It has been a bit quiet on the blog recently, a fact for which we can only apologise. There are a couple of reasons for this.
First, we have had the builders in. It won't show on the outside, but trust me, from this end it looks shiny and new. Colour icons. Less spam. Technical wonders to take your breath away (if you are very short of breath).
Second, I have been out and about. In the real world. Researching.
Shudders. Reaches for mouse. Strokes it anxiously. Calls it precious.
I have had the privilege of meeting, among other people, Jamie McCoy, author of Jamie's Big Voice, the only blog I know of by a guy who spent 30 years living on the streets and who only taught himself to read and write a few years ago.
I commented on beautiful weather we've got going on in London at the moment. He said he was happy just to be able to notice and care what the weather was like at all. For three decades he had anaesthetised himself against life with drugs. He didn't know what the sky was doing. He only knew when it was cold.
Now he is clean and he writes. Jamie set up the blog with backing from Crisis to give homeless people a voice during the election campaign. He got a fair amount of media attention at the time, but media attention is a very perishable commodity. The blog, meanwhile, is still going. The homeless are, after all, still homeless. Jamie is their voice. Go Jamie! Go blogging!
