Friday, January 28, 2005

Savoir Blerg

My everydary non-electronic persona generally wants to be liked. But when I married into a large Latin American family I learned an important life lesson - as Bob would say "you can't please all the people all the time". Standard-Received English sociability doesn't work over there. It won't even get you ignored.

In fact you quickly realise that the only available survival tactic is to take the plunge and take sides. "Your enemy is my enemy...except that tomorrow he might be my friend and you'll be my enemy", and so on. You're on a one way trip to the poles faster than you can say "Michael Palin".

Life in the blogosphere can sometimes feel like belonging to a large Latin American family, but without any of the actual violence.

A sense of humour is important, but it's no kevlar vest. Irony and self-parody often don't travel that well in cyberspace either.

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