Monday 17 March 2008

On other people's blogs

When I was little, I had a book of children's poems with delightful illustrations. One resentful little poem began

"The baby over the way
Is a better baby than me.
The baby over the way
Is all that a baby ought to be"

and so on. It ends with a fierce promise that the perfect baby over the way is going to get his lights punched out one of these days. (If you know this one, and can source it for me, I would be thrilled, and could check if my memory is indeed accurate after more than 50 years. And yes, it was a book genuinely intended for children!)

It's like that with other people's blogs - perfect blogbabies over the way. Seems to me that they are full of intelligent, often amusing thoughts, even when merely complaining about their author's inability to get out of bed due to being a bit tired, and they are packed with impressive photographs, all in focus and beautifully composed, of their charming dogs, impressive art- or craftwork, sublime cooking, and lovely homes. Foreigners living abroad have clever, perceptive, witty and sometimes acerbic comments on their host country, and almost everyone holds down a fascinating job, and cares lovingly for their beautiful and well-behaved children and animals. They style and embellish their home environment themselves using only ethically-sourced organic materials and their own impressive creative skills, and feed their attractive children and adored partners exquisite dishes made from ingredients from their local farmers market.
And they photograph it all.

Tick whichever applies:

  • Impresses you no end
  • Inspires you to higher standards
  • Makes you sick

1 comment:

Auntjune said...

I totally feel the same way. In fact, the only reason I think that I started blogging was so that I could try to "live" the aesthetically perfect online life. Because it feels so good when I look at photos of my house and it appears to be clean, when I know that in fact, theres at least an inch layer of dust and cat hair on every surface, and some of the dishes in the left side of the sink have been there since August. But even though I know that my blog is really kind of a farce, I somehow always believe that everyone else really LIVES in a neat, photograpable state. And I resent them for it. But just a little...

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