Monday, May 12, 2008

Welcome Neil (Ninglun) - visitor 30,000


Visitor 30,000 has arrived on this blog. Small by global blogging standards, but not insignificant in absolute terms. Somehow it seems very appropriate that the visitor should be Ninglun (Neil).

Somehow it seems right to pay a personal tribute.

Neil was my first blogging friend. We met, as I remember it, through Alex Buzo. We have met personally only once, at Lord M's funeral. Yet Neil has always been there as a friendly discussant and source of wisdom.

Today I value his blogs as much as I did when we first started, and this despite his dratted template changes! I check what Neil has said two to three times a day. I decide whether to respond, or just read.

I am not alone. Marcellous, Thomas, AV, Legal Eagle to name a few - I know many who value you as much as I do. So, mate, do keep going. The issue is not how many visit, although that's a lot. The real key to me is that your blogs are what I call an intensity point - a constant stimulus and unifying point between colleagues and in public discussion.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a pleasant surprise. I have directed people below to the "Specials" blog because I have grown fond of it and it has had the same template for at least two weeks! ;) There too I tell stories only I can tell, I guess you might say, whereas on my other blog(s) I am often engaged in controversy of one kind or another, and in that respect my blogs become rather like everyone else's...

Not sure why I am saying that, except that I am tiring of controversy. I think politics will fade from my interests... Funnily, the greatest hits lately -- one post excepted -- have been the poetry ones.

Anonymous said...

That should be "above": it's "below" when you write, but "above" when you publish. Annoying really.

Anonymous said...

I think politics will fade from my interests...

Don't stop the music, Neil!

Jim Belshaw said...

I agree with AV, Neil! But none of us are one-dimensional. To the degree our blogs are personal rather than professional,then their directions will change as our interests (and whims!) direct us.

Anonymous said...

Hear hear.

Jim Belshaw said...

Thank you, Thomas. We have to keep the chap motivated. Neil is kind of the chair of the board in our little world!

Anonymous said...

How appropriate that it was Neil who was visitor 30,000!

I do like the collegiate feeling of blogging: and it's always interesting to read what others say.