Greetings, pop pickers

Hello All! And especially hello, Pat and Minnie - thanks for the messages.

Sorry, I kind of spontaneously combusted there. Disappeared in a self-generated pyroclastic flow. Never a pretty sight, and never particularly gratifying for readers who are not disciples of the Marquis de Sade.

I stopped posting for several reasons. The main one was that the principal focus of the blog had become one of complaint. I wasn't really doing much more than ranting in a hopelessly negative way about the differences between me and three-quarters of the local population. I had lost any semblance of objectivity I may once have possessed, and with it my right to claim the status of "reporter". I want to be a reporter. I like being a reporter. So I stopped my ranty blog.

As a consequence of the above negativity, visitor numbers to my blog tapered off. Bile is great in small doses if delivered well, but large quantities of otherwise purposeless toxic drivel can hardly be expected to lure in an enthusiastic readership.

Then I got offered a new job, this time as music blogger (http://www.rionegro.com.ar/blog/muslo/index.php) for the online edition of the local paper (http://www.rionegro.com.ar/). The print edition is not actually that different from the EDP in many ways: large agricultural circulation area, well regarded, significant presence in regional journalism, just with really dreadful photo support (*takes hat off and bows to former colleagues of photographic persuasion).

The music blog, for which I get a modest but handy little income, is right at the heart of what I have for many years wanted to do for a living: write professionally about something which fires my imagination and feeds my soul. It's an opinion piece, but the important difference is that I have to write in Spanish, which presents all sorts of new and interesting challenges. It also limits me in one important way - I don't have the linguistic agility to make wisecracks. I can't be sarcastic, ironic, disingenuous or malicious. In short, it limits me to the truth, hence I am currently a better writer in my second language than in my first. So I've been dedicating my spare time to that.

I'm going to be coming back here more often now, I swear. I'd also like to take this opportunity to reiterate a suggestion I made a while back to those lovely old muckers at EDP24, that the list of blogs appear on the web page ranked according to activity, ie most recently updated at the top. I'm horribly competitive, and would surely post more often if it meant the chance to knock Minnie and co off the top slot ;)
It would also give us old timers a chance to drag ourselves up off the bottom of the page once in a while.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back. Thanks for reading. I'll be back again soon.

Nick