- Generative artificial intelligence will become significantly disruptive of many sectors this year. Education practices will change quickly as a result of this but education will be but one of many areas of life to be affected.
- No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England. There will be a lot of talk about moving towards some form of official blessings for same-sex couples which would have the effect of thwarting those seeking actual equality, making it more difficult to achieve. Further division amongst pro-gay activists in the Church of England.
- Indyref 2 will not happen on 19 October 2023 as Nicola Sturgeon had hoped, which is a shame for those seeking to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK as the autumn will be the high water mark for the Indepedence movement. It will be downhill into the next General Election after that.
- Trump and Biden will both declare that they intend to run for the US presidency in 2024 and American politics will continue to be all about Donald Trump.
- Covid recovery remains bumpy, particularly through supply-chain problems due to mismanagement of Covid in China.
- No conclusive end to the war in Ukraine this year.
- Governments in Westminster and Holyrood will announce some kind of “new deal” for the National Heath Service.
- UK Government will not succeed in blocking Scottish Gender Recognition Reform.
- Liam McArthur’s bill in the Scottish Parliamant to allow doctors to participate in the killing of terminally ill patients will fail to receive parliamentary approval but will receive more support than similar proposals have before.
- Changes announced to the UK honours system, perhaps at the time of the Coronation, to remove references to empire. OBE becomes Order of British Excellence.
8 responses to “How to write a blog #1”
-
I’m afraid I hate using WordPress. I struggle with it every time I have to update the church site – maybe I’m more interested in having an easy place to say what I want to than in fiddling with the layout!
Gosh. That sounds somehow superior. Not meant! 😉
-
If you want complete control you can host your own wordpress site on your own server (which is what I do)
I have always wondered why Safari stops and thinks for 30 seconds or more before your blog begins to load. Now I know why.
-
If you are a student (particularly if you are doing a PhD), starting a new blog is an ideal way to procrastinate.
-
@Chris – I notice that you use Blogspot (which is owned by Google). I struggle every time I have to use Blogspot, which is only very occasionally when assisting other people with their blogs. I’d go with WordPress every time, but then I’ve been using it for years and years, since version 0.6 (it’s currently at 3.0.1). I guess it’s partly what you’re familiar with. My top tip, if it helps, is simply being aware of the difference between posts (news-like articles that are time-dependent) and pages (mostly static content).
@David – I’m writing this in Safari. I didn’t find any delay in Safari serving up Kelvin’s blog. There are many reasons why you might get a delay, including time of day, your own connection speed, what else is hosted on the same server, etc. I host my own WordPress blog too, and since moving to a new host it’s been lightning fast.
-
Writing a blog can be difficult.
Since June 2004 I have had an on-line photo album via fotopic, which allows me to show may photographs and put in a little story about them.
Them along came Kelvin at St Mary’s in May 2006, and Kimberley’s “Bloggers and Bluebells” event in May 2007, which re-invigorated my fotopic activities. Although I have a Flickr account, I still prefer fotopic for my photographs. Moving forward to the Facebook era (again following a blog from Kelvin) and another means of displaying photographs. Then at Christmas 2008 I started the Pencefn blog on wordpress.
I like to write items that are illustrated with photos I have taken, most times cross linking a blog posting to a fotopic collection. However even with the best intentions, I do not manage to establish the discipline to publish as often as I would like.
One rich theme I have is travelogs from my trips, this does take time, selecting the most appropriate pictures for fotopic, and writing (what I think is interesting) for WordPress.
Would I started blogging without see Kelvin – not sure, probably not. Thank you Kelvin for introducing me to blogging, even if it took me several years to start writing my own.
-
I used to use Blogger but I found it a bit clunky and prone to large quantities of the kind of spam which a priest really ought not to be promoting, if you get what I mean. Despite several complaints they did nothing about it and so I migrated to WordPress. I love it. I’m sure I could do more with it than I do (change the appearance from time to time) but for a novice it is just perfect.
-
@Gareth – perhaps I misunderstood the Padre. (I often misunderstand many things in English!) I took the comment that he was hosting a blog on his own server to mean he had the blog on a computer serving as a server in his own home/office.
I have tested Kelvin’s blog on Camino, Firefox, and Google Chrome. There is a definite lag as the browser sits there waiting for a response to the request for the page. The only other blog I see that with is Padre Bosco’s blog, Liturgy, in New Zealand.
My service is 4 Meg DSL from my cable provider.
It could be that I am in North America. That little country with the drug war located just south of the Statesonians, Mexico. Blogger blogs load instantly, but that is likely because no matter where the blogger is located in the world, the blog is hosted on Google’s servers in the US. So those blogs are physically near to my location when compared to a blog actually hosted somewhere in Europe or New Zealand.
-
The server I use is not in my office. Its a vps located in Manchester, Englandshire.
-
Previous Posts
-
Ten Key Skills for Priestly Ministry
There are doubtless parts of the world where someone in my position would not need the skills that I have. If one were the Dean of a Swedish Cathedral or one of the glories of the Church of England, perhaps it would be the case that you could just hire Someone To Do It For…
-
The Trump of Judgement for Liberals
Back at the end of September I suddenly saw that a Trump victory was possible. Suddenly, with a horrible clarity I could see that there was a credible way for him to get to the White House. And once it was credible, it suddenly seemed inevitable. And for that reason, I don’t wake to a…
-
Christians cannot be allowed to discriminate against gays – #gaycake
This article first appeared at the STV news website. Over the weekend, I had the kind of birthday that is impossible to ignore. The big round 50 is one of those things that need to be marked somehow. That’s certainly what members of my congregation seemed to think and I found myself whirling and birling…
-
1066 And All What?
This is an exciting moment for liturgists everywhere. It would appear that the Church of England has published a new prayer, this time commemorating the Battle of Hastings. Following some discussion last night on social media, I’m pleased to be able to provide this study guide to the prayer for those thinking of using it,…
Leave a Reply