I’ve always been a bit wary of starting a blog. As a child, I was singularly rubbish at keeping a diary – several of my youthful diary entries were along the lines of, “I had a sandwich for lunch”, or, “I saw a moth today” – and I never kept at it for more than a few months at a time. Part of the problem was that I never saw much in the minutiae of my life worth recording. The good bits I remembered anyway, and the rest was obviously so dull that it would have been a waste of ink and paper to write it down. One of my efforts at journal keeping, from about age 5, was painstakingly illustrated with pictures I had drawn to describe my day – the Transformers and He-Man featured prominently, but both sandwiches and moths were also heavily represented. One diary entry I particularly recall was from my early twenties, and expresses with some eloquence the issues of sharing a house:

“They’ve been playing Gran Turismo for EIGHTEEN F**KING HOURS! I am going to KILL SOMEONE!””

You know who you are.

So I’m not planning on setting down much of what happens to me in the real world, since mind-numbing tedium rarely results in high viewing figures (except for Endemol productions).

The idea of blogging has never really sat right with me for another reason. I’m not a naturally outgoing person, and it seems to me a rather confessional exercise to record one’s thoughts and experiences in a format to which the entire world has access. It’s not a given that I want Barry from Manchester, or Sarah from L.A., or Yamaguchi-san from Nagasaki to know what I had for lunch yesterday. Apart from anything else, they would no doubt be very unimpressed by my literary skill (a cheese-and-ham sandwich is tasty, but hardly Tolstoy). I’m also concerned that blogging could be seen as a rather egotistical activity; I am of course utterly convinced of my own wonderfulness, but to advertise it online seems to be a little arrogant, not at all in tune with my natural humility…

All objections aside, though, I’ve been inspired by such excellent blogs as Daylight Atheism, A Load Of Bright, No More Hornets, Pharyngula and others to start setting down my own unworthy thoughts in digital form. I’ll be posting book reviews, news stories that catch my eye, life events of more universal interest than sandwiches, and, well, anything that crosses my mind, really. Although it would be nice to think that some great philosophical treatise will result from this, I rather think Ebon Musings has that covered, so I’ll be content with just sharing my thoughts. If you want to comment on the same things I’m thinking about, please feel free.