Time for a break

Since I started this blog back on 15 July last year, I've written 324 posts or around five a week.

I pretty much broke the first rule of successful blogging right from the get go, which is that you should blog only on one subject. My first ten blogs were on the Tour de France, golf (twice), TV, the Olympics, Obama (and U2), a Flick of the Week, and three posts on Australian Politics.

Mostly I write whatever is in my head that day - usually related in some way to some current event. Generally this means when Parliament is sitting, there are lots of politics posts, with a few cultural ones fitted in somewhere; and when the MPs are off in non-Canberra environs I get a chance to write about more leisurely pursuits such as books, films and sport.

My last ten posts reflect this somewhat, as there were three film posts (one Flick of the Week post, an Oscar post, and one on the box office performance of Balibo), three posts on politics, one on music, one on books, and two on tennis.

No consistency there, except that you really have no idea what I will have written when you log on.

I do have a few regular posts - my "On the QT" wraps of Question Time (which are often the toughest to write as I am usually torn between going for the laughs and making a serious point - the ones that do both are obviously the best); the "Flick of the Week", which I actually average about once every 16 days, so I'm stretching the definition of "week" somewhat; "A Song a Year", which now that I am getting up to 1994 and my life leaving university and youth behind are getting a bit trickier; the AFL Power List, which did nothing to help my tipping this year; and the "Oscar is always wrong" posts, which I want to do more of, but are actually quite hard to write, because they require more thought and analysis than even the politics ones.

It's a nice mix of things to keep me "regular", as I know I'd get bogged down on just the one topic. I am tossing around a few ideas for some more regular features - mostly on cultural things - Question Time is more than enough regularity for politics, especially as I generally do posts on the latest Newspoll as well.

Occasionally I have thought about changing, as I know some people who read only the politics ones and others who gives those a wide berth. But, bugger it, that's just how it goes! While I once considered having two blogs - one for the cultural stuff, and one for the politics - I felt that might be pushing the boundaries of split personality too far; especially as I know I would feel a need to write for both each night, and thus my evenings would quickly disappear completely.

And anyway, this blog is about running the gamut, so I'll keep writing on the whatever pops into my head as I drive home from work or while doing the dishes.

All this is a round about way of also saying I'm taking two weeks off. With the footy now finished, no major sport going on round the world, and parliament not sitting until the 19th of October, it's a good time to have a little rest and recharge my batteries before busy run up to Christmas.

So I'll see you all back on or around the 11th October.

I leave you with a fun clip from 1989. When I was in Japan in that year, I unavoidably I became enamoured with some Japanese music. A popular all-girl band at the time (sort of a Japanese Bangles) was called Princess Princess (thereby achieving the requirement of all Japanese bands in having an English name that is completely meaningless). Their hit song of that year was "Diamonds", which thanks to the wonders of the Internet and youtube, I can replay for you here. 'Tis a fun little song... but fear not, I shall not make JPop a regular feature (or I don't think I will!)