Freelance Unbound

It’s all-too easy to take this blogging nonsense too seriously – you know: try to burnish each post so that it flies off the Google listing straight into readers’ browsers and pushes you to the pinnacle of the Technorati rankings.
Which is why I always smile when I visit my pal Peter Ashley’s Unmitigated England blog [which I am happily going to pimp here].
He writes poetically and idiosyncratically about an England we half recognise – a mixture of the nostalgic and the fantastic, that may possibly have existed once in someone’s drowsy, mid-afternoon reverie. Perhaps in the 1930s.
He also never uses the same tag twice – preferring to treat web metrics with the contempt they often deserve. Visit Unexpected Alphabets No 8, for example, and you’ll see it tagged MILK CHURNS, WEIGHING MACHINES, WICKER PIGEON BASKETS. And there’s not an example of any of these anywhere in the post. Meanwhile, the Old Gits post is labelled:  BATH CHAIRS, PEOPLE’S FRIEND MAGAZINE, SMITH KENDON TRAVEL SWEETS, WINCARNIS. Whatever they are.
Also, I notice from the blog, it was Len Deighton’s 80th birthday this week. Though he’s best known for his Harry Palmer novels, my favourite is the alternative history SS-GB. Many happy returns to him…