IS THERE REALLY LIFE OFFLINE?

Yes, I know. You've often wondered if I've asked myself that one. Actually I don't spend that much time on the web or in the blogsophere (it just seems like that!), but it is undoubtedly true that the internet has changed the way many of us think, write, work and interact in a massive way -- for good and ill. One discovers the fuller reality of that when it is taken away from you. So my recent (relative) quietness has been partly due to connection and server problems, which I hope will be rectified after trips around the West Midlands, Scotland, London and then Devon. Meanwhile, my work environment has mainly been... J. D. Wetherspoon's pubs. Yup, they have free wi-fi, not bad coffee, a good cheap veggie breakfast and a music free atmosphere. Even rolling news on the telly. If only they paid their staff better and went fair trade. But that is something I have been discussing with them. Can't avoid smiling at the irony, though. When I worked for a Church of England agency some years back, there was a nearby hostelry which called itself The Office. Now, temporarily, my office is a pub. Sort of. Cheers, y'all.