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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... Monday, March 06, 2006
Things the UK Could Do With More Of
1. Wifi. There has been an explosion of coffee shops in British high streets, as I've mentioned, but where is the delicious speedy free Internet to lure in the laptop crowd and keep them there, downing more and more pricey lattes? I've only seen it in a couple of places in my last four trips here, and both were pubs. And a pub seems to me the last place you'd want to take out your precious laptop, for fear of some boozy idiot spilling his pint all over your keyboard. Of course, so desperate for it was I that I paid for it anyway, and took the risk. In fact, so desperate for wifi am I -- and so much talking like Yoda I am -- that I bought and installed a router in my sister's house, and suffered through a lengthy 0800 freephone call to India to iron out the kinks. It's still hard to get Blogger to work, which is why my daily posts have become a bit tardy. Sorry, loyal readers.
2. Free gift-wrapping services. This seems to me one of the greatest boons of shopping in any halfway decent American store, that they will more likely than not be happy to take whatever gift you just bought and wrap it for you, ribbon and bow included. What a splendid idea this is, especially for wrapping morons like me who, when left to their own devices, tend to make their Christmas presents look like explosions in a paper factory. Just think of how many more gifts would be bought -- how many of them would be larger and pricier, too -- and all for very little expenditure in wrapping paper and staff training.
3. Melatonin. It needs to be legal here, for the benefit of us jet-lagged international travellers. I can't be relied upon to remember to bring it every trip (though thankfully I did this time). Why is it illegal, anyway? It's a chemical that is naturally produced in the brain, in greater quantities in children, even. In the US, melatonin is sold in health food stores. Did the powerful Horlicks lobby fear its lock on sleepytime liquids would be shattered?
4. Grocery bagging. I've lost count of the number of times I've looked longingly at the checkout girl at Tesco's or Sainsburys, wishing she would ask "paper or plastic?" and then proceed to dispatch my hefty load of must-have British products -- Ribena, chocolate digestives, custard creams, bourbon biscuits, flavored crisps, Assam and Yorkshire Gold tea, Heinz spaghetti, and anything made by Cadbury's -- into my container of choice. Instead, she just looks at me with a bored expression that says "you going to put that stuff in a bag, or what?" And reader, I am even more useless at bagging groceries than I am at present-wrapping. I know the basic principles -- you're supposed to put the heavy items on the bottom -- but something always goes horribly wrong, the tower of inverse heaviness I'm building teeters and collapses, and the pressure I'm feeling from the next shopper in line, whose stuff is already being scanned, is immense. My mind goes blank and I end up throwing spaghetti tins on top of crisp packets in a desperate scramble to get out of there.
5. Degrees. Celsius or farenheit, I'll take either.
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