Writing a blog is a tricky business. I know many writers possess the enviable ability to eject the contents of their brains across the page with faultless eloquence, but for most of us there is more than a little finicking involved.
I’m worse than most. In fact, I’ve just wasted ten minutes of my life trying to decide between ‘finicking’ and ‘nitpicking’. Oh the irony. This anality is exactly the kind of destructive tendency you must avoid if you want to be a journalist. There simply isn’t time to weigh the merits of ‘old’ vs. ‘antiquated’, ‘free’ vs. ‘liberate’, ‘hooters’ vs. ‘norks’.
In case you were wondering, this isn’t the reason why most newspaper articles read like they’ve been written by a child. The short sentences and simple words are for the benefit of you, the reader.
Science has proven that the average person is intellectually equivalent to a cucumber, so hacks are trained to write in a way that would not flummox your typical salad vegetable. I’m exaggerating – slightly – but in all seriousness, copy for most newspapers is written to accommodate a reading age of about five.
Understandably, this takes some of the enjoyment out of writing. That’s why writing a blog is such a pleasure. I’m not interested in what I write being accessible to kids – or retards. I afford you guys a little more respect than that. If I were to launch, whimsically, into a lexiphanic discourse on the perils of unrestrained magniloquence, I’d be happy you were all still on board.
Yet it’s very difficult to keep such a discerning audience entertained. Stories about my collection of antique snorkels leave people in jaw dropped amazement for only so long. In order to achieve sustained levels of interest, I need to pull out the big guns. That’s right: I’m going to have to start cussing mans down.
The plain reality is that people love hearing other people mercilessly ripped to pieces by dark-hearted misanthropes. Charlie Brooker makes a living out of it – and he’s a ruddy genius. The problem is, you have to not give a flying funk about offending people. Unfortunately, I do give a funk. Every reader counts, you see.
In fact, there is a very real chance I’ve already shot myself in the foot by using the word ‘retards’. Some people get really upset about that kind of language. It’s hurtful, apparently. Such hyper-sensitivity is ridiculous to me, but given that I’m in no position to be turning people away I guess I should lay off the mentally challenged.
Other people you must be wary of insulting for fear of assassination by crazed fanatics. I speak, of course, of the Welsh. Those people just do not have a sense of humour about themselves. I can get away with saying that because I’m actually a little bit Welsh myself. It’s not something I like to advertise but it has saved me from being beheaded on more than one occasion.
Take out the Welsh and the retards and you’re not left with many options – even accounting for the huge crossover. I suppose the Eskimos are due for a fucking hammering. They’ve been getting off easy for years. So have the Swedish for that matter. I’ll have a think about it. It might be that I can just pick on celebrities everyone hates, like that pillock Ashley Cole.
