Thinking Blogger Award

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The lovely was kind enough to list yours truly as one of her five ““. It has come at an opportune time, as I am in the process of re-evaluating what function blogging has in my life. For many months I have neglected this blog and, indeed, the blogging world, as I have tried to cope with the stresses and strains of adjusting to my new life in Dublin. Blogging was perfect for me when I was on sabbatical, often spending a few hours a day reading and thinking and reflecting, making connections and enjoying the sense of surfing a Zeitgeist.Back in the “real” world of bustling cosmopolitan friendly Dublin, blogging seems more like an escape from what I need to be doing, and a curiously isolating experience. And the fact that I write so personally has its drawbacks too – while some may value it, it also can alienate, and it can also sit uneasily with my day jobs.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to write more about my first creative love, theatre, in this blog. I’ve noticed in some subject areas that my posts feature quite highly in search engine rankings, and so I’m going to experiment by writing reviews of some shows over the next few weeks, and seeing how well they are received.

So, that’s this blog refocussed! Now, back to what prompted it. Here are my top five “Thinking Bloggers“.

Here are the rules of the meme:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

So, bearing in mind that I haven’t really been immersed in the blogosphere for a few months, here are my five that, on revisiting today, remind me of how good blogs can be. They also demonstrate how diverse my interests are:

1. Mark Simpson – it took a lot of persuading to get him blogging, but one of the sharpest, most principled and funniest writers around is going from strength to strength in his blog now. (Read his “” – for all its cleverness, at its core is a wry appreciation of affection and love).

2. James Corbett’s is evidence of a highly inventive mind. James is a lover of the internet and social networks, and is at the cutting edge of all the new “Web 2.0″ stuff. For the reasons detailed above, I’ve put on hold my own social networking website plans, because I find a life immersed in the internet a bit hard to bear at this stage, when I need to be out and about meeting real people. But his musings are often truly inspirational.

3. The award-winning – That Girl blazed a trail in personal blogging, intense and challenging, fiercely intelligent and blisteringly honest, and I’m glad she took the decision to resume blogging.

4. The writer Dennis Cooper has a blog that occasionally I find opaque, irritating, and pretentious – and then at other times pornographic, amazingly revealing and moving, and poignant. See for yourself, but may not be safe for work!

5. I’m not sure if this is a blog, really, but I don’t care. Sublethal is worth visiting for its intensely concentrated fix of prose that changes every now and again. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes very funny. It gets under my skin.