Arresting Openings

Now I’ve started my blog again from scratch I’ve having to work on a bit of self-mythologising; if my plan to become a Blogging Overlord within the next few months is to come to fruition.

Apparently the best way to attract casual readers is with what is know in the trade as an “arresting opening”. An example of this would be something like this:

Right then! Listen up you boring bunch of straight cunts!

This is all well and good, but it runs the risk of people refusing to read the rest and flounce off in a huff, metaphorically speaking. Plus it is a bit rich, me calling people a boring bunch of straight cunts, when I am probably the definition of a boring straight cunt. Still if blogging is about one thing, it’s about being able to change your identity and opinions as easily as uploading yourself a new avatar. But I have blown it now by revealing all of this. Keep it under your hat, please.

The other way to attract lots of readers, comment and acclaim is to write about sex. But I don’t want to do that as it is against my editorial policy (still in draft form at this stage) and it would be even less true to form than starting a blog post by swearing at everybody.

So I’ll quote someone else. Suffice to say, I’m nothing like Ignatius J Reilly. Oh yes.

In this position, with the red flannel nightshirt around his chest and his massive stomach sagging into the mattress, he thought somewhat sadly that after eighteen years with his hobby it had become merely a mechanical physical act stripped of the flights of fancy and invention that he had once been able to bring to it. At one time he had almost developed it into an art form, practicing the hobby with the skill and fervor of an artist and philosopher, a scholar and gentleman. There were still hidden in his room several accessories which he had once used, a rubber glove, a piece of fabric from a silk umbrella, a jar of Noxema. Putting them away again after it was all over had eventually become too depressing.

Ignatius manipulated and concentrated. At last a vision appeared, the familiar figure of the large and devoted collie that had been his pet when he was in high school. “Woof!” Ignatius almost heard Rex say once again. “Woof! Woof! Arf!” Rex looked so lifelike. One ear dropped. He panted. The apparition jumped over a fence and chased a stick that somehow landed in the middle of Ignatius’ quilt. As the tan and white fur grew closer, Ignatius’ eyes diluted, crossed, and closed, and he lay wanly back among his four pillows, hoping that he had some Kleenex in his room.

It’s enough to being a tear to your eye isn’t it?