An Illustrious Link - Lluís Bassets of El Pais

June 7, 2008 · Filed Under This blog · 3 Comments

I was a little surprised, to say the least, to discover that one of the sites sending me the odd reader or two was one of Spain’s major national dailies, El Pais.

Oh, well, I thought, someone has placed a link to one of my posts about something or other, and this was why El Pais was showing up as a referrer.

However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I had a go at tracking down the origin of the link, which, I was even more surprised, and pleased, to note came that visitors were coming from the ‘De Alfiler a Elefante’ blog of one Lluís Bassets, who is, if I have understood correctly, and allowing for the fact that my Spanish is dire, the chief opinion column editor of El Pais.

Actually, Mr Bassets and little old me appear to share similar views as to the degradation which is affecting modern politics throughout Europe (and the world in general) at the moment, and it appears that a few of my posts on the subject of the Archetypal Italian, Silvio Berlusconi, may have caught his eye. Lluís Bassets’ blog links to Beppe Grillo’s blog too, which is interesting.

I’ve no idea how for long Mr Bassets will continue to link to my blog, but I shall try to write about issues which may be of interest to his readers, so Blog from Italy can continue to be worthy of the link.

If I get up the courage, language barriers permitting, I’ll have a go at contacting Mr Bassets, but for the moment: Many thanks for the link sir!

I’ve linked back to his blog out of courtesy.

The fact that major newspapers should be linking to blogs such as this one, is interesting in itself, and would appear to indicate that some blogs are viewed as being potentially more valid fonts of independent information, news, and comment, than traditional sources. And, in Italy, newspapers and the news media in general here, are far from being independent.

Although, having said the above, many of the posts on this blog have arisen from both my reading of articles in the press, and from my chatting to people in general. Then again, nobody pays me to do this, so I don’t have newspaper owner influenced editors or advertisers breathing down my neck.

If someone were to employ me to do this, then I imagine things would change, which would be a shame. At least, I think so. However, I don’t think any job offers are likely to come flooding in, but you never know.

Tags: Berlusconi, blog, Blogging, El Pais, Italian, Italy, Lluís Bassets, opinion, spain, Spanish, spanish newspaper, This blog

The Web 2.0 profession

March 25, 2008 · Filed Under Thoughts · Comment

Just what do you think the Web 2.0 profession is? Webmaster? Software engineer? Coder? Programmer?

Well, in my not so humble opinion, it’s none of the above, but I think that this profession is going to see a massive amount of growth in many diverse sectors over the next few decades, not just with regard to the world wide web, and it is a profession that some may find surprising.

I was going to waffle on about this for ages, but I won’t, unless someone is mad enough to encourage me, that is.

So, what is this profession? I’m sure sure are itching, well curious, to know.

Tags: coder, internet, job, jobs, opinion, profession, Thoughts, web, web 2.0, webmaster, Work, world wide web

I’m a Virtual MEP

January 30, 2008 · Filed Under Me · 2 Comments

A week or so ago I got an email through this blog from a certain Jonty who, I think, goes to Shrewsbury school. Shrewsbury school, if you did not know, and those outside of the UK probably will not know, is one of England’s oldest public schools.

I should perhaps explain that ‘public’ schools in the UK are not exactly public, in that you have to pay to go to them.

Anyway, Jonty asked me for my views on climate change for a talk they were holding. Apparently everyone in the talk is an MEP, and, for some reason unclear, Jonty is going to be me.

I guess that sort of makes me a virtual MEP. But not only, a virtual MEP who has something to say on climate change!

I’m not too sure how or why my name came up, maybe it was as a result of a rather dark short story I wrote a while back which is a little ominously titled ‘End‘.

Whatever the reason, I was happy to give an opinion, which as my regular readers may know is not a great problem for me. And, being asked like this was something I found quite flattering. Sort of micro-fame, I suppose.

After a few nanoseconds of micro-fame, I shall go back to being little old me. Nice while it lasted though!

Tags: blog, Blogging, climate MEP, email, England, European Parliament, happy, Italy, Me, nice, opinion, read, story. climate change, This blog, UK, Writing