S&C contributor and Pompey Politics Podcast host Ian Morris shares his experience of the lockdown, as someone with diabetes. It’s Day 60 and Ian muses on the impossibility of predicting what audiences might like, or not.
Friday 15th May, Day 60 of 89.
Blog slog.
Well, we have passed two thirds of the distance and are still going strong. OK, perhaps strong is an over-estimation as I am recognising that my challenge to write a blog through the whole of lockdown is more of a challenge than I thought.
It might surprise you to learn I am not a writer or journalist: though it’s probably less a surprise if you are my editor and have to make sense of some of my jumbled sentence structure or words of strange origin. Before this daily diary/blog for S&C, I had written a couple of pieces before on local politics, and, to capture a little of the joy of my first Guide Dog Gunner, I wrote a missive on our time together, but that was about it.
But the real challenge of this blog is to find something worth talking about in a time when so little is happening. For example, if I just wrote about yesterday, it would go something like:
‘I got up, then I wrote my blog, then I did some teleconferences, then I had a gammon, lettuce, and tomato bagel for lunch, then I did some more telecons, then I played on social media, had some meatballs and pasta, then I watched Great British Menu, then I went to bed.’
It’s not exactly riveting, is it?
So in the last two months, I have covered all sorts of nonsense. Yesterday could have seen me musing whether it is culturally appropriate to put gammon in a bagel but don’t want to open up the flame war of the muffin men versus bagel people from a previous episode. Or I could have gone on some rambling exposition of the Great British Menu, asking if you are a vegetarian, how does the evening’s entertainment work for you as the meaty starter, fishy fish course and ‘Lamb 23 ways’ main probably isn’t delighting you (I could also have asked if the veggie alternative would end up in three bowls of ‘rootmarm’ and give a prize for anyone who could understand the reference). I could have tried to create division amongst the Zoomsters, Skype lovers and Dream Teamsters, but perhaps I will save this one for another day.
What I have learned in sixty days is that you can never tell how one of these will be received.
I have written some diaries where I thought ‘Actually that’s pretty good’ and received feedback as if it had been a glass of cold water. Others I dashed off, thinking ‘Well, I suppose it’s something and will do’, which generated lots of feedback and discussion.
I think it’s clear that I really don’t have a clue what I am doing, but I’ll keep doing it for another 29 days and we’ll get there together!
Don’t miss Ian’s diary each day, keep an eye out for new entries here, along with past editions of the Pompey Politics Podcast. How are you managing the lockdown at the moment? Get in touch with us over on Facebook or Twitter and let us know your experiences and any hints and tips you’re finding helpful right now.
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