Lots of bloggers at this time of year, especially those enjoying summer in the northern hemisphere, are having a blogging break while they are on holiday or finishing their novel. This is an excellent idea if you are popular enough to carry it off; no one will forget you and will be all the more pleased to see you when you return. It is also good news for their followers; there are too many good blogs and not enough hours in the day to read them, so a break is needed.
Other bloggers might worry that everyone will have forgotten them by the time they post again… don’t worry, nobody noticed you had disappeared in the first place.
There is an alternative for bloggers who can’t bring themselves to have a couple of weeks off; write blogs that are so boring nobody will want to read them anyway, so your readers will have a rest. But what is the most boring thing you could write about?
Perhaps shopping; how inane is shopping compared to all the dramas in the world? If you are lucky you might have a lively street market on your doorstep, or local shops where you will meet real people, pop in the library and idle in a coffee shop.
But the dreariest way to fill a couple of hours is to do a weekly shop or big stock up with your other half at a Superstore. As you arrive at the car park you reach the nadir of your relationship. If it’s a quiet day the driver ( let’s call him a husband for convenience ) will drive all round the car park, ignoring swathes of empty spaces in favour of nearly knocking over harassed mothers or elderly persons pushing their trolleys. He will then hold up other drivers trying to leave as he manoeuvres into a tight space. All this time you are berating him for not parking in the line of empty spaces where you came in. If the car park is full you will crawl round in a queue of drivers admitting defeat and trying to get out, or hoping they can sneak into a space when a shopper leaves. This is the nadir of first world life, the invention of the internal combustion engine was for this?
Inside the store you are confronted with twenty different varieties of everything and yet you cannot find your favourite Taste The Difference Chunky Fish Fingers or Sea Breeze flavoured floor cleaner. As you plod round the aisles children are whining and couples are having the dullest conversation – what shall we have for dinner.
Finally at the till, some of us have invented a packing procedure so complex we are filled with incandescent rage if anyone else interferes; this is what your life has come to. On the till may be a person so bored and boring you lose the will to live. Or you are greeted enthusiastically by an assistant desperately trying not to be replaced by modern technology.
‘Hello, how are you today?’
Do they want a list of your ailments? They quickly start scanning before you can answer. But when they finally announce the total money due they utter those words you dread.
‘Doing anything interesting at the weekend?’
Your life is exposed in all its nihilistic bleakness…
Have you taken a blogging break or decided you need one after reading this?
The first time we went to the cathedral city of Salisbury, Wiltshire we couldn’t find the cathedral. The spire, at 123m from ground level, is the tallest in Britain, visible for miles around and we couldn’t see it from the main square. After wandering around we finally found the signs. We often go to Salisbury, but it is one of many places where I can easily lose my sense of direction. There are five park and ride sites, all completely free at present, to encourage visitors back to Salisbury after the novichok poisoning. We usually go to the one on our route into Salisbury, but one time, against my better judgement, Cyberspouse suggested we go to the main car park near the supermarket. On arrival I was quick to point out how expensive our visit was going to be. We have a purse in the glove box that my Australian sister-in-law gave us, which is made from a kangaroo’s testical; we can get a lot of coins in it and I always put my silver change in. I poured ten, twenty and fifty pence pieces into the machine, but just before we had clocked up the right amount it stopped working. Money gone and no ticket, but at that moment, as if by magic, a car park attendant appeared at my shoulder. We had put so much money in we had blocked up his machine. He unlocked it and the money poured into our hands – we then put pound coins in and got our ticket. Setting off from that car park I had no idea where we were in relation to the Salisbury I knew.
Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and The 1975’s Matty Healy pose for a photo. (Photo: Jordan Hughes) 
