stephen fry is on the blog

01Oct07

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Mention to some people that you blog and an accusatory stare springs to their face — as if you have departed the planet and returned with green antennae. Even suggest in polite English company of-a-certain-age that you use any kind of computer gadgetry and you are confined to the tradesman’s entrance of their interest for evermore.

In their defence, “blog” isn’t the most attractive of terms. It invites disdain, sounding like an unfortunate conflation of “blob” and “bog”, hardly advertising itself as a potentially exciting literary-cum-journalistic vehicle.

So it’s terribly gratifying that Stephen Fry, of all people, has started to blog. With such an erudite, philological creature dripping his honey-dew wit upon the blogosphere, the rest of us hack-a-day bloggers can start to feel a lot better about ourselves. He’s just raised our average considerably.

Fry’s first post was about that most geeky of things: smartphones. Read it and be overwhelmed; Fry is an early and multiple adopter.

Conventional blogging wisdom insists that one should keep it brief, but Fry comes out fighting with extraordinarily long posts. The latest one is on the question of fame:-

This blessay, while entirely different in other respects, is also unaccountably and inexcusably prolix. Sorry about that, I don’t seem to be able to keep things brief. So my advice is that you read it in bits. Or print it out and save it for a rainy day or a recalcitrant motion.”

I fancy upgrading my smartphone in due course, although I’ve only just got used to getting podcasts on it (usually from Econtalk) for strolling round the supermarket. So will have to print off a copy of Fry’s first post for positioning near the porcelain throne for one of those aforementioned difficult moments.

PS The Knackered Household very much enjoyed the BBC luvvy-fest aired over the weekend, honouring Stephen Fry’s 50th birthday last August. The bloke gets more likable (if it’s possible) the more you hear about him. And the growing sensation that he’s replaced the dear, departed Queen Mum in the nation’s affections was confirmed by hearing HRH the Prince of Wales explain that he gets worried about Fry when he sees him working too hard. Spooky!

PPS Look out for Fry’s new BBC2 two-part documentary, HIV and Me. The extraordinary candour and humanity of his last brace of programmes, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, makes this required viewing also.

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