Feb 23, 2006

One year ago today

This blog was born.

I had been thinking of starting a blog for years, but I always had in mind some Platonic ideal of a blog. So I collected links to blog software and hosting sites and saved articles on blog design and how to be an effective blogger, but I never committed myself to anything.

One thing that was holding me back--or so I told myself--was an unsuccessful search for an obscure PG Wodehouse quote that I had seen in a preface to a book of short stories. It was something about how people are driven to write and gave as an example the chappies who write letters to the editor about the first sighting of the cuckoo in spring. I had in mind that this would serve as the ideal tagline, being both self-deprecating and showing like-minded people that here was someone who had an appreciation of the master.

But I'm rather a half-assed perfectionist and one day, while making my rounds through the blogosphere, I was possessed by the notion that I would explode if I didn't start a blog that minute. So off I went to blogger and, as they say, the rest is history.

Which brings me to the name of this humble "weblog." It was the one thing I'd never even thought about. So there I was trying to figure out what to call this thing. I quickly discarded the idea of using my name in the title: I just didn't feel there was a market for Rachel's Ramblings or Sawyer's Stray Thoughts. So again I turned to the master. But in my fever to get this thing off the ground, my mind went blank and Tinkerty Tonk was the only bit of Wodehouse that I could remember.

Naturally, I thought of better titles a few days later and those of you who may be thinking of starting a blog are free to use them:

  • Fundamentally Unsound.
  • A Sheep with a Secret Sorrow.
  • A Glass of Sparkling Limado.


So here I am a year later and people actually read me. And they comment. And if I'm really lucky other bloggers link to me. Thank you all. I look forward to the year to come.

Have a macaroon and a glass of sparkling limado on me.

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