1 June 2006

OVERDUE SELF-CRITICISM

Well yeah, I’m a man – but I’m not aged 21, and the pistol in my pocket ain’t keeping lots of folks alive. I’ve been “Say it loud, I’m bald and I’m proud” for 15 years, I reckon. I’m a pathetic specimen. So I compensate by blogging.

That’s what Catherine Bennett says (I summarise) in the Guardian today in a column on middle-aged male bloggers – Gauche even gets a name-check for posting a couple of lines last weekend about the death of Desmond Dekker – and it’s so true.

Like a lot of bloggers, I’m a sad and lonely middle-aged bloke with no friends who never meets anyone apart from other similar blokes. I spend my time with them talking politics and football and music and birds. I know no one from an ethnic minority, I have spent the whole of my life running away from strong independent women, and my main priority now is to escape my domestic responsibilities. I have never grown up, I have an entirely callous attitude to feminism and I often have sexist thoughts.

Aaaargh! I have confessed! How did you get it out of me? I’ll never post in the small hours again, I promise! I’ll stop caring about football and rock’n’roll! I’ll do the housework! I’ll stop listening to the Rolling Stones! I’ll never use rude words again!

And so on.

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