Is There Anybody Out There Anymore?

The so-called Blogosphere, once a crowded mezzanine of the Internet, is more of an empty ballroom these days: a piano plays to itself in the middle of the night, reflected in a wall of dusty mirrors; a plastic champagne flute, half full of flat Taittinger Brut, perches precariously on the edge of a de-linened trestle table; nobody is swinging from the chandeliers or waltzing across the parquet any longer. All the guests have left for a nightcap at the Tumblr cafe; but I am still here, chatting to the cleaners, examining the remains of a cocktail sausage on a stick.

I intend to maintain this foolish blog whether anybody reads the contents or not. In that respect I shall be like an ancient scribe on Lindisfarne, painstakingly illuminating the first letter of my treasured gospel, yet well aware that its probable fate is to be Viking toilet paper. My fellow monks have already mostly departed for Facebookland with St Cuthbert's bones wrapped in a thin tweet, but I still keep the blog candle burning in this lonely chapel window, however low the flame may be.

Comments

[Laurent]

It's the same on this side of the pond, although some of us keep hanging on. Then again, those blogs that do remain tend to be the better written ones.
People who had nothing else to say than that they went to the grocery store or what they just had for lunch have moved to Twitter and Facebook.

[Cowtown Pattie]

I read, I read, says the rogue in the peanut galley!

Here Here! Laurent has a valid point!

[american fez]

Whoa! Has the death of Osama Bin Laden just changed everything for blogs!?!

[Tatyana]

Hey, and what am I, a chopped Wordpress liver? I do read. Occasionally. Even though you don't.

[American fez]

That's because your blog is in Russian

[Tatyana]

It is bilingual, like me.

[Irene]

You write, we write, they twitter on.

[MMM]

A (blog) world without an American Fez... too painful to contemplate.

[Mia Wolff]

....still reading, still laughing