NOT BIG IN JAPAN, BUT….

The Bexley Blogbrary seeks global domination…

Well, dear readers, this is exciting news, as we approach the Blogbrary’s first birthday and cast our eye back upon the glorious past year…

Here was I, amiably chuntering away about books, Bexley, buses, beetroot and general badinage , vaguely hoping that people as far afield as Greenwich, Greenhithe or Gravesend might just about be picking it up via their wireless sets …but – blow me down with a feather! - see what spectacular data the Blogbrary’s market research team has just tracked down….


In the past year we’ve had “hits” from not just dear old Blighty (over 8,000 smites) or the former colonies of the United States (234), but Holland, too (101); the emerging world super-powers are represented: Russia (51) and Brazil (34).

Looking eastwards, our Blog has been enjoyed in South (although not North) Korea (34), Thailand (24) and India (21). Our Baltic markets are holding up well – Latvia has 29 devotees, while from the mighty Rockies to the windswept Yukon, from the rolling prairies of Saskatchewan to the loamy turflands of Manitoba, Baffin Island’s rugged granite shores, and the deep, frozen wastes of Hudson’s Bay, 20 of our Canadian correspondents have clicked with us.


But is there any common thread linking these nations, I hear you ask?...

An all-encompassing socio-philosophical zeitgeist?

An atavistic love of Bexley, and its cultural heritage?

Or do they all play cricket?


Who knows…But I`d still like to get hits from even further afield… Pitcairn, anyone?

Seriously, though…If you do have relatives in Rwanda, contacts in Columbia; friends in the Falklands or acquaintances in the Antipodes, then please do forward them this blog, and urge them to dip in. (Anyone know anyone at the South Pole?)

Remember our watchword, dear readers: “Today Bexley, tomorrow…THE WORLD!”



TTFN.

Doubting Thomas?... Hardly…The only way is Wessex!

Thomas Hardy, tattoos, and transports of delight…

Well, dear readers…

Venturing beyond the bounds of Bexley and entering the bowels of the great wen recently..

I espied a poem on the underground…Here it is:

The thrushes sing as the sun is going, And the finches whistle in ones and pairs, And as it gets dark loud nightingales In bushes Pipe, as they can when April wears, As if all Time were theirs.


These are brand-new birds of twelve-months’ growing, Which a year ago, or less than twain, No finches were, nor nightingales, Nor thrushes, But only particles of grain, And earth, and air, and rain

Now, be honest - that’s pretty good, isn’t it?...

Intrigued, I strained my eyes to read who the poem was by (desperately trying not to catch the attention of the burly tattooed chap with the imaginative body adornments seating directly below the poster…)


Imagine my surprise! The poem was by Thomas Hardy, who I`d always imagined to be a dry Victorian novelist and something of an `old crusty` (albeit with one of the finest moustaches known to man – not dissimilar, in fact, to the tattooed hulk now gazing back at me…)


So, safely back in dear old Bexley, the Blogbrary’s extensive research department did a bit of delving, and they found this rather dapper website…http://www.hardysociety.org/….And they also found some rather splendid Hardy poetry on Bexley’s bookshelves – here, look.


It was Hardy’s birthday recently, too…(he’s 171 you know), and it’s also the 120th anniversary of his Tess of the D’Urbervilles.


And, do you know, the more we delved – the more we unearthed…old Thomas wasn’t crusty at all, he was unique, iconoclastic and fearless; an author who `broke the doll` of Victorian literary convention, and portrayed real characters, strong women, and a real sense of a harsh, unforgiving landscape.


A surprisingly sound chap, in fact…(now, I wonder if he had any tattoos?...`Tess` & `Jude` perhaps, inked upon his knuckles?...A purposeful `Mayor of Casterbridge` etched on a bulging bicep?...And something `Under the Greenwood Tree` perhaps?)…


TTFN, dear readers. TTFN.