Palimpsest

Palimpsest is the (mainly) books discussion site I founded with my friend Al Kitching a couple of years ago.

Essentially a phpBB forum, it now has around 30 regular members and over 15,000 posts. We don’t delete any, the forum acting as a repository for reviews and thoughts on books and things.

It costs a fair bit to run, however, and so we have decided to put into place a donation scheme, where members can contribute towards the running costs of the site. A recommendation of £5 per year was made. Fortunately, this has ben met with a great deal of enthusiasm, and it might mean that more can be done with the site.

One of the things I am interested in doing is converting the site to a new forum system. The one I am looking at is VBulletin – a paid service which costs $80 a year, which in real money is about £45-50. This includes all upgrades, of course. Part of the reason for this is that due to the popularity of phpBB, all sorts of ne’er-do-wells are targetting these sites and either spamming them or clogging up the sessions on the database so that no-one else can access the site. Using a more robust system, like VBulletin will mean that these problems will be no more.

What I have to do, and do right, will be importing the phpBB stuff into the new forum. I think people will be generally pretty upset if any of the previous posts got lost.

I also need to have a clear out of the server. There’s piles of crap in there which probably really doesn’t need to be.

Gah. So much to do, so little time…

Upgrade

For those who visit the site rather than subscribing, you will notice a change in style. This is down to the upgrade to WordPress 1.5 which I have finally got round to putting into place. Will have a look at the various available templates at some point in the future, but at the moment the standard will just have to do!

One of the interesting things that this version of the software can do is create pages that are separate from the blog itself, so an ‘about me’ page is possible, or a longer page of links.

Aubade

Just in case, er, someone, is interested, I was reading Aubade by Philip Larkin for the nth time last night, just before I went to bed. Here it is. I don’t think this will land me in any trouble, copyright wise.

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. 

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
– The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off, unused – nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Grim stuff indeed. Still, it’s one of my favourites in spite (because of?) this…

Blogging’s Killer App

Steven Streight asks What is the Killer App for Blogs?

I wonder: has the killer app for blogs been realized yet?

What implementation of blogging holds the greatest promise for the future?

I really don’t think the perfect and ideal utilization of blogs is the digital diary.

Why? Because these are being abandoned, and the content in most cases is of little value or relevance to others. They are good therapy, personal expression outlets, but not the abode of great literary genius, in most cases.
…
I think there will be more blogs turning into, with much editorial refinement, books. Publishers will find it easy to discover new writing talent, see the blogger’s writing style right there on the screen.

Very interesting point about using blogs in the writing of a book. This is certainly a useful idea for non-fiction books. Using a blog is a great way of organising pieces of work and making them available to an audience of proof readers, as The Red Couch has proved. Not sure it will work the same way for fiction, though, which is a far more personal affair.

Blogging from East to West

Interesting article on the BBC News site about blogging:

Weblogs started off as a personal outpouring, a kind of digital diary.

If you work on the basis that a problem shared is a problem halved, you can share with millions and – who knows?

Now blogs feature everything from cant on cars, opinions on opera, to rants from the politically righteous East and West.

But not everyone is free to say what they think.

Reporters Sans Frontières campaigns for the rights of journalists in China, where the ability to turn a nice phrase in criticism can be frowned on from a height.

In fact, the list of things you cannot talk about in China is almost as long as the things you can, as Cai Chongguo, a Chinese dissident, explains.

“We can’t talk about police or military corruption.

“And of course we can’t say anything about workers or farmer demonstrations. All that’s taboo.

“According to Reporters Sans Frontières, at least 63 bloggers have been arrested, and most of those are publishing articles outside of the country.

“These are people who are really resisting government oppression.”

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