It was a [...]]]> As is the habit of the ageing, I dozed off after lunch a few days ago. A pity I was driving at the time. Luckily, no harm done, beyond the complete loss of my own car and the one I ran into – my wife’s. Keep it all in the family, I say.

It was a bit like those two rockets crashing into the moon. But without the moon. Or the rockets. The crash bit, though, was similar. Very similar, if the moon-crash finds water. Because ours certainly did, around the time the Kia cannoned off the Commodore and into the fire hydrant.

A day later, I dozed off again, and while I was dreaming of a dishwasher that doesn’t leave grit on my sherry glass, someone must have solved the really big problems of the world, like global warming and hunger. I say this because, on awakening, no-one was talking about these concerns any more. Half the folk I saw were scoffing at a quirky new name for a slightly new take on a rather old spread. The other half were heatedly debating the rightness or wrongness of a television skit that had gone wrong – or right, depending on whether or not you worship Pauline Hanson.

For a short while I was euphoric, thinking: ‘The mega-issues have all been taken care of. Hooray!’ After all, an entire nation couldn’t be directing so much time and energy to the passionate discussion of these lesser matters if the ‘monsters’ were still at large, could it?

I can’t recall exactly, but I believe it was either Goethe or Godwin Grech who said, ‘Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.’ Seems that, more and more these days, the ‘matter most’ candidates are being banished to the sin bin, otherwise known as the too-hard basket.

Re Hey Hey’s farcical fiasco, it’s not the issue I take issue with, but the preoccupation with the issue by an increasingly tabloid media that delights in driving wedges between differing opinions in order to string the whole thing out, until the rubber band of public curiosity finally snaps and we can’t bear to hear another word!

(Aside: as a general rule, I’ll try to confine my rants to a single sentence. Others would do well to follow my lead.)

As a favour to the kinder kids of 2050, the next time an overpaid footballer does his Neanderthal thing, or Rembrandt’s step-son claims to have designed a yacht that got the chocolates 26 years ago, or some other distracting issue sets up camp on the plasma, would you lot mind forming a posse and jamming the talk-back shows with a comment like: “Excuse me, but there’s a melting ice cap outside my window. Any chance of doing something about it?”

Must go, as it’s not long after lunch, and I need another nap.

Cheers!

But maybe there’s a third possibility. Last night, while I was waiting for the cup of warm Milo to take effect, an [...]]]> I am 56. Sometimes it feels like 57. Too old to blog, some may say. Others may suggest I’m too old to do anything but blog. There is no shortage of critics in cyberspace.

But maybe there’s a third possibility. Last night, while I was waiting for the cup of warm Milo to take effect, an apparition emerged from the spare USB port in my laptop – a Steve Jobs like figure with a Stephen Hawking voice and Bette Davis eyes. The virtual being gently touched my arm, drank the rest of the Milo, then spoke in soft but earnest tones.

‘No, Graeme, you are not too old to blog. In fact, blog you must, for your blogging will empower others of senior years to blog, too. You have been chosen as the role model for wrinkly non-bloggers who want to convert … who want to cross over … who want to come thundering out of the closet of bloglessness.’

So here I am, on a mission – apparently. Very soon, before you can say ‘God’s Waiting Room’, blogging will sit alongside moaning as the favourite pastime of the elderly. In retirement villages and nursing homes across the land, new Tag Clouds are about to be formed, with ‘Incontinence’ and ‘Centrelink’ jumping out at you in 36 point font, from the sidebar of senility.

I have decided to blog as a safer alternative to trekking the Kokoda Trail or marrying Greg Norman. Right now, Greg is typically topical, with Kokoda being more tropically topical. Which brings me to the beauty of the online world – it lets us play with space and time, instantly connecting minds around the globe and delivering the present moment to our Twitter stream. The value of all that is yet to be determined.

I blog, therefore I am. ‘Am what?’ That is the question. (As opposed to, ‘To tweet or not to tweet’, which would have been the question, had Shakespeare lived a few extra years.)

So I leave you with this query: ‘Who am I?’ now that I have a blog, plus a Twitter account, Linkedin, Facebook and grey hair. Personally, I have no idea who I am – or will become – because of this new technology.

Perhaps by blogging, I’ll find out. Before the nursing home beckons.

Cheers!