Entry #13: Do You Remember the First Time?

The bath I had on Monday eased aches but I think it exacerbated my cold by encouraging the release of toxins, my nose has been a hose all week. Feeling rough, and with a huge spot on my face, after work on Thursday I went to the re-scheduled first BBC Manchester Blog Workshop.

This time around there was no adverse weather causing transport chaos, I was there on time enough to sit down and relax and prepare for the workshop to begin. It wasn't just me at this time blessing the BBC bar for their 50p cans of Foster's, as since I've read IckleWeb commenting on his surprise. Julia and toast from the ill-fated workshop were in attendance, as was Andrew who had still yet to start blogging.

Robin Hamman led the workshop, with Richard Fair claiming immunity from presenting as he felt he'd said enough that day after a two-hour broadcast. A show of hands said a majority of the 20 or so participants are already blogging, and I think the overview of information and the feeling of enthusiasm may encourage the rest to get starting their own blogs.

Julia talked about how she started, and has since posted some explanation and exploration. Craig McGinty took to the floor to give advice on earning some income from your blog, not in terms of getting rich but enough to cover any costs incurred by hosting — he's posted some brief notes about what was touched on.

I occasionally blurted out bits of my own advice, but I was particularly interested to ask about the BBC's editorial guidelines. I was concerned that my site would be effectively blacklisted if some of its content were questionable, and I received clarification that if the majority of the site had acceptable content then it would be OK. I'm obviously not referring to illegal or pornographic content, just the language and subject matter.

In terms of protecting children my site programmatically communicates its content following the Internet Content Rating Association's rating system, which enables parents to block content they don't want their children accessing. It's early days for this blog, but as it progresses I get a clearer idea about things. I'm trying to find a balance regarding what and who I talk about and how I talk about them.

My friends say they're happy for me to blog about them, “as long as it's good.” My blog is about being real, and realistically not everything I have to say about my friends will be good. I'm prepared to tell you about bad things in my life as well as the good, but if I'm not authorised to do the same about friends then I feel I'd rather generally limit what I say about them. Even with me I won't be able to elucidate all the details about my life, but I'll definitely relay the salient incidents and pertinent turning points.

As well as what I talk about, there's a balance of how much detail I will go into: I may tell you that the day job is going well, but I won't tell you where I work; I may tell you I've had sex, but I won't go into a blow by blow account. This is a public Web site and I am accountable. On one hand this gives the site a certain amount of credibility and commitment, and on the other it poses dangers. It's not so much my privacy I am concerned about but my safety. There are some unsavoury souls out there, but I will not allow bullies from the past to obstruct my future.

Blogging is not something I think I'll just do for a bit then have the novelty wear off. With projects I think ahead—potential developments, growth, scalability—and this is no different. I imagine how good it would be to be able to recount a year past, and then five, then ten. As mentioned in the previous entry, I've known Hannah from college for seven years this year. Another long-term friend from college is another girlfriend, she's called Alex.

Hannah and I were in drama together, but I shared no classes with Alex. The one thing the three of us did share was poetry group, and that's really where our friendships formed their strong foundations. One particular characteristic I had in common with Alex was our punctuality, I remember the times we both arrived at college late we would saunter into the city centre or computer room instead of our classes. Years after college I would come to share a house with Alex, but I'll tell you about that another time.

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Entry #13, published on Friday, 23^rd of February 2007 at 22:53 local time (Swatch Internet Time @980 .beats)

Returning in 2008 ;-)