Sharpe's Opinion

An Anniversary, and Some Changes

Today marks the passing of exactly ‘one and a bit’ rotations of our planet around its sun since the day I began writing this blog. It is, in fact, the somewhat ironically named ‘paper’ anniversary of Sharpe’s Opinion.

To mark the occasion I’ve finally done a(nother) redesign of the site (check out the fancy icons), which should hopefully continue my 5-year mission to have the prettiest blog in the UK political blogosphere, and I’ve changed my domain name – so update your bookmarks and links to point to sharpesopinion.co.uk for god’s sake, or who knows what might happen¹.

In honour of the whole ‘paper anniversary’ thing I’ve also sorted out a print style sheet too² so if you’re ever struck by a desperate need to print out one of my posts, you will now be able to do so without it looking like it’s spread half a web page across your A4s.

So enough about that, let’s talk about me!

Reflection and Narcissism

It’s traditional at this point to make a short list of favourite posts from the past year, but when I looked through my archive page (which has also been updated for increased aesthetics and usability) I realised that most of what I’ve spouted seems to be complete rubbish. Regardless, there are one or two posts which I particularly enjoyed writing, so it’s probably worth mentioning them. I seem to be at my strongest when I’m not talking about politics, ironically enough, so there’s a distinctly apolitical bent to my favourite posts. They’re also weighted somewhat towards the more recent, but to be honest that’s because my old stuff is mostly rubbish. In no particular order, then…

• Doctor Who Final Episode Bingo is a classic, a one of a kind unless I decide to make another one. An oldie but a goldie, and probably the first post I wrote which received any attention in terms of visitors.
• A Small Victory is to date the best thing I’ve written, by a fairly long way. I am proud of it.
• The Encounter was great fun to write, and one of my funniest posts (if I may say so myself) even if I wasn’t exactly happy when I wrote it.
• My call for all bloggers to down keyboards and go on strike is a personal favourite. I never could stand the NUT.
• At one point I asked what the Government has ever done for us, but I think I missed my own point – I started off trying to take the mick out of libertarians and ended up coming close to joining them. Funny how that happens.
• Speaking of libertarians, I once wrote a fairly good explanation of why 1984 wasn’t like Nineteen Eight-Four which I think still stands up to scrutiny. That one was good fun, too.

• …And finally, how could I mention Nineteen Eighty-Four without calling attention to my post ‘Orwell. In the Study. With the Candlestick‘ which contained so much delicious irony you could have fortified your rice krispies with it. That post also led on to my poem about When the Grammar Nazis Came, which I am again reasonably proud of.

Thanks

Anyway, enough about me – it’s you guys who read and make comments and have conversations that make this all fun. Thanks to everyone reading for having helped make this an ever-more-entertaining space for me to fill up with words.

Here’s to more years of opinions yet to come!

1. If I do change the front page of stuartsharpe.co.uk I will endeavour to make sure all old links to posts still work [↩]
2. Print. You know, on paper. Geddit? [↩]