It will soon be 2007 which means that we have reached the end of the blogyear. Will we continue on through the next year? Embarrassment at belonging to to the profoundly sad brotherhood of bloggers is the one thing which could make me pack in what at times can feel like an unwelcome chore. I have been approached by a number of "fellow" bloggers who, expressing an airy appreciation for my own efforts, have smoothly gone on to strongly recommend their own sites. Needless to say, I've never been near them, being far too taken up with my own oeuvre. In a way it's very like most conversations: the dictates of politeness require you to feign interest in what the other person is saying, but in point of fact all you attention is focussed exclusively on the incredibly interesting point you're burning to make. In all likelihood it's the same for the other guy. It reminds me of the cover of Pawn Hearts (Van de Graaf Generator, 1971 - my brother was a huge fan) which shows a number of dissociated individuals, each sealed in a pawn-shaped glass pod hovering randomly over a catastrophically fragmented earth. The definitive track is entitled "A Plague of Lighthouse-Keepers" - kind of says it all really. The word "solipsism" springs to mind. Checking in the dictionary, it says: "theory that the self is the only object of knowledge." Now, hang on - does this mean what I always thought it meant, that you are unwilling or unable to recognise anything outside of your wonderful self? Or could it be a reference to the notion of self knowledge in the sense of "Know Thyself"? The ancient philosophers maintained that a special sort of self-knowledge was indispensable to achieving freedom from the prison of the egotistical self. Anyway, that's how I would like to view this blog - as a medium for the exploration and ordering of my own thoughts, as an opportunity to attain greater self knowledge and, in a modest way, let my equally modest (in number) readership know that they are not alone in thinking along these same lines. And if they're not alone, then I'm not alone either. So, blog on! Happy New Year!