I was listening to a programme of blogging on Radio 4 a few days back. This weekend I had a look at one of the those featured, which was Petite Anglais. I wondered what it was that made it such a well-read blog. The answer is simple — the writing is excellent. It’s witty, discoursive and makes you rethink its relatively mundane content. It also moves between strange and the deeply personal, and is moving because of it. In the end, though, it was probably this aspect which lead to the author getting the sack. The content does not actually justify her getting the sack. I suspect her employers were more worried about what it might say in the future, than what it actually does. I don’t really understand this; I’m a fairly open person; I’ll tell anybody anything that they choose to ask. My life is dull enough, that nothing that I answer is likely to be novel to anyone; they’ve probably done, thought the same things that I have.

The blog is slightly depressing as well, at least for me. I write for my job. Perhaps it’s the formal nature of it that has robbed me of the ability to write quickly, lightly and with a human touch; more likely, I just never had the talent.

Originally published on my old blog site.