Across the pond

Just made myself a cup of tea. Emblazoned on the side of the cup, bought for me by one of my daughters, is the message above.

Which reminded me of several scare stories in the last few days suggesting that blogging is so bad for your health, it may be fatal. All based on the sudden death of two oldish people, who happened to be obsessive bloggers. Two personal tragedies, but as one commentator noted, two out of an estimated number of one hundred million bloggers is hardly statisically important. For a deeply serious consideration of the risks, read the New York Times story. Otherwise continue reading this light-hearted comment.

My family gets worried if I stay up half the night blogging, as I sometimes do. But my sleeping habits have always been erratic, and long before blogging began or computters were invented, I would write in the night, first with a fountain pen, later on a typewriter.

Sometimes then, if I did not feel like going to bed, or woke up in the middle of the night, I would play patience. Nowadays I play Hearts on the computer, which is quite as relaxing and much more fun, because I am playing against three personalities invented by the computer, who are better than most human card players.

They are certainly better than me, because Vista keeps a record of your score. And presently I have only won 43 per cent of the games I have played since Vista arrived on my screen in January.

Maybe it is going to kill me. Or maybe I will succomb later today when I have a healthy walk down to the beach, and a taxing walk climb back up the hill.