Being blog-awed and loving Iris Murdoch

I now have three friends who have decided to follow the road to blogdom apprently inspired by yours Julie. I take that to mean that like me they discovered that blogger.com requires the technological know how of a lap dog and is a great way to avoid sending the same email 27 times.

Gavin, certainly the most self effacing wit in my orbit has it appears fallen of the blog spot with the same abandon he fell off his detox. Gavin, darling, I miss it, keep writing.
Sarah, aka the Tasmanian Tigress continues to regale me with stories from the only place down under likely to relate to the campaign for an open fire I am still waging unsuccessfully in East Sussex.
Jo, lead singer of Hook, (watch out for them) takes her talent that set my brain alight on Saturday night with songs so molten I can't believe she's not inviting me over to New York on her private jet yet, and effortlessly translates this to blogging.

Then there are those who were already somewhere in blog-ether who when I sent them my link and they meandered into the peanut gallery, revealed their own. This happened to me this week with a woman I met in cyberspace who lit up chat rooms in the same way Dorothy Parker enlivened drawing rooms. That brings to 4 the tally of blogs so good they leave me reeling my mates have written.

My fellow blog-diarists have had much the same effect as Iris Murdoch on me this week. It seems no matter where I turn, there's brilliant writing oozing from every orifice. Meanwhile I struggle to find humour in anything as I scrape together half baked offerings for the Bali Times. The novel not only languishes similarly but screams at me to get back to the PC before giggling and whispering 'blocked as a fibre free back passage' via my inner critic.

Mother, noting how my new romance had me flailing for answers to what I have decided is life's central challenge, to be true to yourself in your choices, recommended Iris's An Accidental Man. It was one of those recommendations that left me gasping for sleep even when the reason I was reading was rendered quite irrelevant. Iris Murdoch obviously doesn't do shallow. She romps through big ideas, flashing the mind that made her so adored before distilling highbrow concepts into words that ring as true as ever even for a child of the reality tv phenonomon, an admirer of Bridget Jones, a surrupticious reader of Hello magazine, like myself.

Then there's the plethora of English papers, which I have to say I have found parallel quality to only in New York. Every tiny columist, even the ones packed away at the back of boring supplements more likely to be binned than devoured (by those who have proper jobs at least), seems able to drip charm, humour and words whose meaning I only realise I know when I read them, (but would have no idea how to reproduce on a page).

Naturally I am attempting to see these things as inspiration rather than competition, yet failing utterly to stop the meaningless comparisons that make me want to pick up the phone and ring about that job as a supermarket feng shui consultant (shelf stacker).

As I reach for the tummy control knickers again and arrange to walk my sisters dog in preference to examining my own navel, I thank the ether for the freindships and relationships which I am lucky enough to receive such inspiration from. I thank the ether that I am privileded enough to live in a house where Iris Murdoch books are plentiful, and I remind myself that an accidental man was her 14th novel. Apparently every author has themself as the hero of the first offering (an Iris nugget) so all I need to do is work out what to do to accord myself such giddy status and get on with it. Not reading so much would I suspect be a great starting point.

I did also promise Ailsa I would mention that she rather than Miss Cooper (queen of tell it like it is, even if it's not your idea) was the heroine that hastened the demise of the life is like... cliches. She says it reminded her of Jerry Springer, and apart from being a man who sleeps with his raunchier guests, I can think of no good reason why I should emulate him.

Take care of yourselves, and each other
Julie x