today : A face in the misty light

One of the very few winners in the election campaign is, in my 'umble opinion, the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg. In the realm of political reporting recently she has really managed to shine.

I think her gender and age has something to do with it. You only have to look at the debates. Sky's debate featured four middle aged public schoolboys - two of whom, Clegg and Adam Boulton, are alumni of the same school, Westminster. I wonder if Laura presents politicians with a different prospect than the self-satisfied, clubby types who seem to dominate political reporting.

Boulton, Andrew Neil, Nick Robinson, Andrew Marr et al are all of a rather traditional type. White middle class Oxbridge boys with a background in newspapers. All members of the same self-perceived heavyweights club as many of the politicians they are dealing with. Watch Neil on The Daily Politics and he constantly plays alpha male to his always female sidekicks, despite their own credentials. Anita Anand and Shelagh Fogerty are no airheads yet Neil can never let them be anything other than subservient, as he chums along with his politician mates. It would not be too shocking if he asked them to go make a cup of tea luv. Like the others Neil seems to approach interviewees rather pugilistically.

But Laura is a different and welcome proposition. A smart and confident young woman. As the BBC trumpets the 'clarity' of its election coverage (would that they were focusing on brevity), it is she whom incisively and clearly explains the issues in a way that is neither patronising to her topic or the viewer, or flying off into those strange flights of metaphor that so many correspondents use to try and trumpet their own cleverness. It is she who interviews with subtlety and precision, never appearing to try and impose her opinion on the subject and utilising the lack of flying testosterone to her and the viewers' advantage.

Nobody should be surprised. The world is packed with intelligent and highly capable women both young and old. But news, like politics rarely reflects this. Both are way behind where they should be. News still generally treats its women as eye candy (even though, thankfully in Britain, we have not succumbed to the non-journalist bimbo presenter model) and leaves the 'important' stuff - such as anchoring elections - to the old boys. Laura is an example of why this is an outmoded notion. Who knows, maybe they'll even allow her on screen once she hits 45.


* I know I said I wouldn't write about the election but this isn't really about the election, I think.

today : I fall in love with a bag

As Howard Jones so succinctly and melodically. What is love (or in Howard's words, what is lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ove anyway...?)?

I ask this question that has occupied the best efforts of countless philosophers, poets, songwriters, novelists, newspaper columnists and most everyone else for the whole of time because I am pretty sure that I have found an answer, at least, to what it isn't. And what love isn't, is the feelings we have for a green reinforced plastic shopping bag.

For reasons I shall not go into here, I was standing outside the 3rd Floor Cafeteria of the Huddersfield University Library the other day waiting for someone to get back from printing out some documents, and, over the course of about ten minutes I counted 4 people walking past, carrying identical green reinforced plastic bags, each bearing the statement. "I 'heart' my big green bag". It was clearly a fashion amongst some of the students. I am sure it denotes some kind of political allegiance to environmental issues. Maybe the bags were just cheap and sturdy and came from the local supermarket. But the fact that whoever produced them placed a logo and slogan on them reminds me of the fact that EVERYTHING, however workaday and prosaic, is logoed and marketed within an inch of its life.

Now I know that one of the functions of modern market capitalism is to encourage either real or fake emotional responses to objects (as such as I 'love' my new trainers, although, in spite of the marketeers best efforts, this is little to do with brand loyalty or modishness, rather the fact that their design allows me to walk comfortably. They are unique in this aspect, but I would switch brands in a flash if I found others that allowed me to walk even more comfortably. Also, within reason, supply and demand has little impact on the price I'm prepared to pay. Unless the cost of shoes is totally and ridiculously prohibitive I cannot afford to not buy shoes that are comfy, as my feet have extreme special needs and without the right shoes I just can't walk at all. I do have a couple of pairs of bespoke boots, the cost of which would make even a Sex and The City character recoil in some horror, but for everyday I want as close to everyday as I can get).

Now, even though it is pretty silly and not a little twisted to declare love for, for example, items of clothing, telephones or kitchen equipment (musical instruments are a whole different thing so I'm generally including them out, although there is more kudos attached to a Fender guitar, even though a cheaper Samick is often made by the same people or even much superior. Real musicians know this and find their instrument - like Brian May's guitar made from a fireplace, or Willy Nelson's guitar with a big hole in it - whatever the brand). I can accept that emotional projection does take place for a variety of reasons. Not least in the prestige that becomes attached, or is cynically attached pre-sale by advertising, product placement endorsements etc, to certain things in the name of fashion.

It's a powerful thing. Lucky for me that my comfy trainers are an expensive and specialised skateboard brand, as when I was teaching I noticed one of the main areas that young people will exploit to attack and undermine their teachers (and their peers) is to criticize their dress. But it's not really about how people look, as much as how their choice of labels fits in with what is acceptable. No-name trainers are a no-no, as they elicit the worst derision. Any budget brand the same. In the adult world there is much more chance of people flocking to an inexpensive, quality item. The Gap one pocket T shirt is an example from the 90s. Friends of mine brag about their 6 quid supermarket jeans (the irony here is that their children refuse to wear anything so vulgar and whilst the parents save on their own clothes, it is so they can spend premium amounts on their childrens' brand obsessions). For kids, who have no control over their own money and generally have a very vague idea of what cost and budgets mean, even a quality item that is inexpensive deserves contempt.

I noticed amongst kids who are under the defined 'poverty' level, the brand becomes more important. For them, it is about having one marquee item - a phone, trainers, shoes, a sweatshirt or T shirt, a bag or a hat that advertises its (and their) brand worthiness. This item is proudly displayed. So they don't mind contravening school dress codes if it means they can come along, even for a day, in their new trainers, or their new sweatshirt, or hat. They will take the punishment from adults, because it is a small price to pay to earn the brand respect of their peers. After all, all of their other clothing and accessories are as cheap as possible. Generic supermarket fare.

The brands that prevail are the ones that are most highly advertised, and also the ones that don't exceed a certain price. As well as bombarding kids with advertising I guess that companies like Nike very carefully price their trainers and other stuff just at the edge of what people can afford and justify. Any cheaper and they are selling their brand short; more expensive and they are cutting themselves out of the market, as parents just cannot afford them. The same principle applies to ghetto cars - usually cheap models pimped piece by piece, lower end sportier models that are cheap to run and get parts for. Hence the global popularity of Hondas and the like. I drove a 2 door Civic for a while and a guy I worked with, who'd grown up a Pakistani ghetto kid and become a teacher, was offended that I didn't festoon it with body kit and bass tubes. He himself drove a Mitsubishi that he spent weekends modifying.

Kids and teenagers also have a very narrow perception window of what is expensive and therefore worth having. Anything over £120 is deeply uncool, because it is just too expensive for most parents to afford or justify. Items priced higher than this are not really marketed to kids, so they have never really heard of them either. No mistake that that this upper price point roughly counts for most trainers, games consoles, phones, entry-level ipods and many other items. Higher-priced items risk narrowing their market too far. I have been laughed at for wearing Ralph Lauren, by people who are wearing Polo.

Many's the time, as an adult, I've experienced brand bullying from children. As I've mentioned above, the most important thing for me is to have comfortable shoes. I just cannot function without them, as due to my foot issues the pain level I experience is already close to intolerable. Without comfy shoes I just cannot work. As a teacher this was even more crucial, as most of my day was spent standing, walking and moving around. Which means that I never wear Nike. As well as a knee-jerk aversion to them, they just don't fit me and never have. Working in an inner city school with a mainly non-white student body I found that any brand other than Nike was seen as worthless by the kids. So my rather expensive DC shoes were used against me, even though I explained why I was wearing them. The black and asian kids don't do skate culture - for them it is all about Nike because it's all about rappers and American sports. The Asian kids did have a slightly different perspective and a fondness for 'New England' American outdoor gear like Timberland and Rockport boots and Paul and Shark Jackets. - specific, it seems to them in the local area.

A year later I taught in a different school in a middle class white area. My Globes were a source of excitement and respect amongst the white boys, as they were the kind of specialist, expensive, imported skate-shoes that they coveted. The irony was that I'd bought them for 10 quid in an outlet shop with no real idea whether they were cool or not (the replacement pair referred to above actually were expensive and imported - but that's just unlucky). The cool brands in the middle class areas are broader. The rules are also more relaxed. Many of the students are happy to wear mid-price uniform to school and keep their expensive clothes for their own time or non uniform days (which are like watching adverts for fashionable branded items). This is partly due to a stricter regimen of following the school rules, but also because the middle class kids have more than one expensive item, so don't feel the need to show it off.

In poorer white areas, Nike is king. But the models that are most cool are also the cheaper versions. Trainers above 50 quid are extremely rare - last years outlet mall Nikes are the standard, and as peer groups create their own notions of prestige the unaffordable models are ironically uncool. But the higher level stuff - the sweatshirts, knitwear, coats and bags are more in the department store range than the designer range. Basically, clothes that are not from the supermarket are generally badges of opulence, although I did once teach in a school where there seemed to be a local prestige attached to clothes from the newly opened Sainsbury's, ahead of the more established Asda and Tesco.

And it grips like a vice. I once witnessed a girl in my class showing off her new Nike top, whilst simultaneously selling the bag it came in to a classmate for a couple of quid. I assume it was so that the classmate could brandish the bag around school as proof that she she'd also got a Nike top, but just wasn't wearing it today.

Which is understandable. When you're poor almost everywhere you turn you are treated as a reject on a minute by minute basis. You'll do pretty much anything to try and fit in.

today : a topical musical interlude

As it looks like the Volcano Ash-Cloud Aeroplane Crisis (as Mark Radcliffe pointed out on his show yesterday - it MUST be a Fall song title) is fluttering back down to the ground of normality, I thought it was time to post my favourite Volcano themed song of all time...One Way ticket by Eruption. Just joking, it's Volcano Girls by Veruca Salt

today: the girl who sold gazillions of books

I'm usually immune to hyped books, as I am immune to hyped films, music, TV or anything really. But enough people whose opinions I respect seemed to like Stig Larrson's Millenium books that I bought and read the first one.

Then the second and the third.

I found them gripping reading. The reason I think that they work so well is that they operate successfully on many levels. As straightforward thrillers, they possess pace, action, mystery and all that stuff in bucketloads (despite the odd ponderous explicative sections). But they also have a number of critical agendas and political points to make, as well as educating the non-Swede about aspects of recent Swedish history.

Rightly, much of the critical focus has been on Larsson's main character - Lisbeth Salander. Invincible female characters are rare in non-romantic fiction. So rare, in fact, that many reviewers have lazily compared her to Lara Croft, as Lara is about the only other female heroine to speak of in recent years. But I see parallels between two other characters. Lisbeth has the tenacity and disarming looks of Veronica Mars (plus the computer skills of Veronica's sidekick Mack) and the skill-set of Modesty Blaise or Jason Bourne.

Whatever- it's clear that Salander is a pure fantasy figure. There is something somewhat unsettling about the fetishisation of her pubescent physique and childish aura matched with her rapacious sexual appetite. There is also something rather traditional about the way she has to rely on male father figures, even whilst denying that she needs them. The author spends a lot of time condemning mens' belittlement and mistreatment of women, but in the end Salander needs her heroes to survive. In book two especially, the lesbian sex scenes are just a smidgen too frequent and graphic than the plot requires and the descriptions of sexual assault are uncomfortably detailed and lingering. And as well as being a casual bisexual, Salander is in her early twenties, yet declares desire for both her father figures Blomquist the journalist and Dragansky, her boss at the security firm. Both are pretty much double her age.

And even without knowing too much about Larsson, it appears that Blomquist himself is a wish fulfilment fantasy too. In a book written by a middle aged campaigning journalist, a middle aged campaigning journalist ends up having sex with pretty much every woman he meets of any age, whilst exposing corporate and political corruption and escaping various assassination attempts with relative ease. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that pornographic British stereotyping of the Swedish as the shag-bunnies of Europe is true. Maybe in Sweden the average campaigning journalist is not a beer-bellied, boozy, balding pencil wielder but James Bond.

One of the levels on which the novels succeed is in the absurdity of their plotting. They are on the very edge of believable, but somehow do not spin into the realm of the incredible. Convenient connected coincidences and conspiracies abound (Blomquist just happens to be walking past when Salander is attacked near her apartment, he just happens to be visiting his friends moments after they've been killed, Salander just happens to leave her fingerprints on both a gun and a coffee cup to make her prime suspect in a triple murder, whilst being Salander's guardian, Bjurmann, just happens to be also caught up in the sex-trafficking that Blomquist's colleagues are investigating and Salander's father and brother are also deep into, without trying Cortez uncovers dodgy business deals made by Berger's new boss, Berger just happens to start a new job with someone she went to school with but doesn't recognise, Blomquist happens to know someone who knows someone who works in the hospital in Gothenburg etc etc) and everyone is rather intimate in a way that is totally unrealistic. You come away from the books believing that Stockholm (a capital city of 750,000 people) is more like a tiny village with about 50 important inhabitants plus some other folk. But the complexity and gripping originality of the stories means that it's all pretty easy to forgive. Even the strange insertion of a heroic championship boxer in book three becomes acceptable. In fact the audacity to use things like coincidence to such a degree are signs of Larsson's burgeoning confidence as a writer the further the trilogy proceeds.

Despite mixing literary and film genres - police procedural, hi-tec thriller, international crime novel, chase movie, spy thriller, political thriller, Woodward and Bernstein conspiracy, existential Swedish art film, gangster saga, generation x nihilist slacker movie and soapy bonkbuster - just to name a few, the trilogy remains resolutely traditional. The goodies are pretty much all good, the baddies are badder than bad and everyone gets the comeuppance they deserve. Nothing wrong with that. It would be churlish to ask any reader to invest in 1700 pages without getting a deeply satisfying conclusion.

It's a trick that's extremely hard to pull off. Novels that pretty simple, but just beneath the surface are complex enough to exert fascination as well as pure entertainment. When I finished book three at 2.30 a.m., I immediately wanted to go onto book four to see where Larsson would take his characters. Then I remembered he was dead, and that book four was never finished.

today : all hail procreation

Parents. One of the things that one notices during an election campaign is that Parents are a really important voter block. Barely a minute goes buy without some policy giveaway or sympathetic plea is addressed to them. But nearly everyone is parents. The effect of this is actually to, by default or design, slap the face of those of us who aren't parents out of choice or maybe bad luck. A year or so ago I went to the supermarket. As all the disabled spots were taken up I still needed to park near the door, so I placed my car - complete with obvious disabled credentials - in a parent-and-child spot. There were several free. On returning to the car I was confronted by a woman who pulled into the next space. Seeing that I was without an accompanying child she started abusing me for ignoring the rules. I really wanted to explain to her the concept of the teleological suspension of the ethical, but didn't, because she was on a roll. I was even branded a 'typical man' - whatever that is. The other day I was talking to someone and relating to them a more recent parking incident, this time when I challenged someone who'd taken a disabled spot without a badge. My friend sympathised with me by saying how utterly frustrated he was when he found people stealing the parents' parking spaces at his local Tesco. It took me some time to explain the difference: that disabled parking exists to enable people to lead as close to a normal life as possible, that it is, for many disabled folks, the difference between, for example, shopping and not shopping. Parent and child spaces are merely a marketing tool for the supermarkets to try and entice parents to shop with them. He understood, but many people don't seem to. What has happened is that parents have been targeted as a marketing sub-group and flattered into believing they are somehow special. Now I don't want to decry parenthood. It seems to be a pretty difficult and quite necessary activity. I can also understand why it triggers a specific set of emotions. Not all parents are smug egotists. Even the ones who define themselves totally by their offspring. But there does seem to be a creeping number who are filled with boundless self-congratulation on the grounds that they've enacted a genetic necessity and joined the majority of adults in what remains a pretty normal thing. They demand special treatment as if somehow they are more heroic, overworked, caring and necessary than anyone else. They've bought into the marketing strategy that was designed to flatter them into parting with money.

today : the utter madness of salad

I don't have a garden. Just a little yard in the back of my house. Nevertheless I do my best. Come the height of Summer it's bright with flowers. It's a small pleasure that costs little in terms of time and money, but returns disproportionate joy.

Yesterday I was replanting some sunflower seedlings and planning to rejuvenate my herb pots with fresh compost and plants, ready for the Summer to arrive. I am pretty jealous of my good friend GM who actually has an allotment near his house, where he is planning to grow fresh vegetables for the family. Even though I'd be physically incapable of upkeeping an allotment of my own, I remember fondly from childhood the allotment that my parents had for several years. It always springs to mind when I listen to June Tabor's splendid version of the song 'A Place Called England':

"I rode out on a bright May morning
Like a hero in a song
Looking for a place called England
Trying to find where I belong
Couldn't find the old flood meadow
Or the house that I once knew
No trace of the little river
Or the garden where I grew

I saw town and I saw country
Motorway and sink estate
Rich man in his rolling acres
Poor man still outside the gate
Retail park and burger kingdom
Prairie field and factory farm
Run by men who think that England's
Only a place to park their car

But as the train pulled from the station
Through the wastelands of despair
From the corner of my eye
A brightness filled the filthy air
Someone's grown a patch of sunflowers
Though the soil is sooty black
Marigolds and a few tomatoes
Right beside the railway track

Down behind the terraced houses
In between the concrete towers
Compost heaps and scarlet runners
Secret gardens full of flowers
Meeta grows the scent of roses
Right beneath the big jet's path
Bid a fortune for her garden
Eileen turns away and laughs



The video is really just audio- sorry about that, couldn't find a performance one

The song is about someone who finds the old traditional ways of England, agriculture and folk customs hidden away in amongst the prosaic ugliness of the modern landscape and issues a call to arms for people to reclaim the land.

When it came to tea-time I had some lovely salad with a portion of new potatoes.

Later, I was watching the news on CNN. Of course, everything was all about the Apocalyptic Icelandic Volcano Ash Cloud. In amongst the various reports was one about how the lack of flights to and from Europe was putting people out of work in Nairobi. The reporter - Zane Vergee - interviewed people who packed and prepared fresh vegetables and cut flowers for the British and European supermarkets. Mange tout, chillies, sugar snap peas, avocados. But with no flights to transport the produce, there was no work to do. All the flowers and vegetables were being given away to farmers for cattle feed, or composted back into the soil.

Something made me check what I'd eaten earlier in the day. The potatoes, which were extremely cheap, had come from Israel, the salad from Spain.

Which, if you think about it for a second or less, is clearly insane on almost every level. The mint that garnished my spuds came from 12 inches outside my back door. All it took was to open the door, lean out and snip some fresh leaves. Yet the spuds themselves have been flown and driven thousands of rather pointless, carbon-packed miles to get to my plate.

My niece is currently one of the many English people stranded abroad, in Spain. The flimsy salad for my plate had travelled as far as she did to go on holiday.

Why do I get the feeling that we have become so ridiculous that the volcanic dust cloud is nature's way of reminding us who is really in charge?

today : let's bomb Iceland

After all, they took most of our Cod, then they accidentally lost most of our money, and now they've ruined everyone's holidays with their great big apocalyptic cloud of ash. That's before we get started on Sigur Ros's plinky-plonky talentless-children-playing-on-a-church-hall-piano dirges all over the X factor and every nature bloody programme not to mention the supremely annoying vocals, dancing and trumpet playing of Einar Orn and his tiresome pixie sidekick
also Magnus Magnusson, Eggert Magnusson and, perhaps worst of all, everyone involved in the TV show Lazytown. (actually, I quite like Bjork's songs Violently Happy and Isobel, but surely we cannot forgive her dressing up as a duck)

Anyway, a couple of Trident missiles should do the job, unless the engines get clogged up on the way and we end up eradicating Shetland.

today : too much of that snow white

A long time ago, I wrote about a mythical episode of Top of The Pops that introduced me to both Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley, which probably never happened. Another musical memory I have is of The Richard Skinner Show - on Radio 1 Saturday afternoon in the early to mid eighties. This one is definitely a mash up of two different editions, as the dates do not match at all - by 4 years. But on this one mythical afternoon Skinner played three records. First was Blood and Roses by the Smithereens (their first album, Especially for You is still great - kind of an American cousin to Lloyd Cole's Rattlesnakes in that it was traditional melodic guitar music with great lyrics and every track is excellent), second was Down to The Bone by Danny and Dusty (again, their one album The Lost Weekend is still great 25 years on). The third was Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McClaren and The World Famous Supreme Team.



It was one of those moments when a piece of music or sound hits you because it is just so original and fresh. In fact even today the sort of echoey scream and the 'waap...waap' voices sound fresh, even if the beatbox is a little outdated and McClaren's dance calls were absurd-sounding. Rap had been around for a while but this was the first time I'd ever heard 'scratching' and the collage-of-found/stolen-sound idea that has dominated pop music ever since. Clearly, it'd been going on for a while, but to a teenager like me who didn't live in the South Bronx or have the cash to buy rare imported vinyl (even if I'd been aware of it) it opened my ears to this new way of making records, as well as somehow putting on the radio something that had been going on in my head.

McClaren tributes in the past day or two have concentrated mainly on his Sex Pistols stunts. Perhaps rightly, but they kind of neglected the records he put out under his own name and his other non-Pistols stuff. Who knows how much real input he had in the actual music? But the quality was always higher than might be expected. Interestingly, for such an apparent cynic, he never really dealt in depression, and in Double Dutch and Something's Jumping in Your Shirt, McClaren gave us two of the most truly joyful singles of the past twenty years.



Did Duck Rock do more for 'World Music' than Graceland or Peter Gabriel's work with Real World? I don't know, but Double Dutch was the first time I'd ever heard high life guitar playing on a pop single.



And then there was Bow Wow Wow. People have forgotten the side of this project that expanded the underage singer concept into floating the idea of a very dodgy nudie mag called Chicken (which these days, even as a controversial suggestion would lead to lynchings in the press). But the music was exciting and packed with energy. I still return to C30C60C90 Go! as an example of the breathless rush that a youthful band can put on vinyl (or in this case especially, cassette). In my record collection it sort of acts as a companion piece to The Plastics brilliant Robot (lyrics: IBM, NSK, CIA, TDK...we are...Robot). Would that we had records today of such insane simplicity and ideas.



And of course Bow Wow Wow gave birth to Adam and The Ants, which shaved off the rough edges but still used the twangy guitar/Burundi drums combination. Then that kinda fused with New Romantic stuff and invaded America. Punk spawned indie, which in turn spawned a million self-starting bands and artists: ripples that arguably spread out and are now the tsunami that is sweeping away the traditional record companies. Which is kind of the point of McClaren. His talent seemed to be the ability to corral ideas, catalyse, make connections and presage trends, even if some of his schemes and enthusiasms were more about throwing enough stuff at the wall that some of it stuck. But when was that bad thing? The above mentioned Peter Gabriel does much the same, and at least half of what John Peel played was tripe.

My main thought about him is that he was a cultural thinker - possibly even, on reflection, more important than anyone realised. Someone well of worthy of an in-depth biography that strips away the self-publicising and gimmicks. A key player of ideas that have lasted longer and spread further than even he imagined. I always thought that McClaren's punk ideal was borne from ideology. Somehow he managed to make Situationist ideas relevant to the UK and slip it into popular culture. No mean feat. With his Waltz Darling concept album he was the first to really start co-opting fashion, vogueing and the sort of gay culture than surrounds haute couture into the mainstream. And look where it is now 20 years on - dominant.



Anyway, for me, in the end it is the records. The split channel mix of Buffalo Gals, the surprisingly beautiful and melancholy Madame Butterfly, the chaotic excitement of early Bow Wow Wow, the soaring voices singing "Hey Ebo - Ebo- Ebonettes."

today : My Easter message to the world

To be honest, it's pretty likely that God and Jesus didn't exist, and that the Easter story is some fable. That doesn't mean to say that it's worthless, and that people who believe in it are stupid. At the very worst, it's probably just their way of dealing with the nagging discomfort of the great unanswered questions. Any stupidity they possess and act out in the name of their belief belongs to them, and not their faith or their God.

But Happy Easter anyway, to believers of all faiths, agnostics and atheists alike. If you are one of the latter two, then use it as an excuse to pick daffodils and eat chocolate.

And if God (under the guise of whichever faith) doesn't exist, it can be profoundly depressing, as it means that meaning is something that we'll probably never understand. In the meantime, just to demonstrate that there are some things still worth giving a shit about, as well as daffodils and chocolate, I give you Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin's 2nd Nocturne in E flat major and Maria Callas's perfect version of the Schubert Ave Maria.

today : I started a blog by The Sprites

This song by The Sprites always amused me.

I started a blog which nobody read
When I went to work
I blogged there instead

I started a blog which nobody viewed
It might be in cache
The topics include:

"George Bush is an evil moron"
"What's the story with revolving doors?"
"I'm in love with a girl who doesn't notice me"
"Nobody hates preppies anymore"

I started a blog but nobody came
No issues were raised
No comments were made

I started a blog which nobody read
I'll admit it wasn't that great
But if you must know here's what it said:

"100 of my favorite albums"
"200 people I can't stand"
"400 movies you must see soon"
"10 celebrities (4 of whom I might assasinate)"

I started a blog, I sent you the link
I wanted the world (and you) to know what I think

I started a blog, but when I read yours
It made me forget
what I had started mine for