Proper introduction

Well, it's now Day 2 of my new career as independent blogger. There's been progress of sorts overnight as you see, with the links and pictures I have taken from planes* . Anyway, there's plenty more aerial pictures I've taken over the years: obtaining these has been one of my life-long interests, along with landmark spotting, mapwork , hot-air ballooning and a few other things besides. You'll be hearing about them in the coming days and weeks, as well as an assortment of other interests - health, food and nutrition, gardening and garden-design, DIY, Formula 1 racing, travel, living and owning property in France, current affairs, personal finance and investment strategies, "learning" French (!) . Oh yes, and let's not forget blogging.

A year ago I was immersed in learning HTML with a view to setting up a hobbyist website, but things then ground to a halt ( mainly to do with not having an internet-savvy Jeeves on hand ). So discovering this blog host ( through decamping with Colin Randall and his devotees into the blogosphere wilderness) has been a godsend . In fact it never occurred to me till the middle of a disturbed night (the mozzies having regrouped here in Antibes) that the ability to post pictures on this blog allows me to resurrect some of those plans for talking about hobbies I have, or have had.

Nope, I haven't forgotten that this site is ostensibly a vehicle for your interests, your preoccupations, your dreams, dear reader. But someone's got to write the preambles ( sorry, I've bagged that job, though an occasional guest posting would be welcome). Someone else, then, has to provide the comments, well most of them, anyway, so ta very much in advance. Hopefully we'll hit it off, and establish a warm and friendly relationship, with a bit of give and take, exchanging tips and know-how, firing ideas off each other, and generally imbuing each other with a get-up-and-go sense of adventure. Of course, if it all gets too much, there's always Last of the Summer Wine.

I was going to say something about yesterday's big Web story, ie the first case of "internet rage", involving one chatroom user arriving on the doorstep of another armed with a baseball bat. Fast forward to hospital and criminal court.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6059726.stm

On second thoughts, I think I'll just let you read about it yourself, and allow you to speculate on the diminished prospects of us 21st century cybernauts one day shuffling off this mortal coil peacefully in our sleep. Anyway, I for one will think long and hard before replacing that snapshot of the Riviera coastline with my (Photoshopped) mugshot, know what I mean ?

* One day I'll do a post on the etiquette, safety, indeed legality of taking pictures so soon after take-off. Let's leave it at saying that although it's a bit of a grey area, if the cabin staff say no, then I never argue, and put the camera back in its case.


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