Time For A Cuppa And A Chat

I’m back.

Not that I ever went away you understand – I’ve just been filling my time with other projects.

Namely a new-found love of Twitter @pacey_patrick and my pictorial blog: thisisingaleesh.blogspot.com.

However a quote I read today from @BristolEditor sparked this blog back into life; in his 10 Commandments of Social Media (trust me to pay attention to something with a Catholic reference) it was Number 5 that jumped up and slapped me squarely round the chops:

One number and four stark words: 5. Thou shall not kill.

Guess I'd better stop sharpening my axe and polishing my gun then.

But, I digress.  So the quote:

“Nothing is quite as bad in social media-land as an account which is established and then sits there. Dead. No content. Nothing contributed. Setting up a social media space, such as a...blog, and then not adding content to it regularly is a sure-fire way of killing your social media credibility in front of a global audience. Add content. Add value. Just add!”

Therefore I decided it was high time I launched myself at Sebastian Vettel pace right back out there into the blogosphere.

As is probably clear from previous posts, my blog has two central themes: politics and my journalistic ambitions.

And in many ways the topics themselves explain my 3 month blog-lethargy.

1) The Tories and Lib Dems have been killing each other in the last few months, so I haven’t felt the need for blog-based Tory bashing; I simply sat back and let them get on with it, waiting to pick off the spoils at the opportune moment – more of that to come soon.

2)As for journalism, I haven’t had much to blog about there either; four months down the line, £3,000+ lighter and I’m still working for @bradmanagement (which is not to be sniffed at in the current climate).

However, I’m still hunting and ever optimistic – I’ve been wanting this for 15 years so it’s in my nature to be patient. 

My job hunt has taken me to some interesting places (Congleton among them); yesterday’s destination of choice was Dubai (lots of journalism jobs out there), although I’m not sure whether my forthright political views would be that well received in the land of milk, honey and erm…oil. Then again I should at least be able to tap up @Bin_Hammam for cheap Qatar World Cup tickets, if they ever get to host it that is.

So what's happened while I've been away?

Crucially,

Doreen and Neville Lawrence appear another step closer to getting justice for their murdered son Stephen http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13438629

And,

A court officially confirmed what anyone who saw the G20 video footage already knew – newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson was ‘unlawfully killed’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECMVdl-9SQ

Everything else simply pales into insignificance.

Journalists Are Historians Of The Here And Now

One of the beauties of journalism, and of being a journalist, is the power it enables you to feel. Journalists are without doubt, historians of the moment. The written and spoken word provides a commentary and analysis of the modern world and its associated events and happenings which will be recorded for years to come and will be read by future generations.


The brilliant thing about history being documented in this way is that it can’t be changed – people can try and put a different spin on it, a different recollection maybe, or they can even tell you “that wasn’t how it occurred”. But there is something so definite about the written word as a document.  Who has ever tried to dispute The Book of Kells?

This point has particular resonance with the publication this week of Tony Blair’s memoir, The Journey. Many people, anti-Blairites mostly, will tell you that this book is his attempt to re-write history. They will tell you that in fact the world is not, and should not be seen to be as grateful to ‘Tony’ as he would have us believe, and not everything that has been achieved in this world post 1997 is down to him alone.  Even people in the Labour Party would try and tell you it was more about 'Tony' and less about 'The Party'.


However there is one point that I would like to make. This world that we now live in is, undoubtedly, a better and safer world now that Charles Taylor, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein are no longer in power. That is a fact, and that fact is part of the legacy of Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister.


Blair’s legacy can be Iraq if you wish it to be, but don’t lose sight of the one fact that The Tories would have you conveniently forget – they voted for Iraq just as much as Labour did. Had they been in power back then, things wouldn’t have been any different. So let them posture and pose with their ‘holier than thou’ attitude. But the truth of the matter is something that although forgotten, will be recorded for all of time for people to recall. Why? Because the vote for war was recorded in all its details by the journalists of the time.


Funny that, isn’t it?