My blog welcome message, in case I forgot it before
I deleted the blurb that comes as standard here. This is free, and you may be of the view that free is precisely what it should be. Some blogs have a paywall, and are worth it. Some don’t and are worth it. Some don’t and are not worth it. Value is in the eye of the beholder.
For me, the value of this blog is as an outlet and record of my thinking, and that’s something I do a lot of besides translating and doing the washing. I don’t read enough, and that is a win-win or a lose-lose, however you want to look at it.
Win-win, because I remain modest, not backed up by a Ph.D. But it means my thinking is not superficial but tries to delve to roots that are often indiscernible, and I don't carry some philosopher from 400 BC as a crutch when I do so. Sometimes, not always, though. If we only looked at carrot tops, we’d never have discovered carrots.
Lose-lose if you think it’s a waste of your time; and doing that could tempt me to stop and do more ironing. That, I can assure you, would be a loss, in terms of fruitless starch, burnt fingers and leaving the damned thing on overnight and wasting electricity, which ain’t cheap.
So, a question: would you pay to read this? A euro a month? There are currently 7, no - 10 (3 Oct.), subscribers and they get it for free. A euro a month from each would pay for my donation to The Guardian, which is a large source of information for me, independent and unbiased (well, a bit - it did go for Johnson’s jugular when I was trying to say his Ukraine policy was very good).
If you recommended me to your friends and your aunts and uncles, like kids recommend variety shows to their friends and their aunts and uncles, that would cost you nothing. However, once I got to 100 subscribers, that might make me a politician instead of a blogger, and politicians are only in it for the dosh, so why shouldn’t I be? But I won’t charge you till I get 100 subscribers even though I do still need to pay for the electric my iron uses and for the starch on my shirts. So, the more you do for me, the more I will do for you until the point I hold a gun against your head and say “cough up”. There, I told you it’d make me a politician, and it’s already starting now …