I kept a diary when I was younger. It was an unsuccessful attempt, partially because I got fed up after a few months, partially because it was a diary. Diaries, at least those not written German-born Jewish girls living in Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, tend to be dull affairs, trivial matters of one’s own mundane life with little or no insight into one’s own way of thinking. Mine certainly was. I think the problem stemmed from not really understanding what future purpose my future scribblings would have, and only having a diary that offered four or five lines per day (an invitation to writers’ block if ever there was one).

When I started this blog I had neither the experience of putting my thoughts to words, nor a reason for doing it, and it shows. Even when I found the purpose (for future-Freya) it took me a while to think in blogging terms, though I now feel happy with most of the entries I screeve.

There is, I have found, another reason to blog, one which a pen-and-paper diary can never compete with: public, yet craven, slagging off.

Venting one’s spleen on paper is all very well and good and psychologically la-di-da, but it’s like swearing loudly in the bathroom: no-one, with the possible exception of one’s nearest and dearest, is going to know.

My gibing Lia recently is a fine example of self-serving slagging. I can, safely and reasonably anonymously (or, at least, difficult to reach from overseas), use someone’s innocent – yet incorrect – statement as a source of my own apposite amusement. Doing so in a public forum such as the Internet makes the whole experience that much more valid, as I openly taunt ignorance, and, at the same time, leave myself open to the same type of wickedness from the countless number of people who think my views are ludicrous and my comments asinine. In theory, anyway.

I intentionally keep my blog as low-profile as I can. I do not make any of my writing more publicly available than this site permits. So, while it is in a very real sense open to all, my anonymity remains intact, hidden amongst the millions of other web-pages out there; thus, I can slag off whatever/whomever I choose, with minimal fear of reprisal.