I used to get cross when people whose blogs I liked decided to stop blogging. Not just put it on hold, but officially retire. Not very cross, you understand, just that sort of mild irritation you get when you finish watching a fabulous tv series that was cancelled in its prime.

It’s kind of as if the person had said, ‘I can’t be bothered with this anymore… and you don’t matter’.

But when I heard that Natalie Bizgirl had written her last post, and read the explanation, all I had was sympathy for her predicament, and a touch of envy. I may be in an entirely different situation, and just a touch less fictional, but I understood the equation perfectly:

One’s capacity for blogging decreases proportionately with the increase in the amount of things going on in one’s life that are blogworthy.

This is all just to say that the reason I haven’t written much recently has largely had to do with the fact that so many things have been going on that deserve extensive coverage.

It’s not like I haven’t been near a computer: my life is increasingly spent online, and discussing matters arising from that world. I’ve started the Online Music Enterprise training with a bunch of music industry professionals and that seems to be going well. I’m podcasting. I’m considering radio show ideas that focus exactly on these areas.

But there are lots of other things going on too. I’ve been to seminars and events, met interesting people and discovered fascinating things, all of which I’d love to tell you about at length. Maybe show photos (I have been taking a few – still in tourist mode after 9 months in the UK).

Stuff coming up too: the Edinburgh march is a strong possibility – I have a place to stay, but the transport’s still up for debate. The OpenTech conference in London is a strong possibility. The European New Media Conference is a way off, but that’ll take some preparation. We’re appointing a couple of new lecturers in the department – so I’ll be doing less radio teaching and focusing more on music industry and online music.

And it’s not just me. Family news has Bobbie as the new village celebrity-of-sorts: she’s taken on a job at the health food shop that EVERYONE goes to. It’s like an organic ‘Cheers’ – a place where everyone knows your name (and buys lentils).

Jake’s taken up skiing lessons, African hand drumming, and working on the school magazine. He’s off this coming week to stay with a bunch of German kids on an exchange programme – and he goes to Frankfurt on a reciprocal thing in September. Without parents.

I’ve been erratic in responding to emails, for which I apologise – and my brain has been simultaneously tunnel-visioned and scattered, which is a difficult mix. I’m learning new stuff every day and often come home with brain full, unable to make whole sentences.

All the while I’m listening to lots of music (how great is the new Herbaliser album?!) and following lots of other people’s blogs (though I’ve cut my daily bloglines reads down from 200. That was just excessive).

But as bizgirl points out – there’s “this gnawing sense of guilt that I haven’t made a post for weeks. And this at a time when blog-worthy moments are coming and going faster than ever.”

So I decided to follow suit. Finish the blog. Just stop. Say my farewells and leave it at that. I managed to do it with the George show (and not a moment too soon), and the time had come to simplify my life.

But you know what? I can’t do it. Because, if I actually think about it, the blog isn’t a commitment I’ve made. The gnawing sense of guilt is entirely misplaced. I don’t write the blog because you want to read it. I like that you do want to read it (assuming you do – though why else would you be this far through the post?) but that’s not why I write it.

I write this blog because it helps me see in front of me, in an orderly fashion, some of the stuff that’s going on in the chaos of my brain. The orderliness comes from the idea that somebody else might be reading, but the benefit is entirely mine.

So I’m not stopping the blog. Just deciding to be a bit more relaxed about its frequency. Stress less that the last post was over a week ago. Let an event or two go past without comment.

Frasier: Don’t you ever have an unexpressed thought?!
Niles: I’m having one now.

But I do value the fact that people read this. And I know why they do. Because the stuff I’m interested in is interesting. It was the same with the jazz show. Why do they listen? Because jazz is cool. By putting in a bit of regular effort, I get to be associated with stuff that people like – and I have to be honest: that idea appeals to me. Like it says on the sidebar – my chief goal in life is to be interesting.

So let’s honest up the process. If you’re interested in the same things I’m interested in, you might like to go check out my del.icio.us bookmarks. These will be far more frequent and updatey than anything I write here – because it’s just links to things other people have written that have made me think ‘oh, cool…’

In fact, although I’ve known about del.icio.us for some time, it’s only just occurred to me that it’s exactly what I’d been looking for for the past few years: something that lets me file articles as I come across them so that I can easily find them again. Moreover, it’s a social bookmarking platform – so I can easily find out what else other people who link to the same things I link to are reading.

It is, quite possibly, the single most useful website on the face of the planet for what I do. The layout leaves something to be desired – but its sheer helpfulness overcomes all manner of drawback.

So… I will still blog. There is still the sense of Alice in Wonderland’s ‘How can I know what I think unless I hear myself say it?’ – but to alleviate the long periods of silence in between times, and if you’re wondering what’s going on in my head at any one time, you can always read what I’m reading.

UPDATE
After a bit of searching, I actually found a way to make those live del.icio.us bookmarks automagically appear in the sidebar over to the right – so you can still come back here as often as you want and those will just update all by themselves.