On the nature of the blog essay: an introduction

In his penultimate year at school (then at the top end of Harcourt Street, since you ask), Malcolm was introduced, courtesy of the Irish Leaving Certificate course, to the classic English essay. This (unlike so much of his schooling) became lasting learning. Hence, his casual familiarity with models of belles-lettres from Francis Bacon to Carl Hiaasen.

And, Heaven help us, presumably prompted these effusions.

So be it; but Malcolm notices how this need to blog causes the blogger to suffer the pique of constant curiosity. In that respect, of motivation, Malcolm is a Man of La Mancha:

In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame.

So, in the last while, Malcolm has found himself deliberating variously on:

• the nature of "Britishness" and how this can be "taught";
• his appreciation (if any) of cinema;
• the sad loss of Molly Ivins;
• the glories of the paper ballot;
• why there is a reader of this diatribe in Denver, CO;
• if Sinn Féin can accept PSNI, and can fully participate in the Northern Irish Assembly, how long before they compensate for "the democratic representational and consultative deficit" caused by being "denied access to a parliamentary forum"; do a Dev (it's like doing a Delia, but without the apron); take the oath, and turn up at Westminster;
  
• and why Brian Coleman, Tory member of the London Assembly (a) is so annoying; and (b) whether he more resembles Tenniel's or Arthur Rackham's version of Alice's Caterpillar.

Any, or all of these will doubtless provide Malcolm will future windmills against which to tilt.

Thomas de Quincey, in his Autobiography, wrote:

The two capital secrets in the art of prose composition are these; first, the philosophy of transition, or the art by which one step in an evolution of thought is made to arise out of another: all fluent and effective composition depends on the connexions: secondly, the way in which sentences are made to modify each other; for the most powerful effects in written eloquence arise out of this reverberation, as it were, from each other in a rapid succession of sentences: and, because some limitation is necessary to the length and complexity of sentences, in order to make this interdependency felt; hence it is that the Germans have no eloquence.

539 words: one "sentence". Transition and connexion. Er, yes, Tom, don't call us: we'll call you. That's as penetrable as gruesome Gerry Healy at his worst.

Meanwhile, Malcolm will stick to Molly, or Carl or Tom Wolfe. Or Chris Hitchens, or Simon Jenkins, or .... almost anyone (Ann Coulter excepted, naturally). Sphere: Related Content