

This is a Megaskepasma erythroclamys . And I Googled to see if there is a more pronouncable common name (and you all know how I feel about common names!) Apparently, it’s also known as Red Cloak. Over the years I’ve struggled to keep it alive and this is from a 6″/ 15cm cutting. The rain has been a boon so I’ve planted this and am hopeful of masses of crimson flowers …

And now, my faithful readers, I’d better press the button on this as things might get a bit tricky…we are changing providers and are only part-way through the process.I’d hate to have you cut off in your prime, as it were.

46 thoughts on “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BLOGGING?”

  1. As you know I haven’t succumbed to farcebook.
    The internet claims (more than) enough of my time as it is.
    No rain since Friday? A drought declaration is imminent isn’t it? We had 0.5mm yesterday and about the same today.
    Loving your lush garden.
    Good luck with the provider switch.

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  3. “Actually, we (and that’s ‘we’ used in the Royal context!) don’t seem to be about very much of anything.”

    “We” also! Lately, “we” have been at a loss of interesting topics.

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  4. Yes! I struggle to find something worth a reader’s time.
    Over at Ms Scarlet’s we were saying that most of the old blogging fraternity/sorority were witty and the comment threads were often much more lively than than some posts.
    And by that I mean genuinely funny, even when bordering on risque. (No, Muriel, that’s not quite what
    I mea-MURIEL!).
    Oh! I saw something amusing on Farcebook, but can’t seem to post it here so I’ll email it…)

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  6. I’ve been feeling the change for years, Dinah – as the great “godfathers” of blogging (who got me hooked in the first place) Thombeau, TJB, Felix (in Hollywood) and the like gave up and disappeared. More recently, MJ seems to have been enveloped in the “old ennui” too, and apart from Mistress Maddie, Mr DeVice and I (in our little “clique”), few people update their blogs more than about once a fortnight… I love your garden pictures, I love Miss Scarlett’s wacky crafts, the groynes of IDV’s Norfolk, Borghese drag queen gossip, Peenee’s cats’n’cock combo, Cookie’s neighbourhood tales and all that – this is a place (or should it be “these are the two places?” – Blogger and WordPress) where I like to “hang out” and I will forever avoid the “goldfish memory” and meaningless bitchery of other social media. Keep going, chaps, keep going! Jx

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    • Yes! Of course, some have the gold medal “excuse” of having shuffled off the mortal coil, but I still “feel” their presence in the ether.
      And I think I posted more regularly when I was whizzing around from school to school and involved with artistic pursuits.
      So, yes, keep going, chaps. As Dick might have suggested to Julian…

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    • Ooh, I’ve been accepted into a clique!

      * preens and looks down nose at the riff-raff *

      Although blogging seems to have fallen out of favour somewhat, I’m glad that those of us that still do, still do (however copiously/infrequently/haphazardly) – I’d miss it terribly if it all came to an end.

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    • Hahaha! Well, there isn’t much, if any, marketing knowledge Chez Dinahmow. But I think you make a valid point. I love reading your blog!Sometimes, you visit places I remember, sometimes your “dots on the map” are totally new to me. And always well-written. Another thing I love about the better bloggers.
      I have no idea when or even if I’ll be back in England, but , by gum! there’ll be soom glasses raised!

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  8. I think that tree daisy is the plant which lines the back road to town. I keep meaning to take cuttings but that means stopping the car which The Men, reared in the Jehu tradition, regard as heresy.
    So many of the bloggers whose work I enjoyed have either shut down completely or gone to Facebook…which is not at all the same thing…so please keep buggering on despite changing providers.
    I don’t post as often as I used….plenty of inspiration, but I find that once the train of thought is interrupted by calls for tea, frantic hunts for the right inhaler which turns up anywhere but it should be and the usual domestic nonsense I cannot retrieve the enthusiasm.

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    • hmmm..being side-tracked by kitchen duties, and requests for assistance…that’s a familiar scenario!
      I also seem to have trouble staying focussed on a task.OMG! Maybe it’s old age!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

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    • Oh! Oh! This is like that Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder that Ms Scarlet once blogged about! I quite often think about it as my early onset AAADD seems to be kicking in far more regularly these days…

      * Ms Scarlet, if you’re reading this, you may notice that your Blogger/Wordpress stats show various AAADD related searches. They were me. I was trying to find your post with the video, but was unsuccessful. I found it on YouTube, though – linked to up there ^.

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      • Oops, sox or soz even. I found the post you were looking for, but have put the link in the wrong place, which kind of proves the point, plus I spent over half an hour looking for it and then got distracted by adding a tag cloud to my sideboard. Sigh.
        Sx

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      • I thought your sideboard was looking different just now (“being a pot noodle” is inspired!)! I’m considering my own tag cloud – the subjects are far too general/vague, and really not helpful when trying to find something. I think I’m going to have to spend hours upon hours retagging old posts to make sense of things…

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      • Shall we take over Dinah’s blog today? It’s comfortable here, and I’m sure she won’t mind. Do you remember when we used to do such things on Infomaniac? It was called a Blog Bundle, or somesuch?
        Sx

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      • Ha ha hah! I bet her house is filled with the incessant pings of notifications!

        I must admit, I never think to click the “notify me” thingy – I just refresh every now and then on the off chance that someone else (i.e. you) is also lounging about in front of a screen instead of doing all the jobs that need to be done.

        * looks out of window and sees half-dug garden *

        * quickly looks away and clicks back to “News from the Mantelpiece” *

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      • I have pings echoing throughout the house from different devices, I quite like it.
        Meanwhile, I can’t see my garden through the window as the grass needs cutting…. perhaps I ought to drag myself away…. after I’ve rearranged the mantelpiece a little more, and put a cloth over Charmaine.
        Sx

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  9. Pingback: News from the Mantelpiece…. | Wonky Words

  10. Oh, hello. Fancy seeing you here!

    I’m just going to say something about those caterpillars before scooting up-thread and adding my two penn’orth to other comments: Aren’t they well camoflaged against the underside of the fern leaves! Oh, and I was looking for actual cats in that photo until I eventually saw the caterpillars and realised that’s what your “cats” was describing…

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  11. Flippin’ ‘eck! (see? I don’t always use cuss words!) You two have double-handedly shot my stats into the stratosphere. Ta, ever so.
    Now, about the snacks…well I might have been able to offer some pizza, but it was jolly tasty so we opened another bottle of lemonade and scoffed the lot. Sorry.

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  12. I have a Facebook account for snooping purposes only (I use a fake name) I don’t want dickheads from my past getting in touch, thank you very much, I learnt that mistake from Friends Reunited. The maid uses it a lot ‘ Do you remember Fi from Butterfly Meadows? she’ll say whilst in the middle of watching a television programme ‘Well… tap-tap-tappity-tap this is what she looks like now.’ and we both cackle in unison. Yes it is a bitch-fest.

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    • Yes, of course it is. Good manners, for the most part, seem to have been chucked out the window over there.
      But I have a few sites I follow to keep up with friends who no longer blog.I never used my real name, but one day…I discovered that my real persona is listed in a very staid, official record (no, Muriel, not a police report!) so there you go…flog a piece of artwork to a museum and Google can find you.just as well I was never a porn star!

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  13. It’s down to other platforms, whether you prefer Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, which I think are the main culprits. And to smartphones, where blogging is less satisfying than it is on desktops or laptops. I still do my best, though. We don’t comment on blogs as we used to, either, and that’s what I miss as much as anything.

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  14. Yes, Zoe, you’re on the button . The old “gang” was very chummy and the comments were a lot of fun.
    I’ll continue until the dreaded AAADD slays me…
    By the way, have you learned to crochet yet? And, if so, have you made Tim some trews?

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  17. Facebook fakebook or just big F book – I use it for the family and a friend or two. But divided politics has ruined it. Just like twitter (which I’m not a member) FB is easy to throw out some quick lines about news/topics that you don’t need to know anything about. The blogs I follow still put forth effort to post interesting topics or pictures. I wish more people would move back to blogging.

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    • Oh, you’re so right! I often switch the wretched thing off and have unfollowed quite a few who just click on stuff they’d never mention to my face.But people like Scarlet and co. are good value.

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  18. Only a 2 month absence? Pshaw! i’m just poking my head back in after 6 months! Like you, i’m out on the book of the faces, but it lacks the depth, and personality/connection i’ve found out here. Going to attempt once again to return to this particular ether!

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