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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Letter From America
Since I've been obsessively turning my tapes into MP3s, as I mentioned before, I've been constantly stunned by the kinds of things I now have access to on my iPod -- and since I tend to play it on random, the kind of things that start to crop up by pure chance. For instance, I now have about 20 Alistair Cooke talks on the thing. Cooke is the late, veteran BBC radio broadcaster best known on this side of the pond for hosting Masterpiece Theater (and what a good idea that was, getting a Brit to introduce Brit dramas). But back where I came from, he was better identified as the velvet voice that came on Radio 4 on weekend mornings, slowly reading the rich reportage known as Letter From America, as warm and familiar as toast with marmalade and tea. More importantly, he was a good teller of stories with a magnificent ear for languages.
The picture Cooke painted of America is at least partly responsible for my being here today. Which is not to say I can remember, as a child, knowing precisely what he was talking about. But I do have a lasting impression of being completely enraptured by stories of a country as bizarre as any imaginary fairyland. And here I am today, in one of America's many magical kingdoms.
I also have a strong aural memory of his lilt, his pitch, his timing. If I were to flatter myself, I would imagine that some of it has unconsciously seeped into my writing style. He could make any of the craziest goings-on in this fantasyland seem quite benign. His tone was often one of faint bemusment, but also calm, learned, gentlemanly. You got a sense of someone whose inner peace would not be disturbed by Armageddon. If we were lucky, his would be the last voice we heard on the radio as the bombs dropped: "Good morning. By now, you're probably aware of the impending end of the world brought about by last week's slight disagreement between the American President and the Russian Premier. This reminds me in a rather amusing way of something that happened during the Watergate scandal ..." Boom.
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