I have watched my peers, colleagues, betters, family and friends engage themselves in blogging for quite some time now, and I have often asked myself why I am not doing it too. There are some easy answers ... jobs (I have a daytime job as a tech writer, and a nightime job as a freelance translator), family (a second wife, six children and becoming a father at 50 sure does consume the hours) and hobbies (well, I use the term loosely: I recently volounteered to be the meta data author for Project 11, and I'm currently helping with the tech review of the second edition of Deitel's C#, How to Program ... ). To be honest, though, my main reason is that I cannot believe that anyone would be slightest bit interested in what I have to write. I am not famous (a teeny, weeny little bit known perhaps on account of my books on XML) and most certainly not interesting. I can't even write very well if you believe what my critics said about me on Amazon.com.

So, why am I starting now? Well ... I once kept a diary. During my years at university I wrote pages and pages. Now it all seems to be the most depressing drivel ... but sometimes it's amusing to delve back into the past. Keeping a diary on a computer isn't much of an option though; you would not believe the number and type of computer crashes I have had since I bought my first PC back in 1986 (like a taxi that came through my office window in 1995 and trashed my desk and everthing on it), so I'm going to put it on webspace. This will be a journal of musings, events, opinions and ideas ... but I also need to explain my title.


Is it just me?

That's the title I really wanted, but it seems someone has already taken it (I will check it out later to see who and what). I didn't have any illusions about being unique, or even that much different from everybody else but it still slowed me down a little. Instead, I have taken the Dutch equivalent which, since I've been living in the Netherlands since 1984 is perhaps even more appropriate.

My title is my general theme ... is it just me that thinks this? Am I the only one who doesn't understand this? Things like ...

• the Dutch agricultural minister who was caught up in a potential scandal concerning the fact that he owns several farms and was supposed to have passed control to someone else. The prime minister covered his back and the minister admitted to having screwed up. OK, I can accept that it was all a mistake ... but is it just me that is dead worried by the thought of a minister of agriculture being apparently so sloppy as to make such massive mistakes? His integrity may be OK, but doesn't this cast severe doubts on his competence? I for one would have rather seen him sacked ... but the Dutch don't do that. As for resigning? well, the Dutch most certainly don't do that.
  
  
• am I the only one in the world that considers it offensive and sexist that they should have erected a separate war memorial in London for the female dead? I firmly believe in sexual and racial equality. I am firmly convinced that to even be aware of a distinction is fundamentally wrong. I love graveyards, cemetries, burial places. I believe they say a very great deal about the living rather than the dead. They are very interesting social documents (and I think it's a real shame that the Dutch destroy them so readily). I think the modern wish to add a separate female memorial is a social comment about how we judge our parents (my father fought in WW2, my mother was in the Land Army). I don't think they ever thought as the war dead as being solely male, and I don't think the thought of the cenotaph being just for males would have entered their heads. I think it's insulting of us to mutely accuse them of having done so by raising a moment that automatically says that the cenotaph is NOT for women. Shame on you!
  

I would not dream of proclaiming that my opinions are right. Indeed, what I write might nort even be my real opinion, just a more public toying with an idea. Maybe others will stumble on my musings and put me right.