In the beginning was the blog and the blog was...what, exactly? A perfectly adequate little nounlet, albeit contrived but an infant noun nevertheless, struggling rather awkwardly to its feet and heading off, at quite a rate of knots, for the nearest watering hole.

Suitably sustenanced, it returned at an even greater lick with an accompanying adjective, attached itself to an accommodating noun and the blogging community was born.

Now, the English language being what it is, that is totally in thrall to the American propensity for forcing perfectly innocent nouns to assume verb status, possibly at gunpoint and certainly with a charming insousiance (that's European for naivety, by the way), it did not take long for the perfectly innocent inquiry "What have you been up to?" to receive the answer "I've been blogging."

It just might be appropriate at this point to introduce you to the irregular verb theory of life which, when applied to blogging, runs something like this;

I blog
You ramble
He/she talks through their fundamental orifice

Now, never having been in at the beginning of anything except my own three score and ten, I will admit to a certain tardiness in availing myself of the opportunity to blog. This I can attribute to several pertinent factors.

1. Total ignorance. I regard myself about as far removed from an anorak* as it is possible to get without falling off the edge of the known world and, as such, it behooves me not to keep up with any developments in cyberspace to have taken place within the last year or so (this has an accuracy of approximately plus or minus three years).

2. Reluctance. To put it bluntly (and for a Blade**, this comes easier than you might think), why should anyone be even remotely interested in whatever I might have to say on any given subject?

3. Self doubt. A troubling concept for those of you on the other side of the Atlantic I know, but I constantly entertain the thought that should anyone display a smidgen of a soupcon of an iota of a particle of interest in whatever it is I have to say, how can I ensure that this interest is even remotely satisfied?

4. Lethargy. Sometimes I just can't be arsed**** to.....

5. Sheer bloody-mindedness. If everyone and his second cousin twice removed has a blog, then Imbugadifiwill.*****

So it comes to this. Kan has a blog and opens it (somewhat gleefully, I will admit) to allcomers and will hope to provide any incomers with a reasonably entertaining diversion from their everyday internet activities.

With reference to the subtitle above, I should mention that I am a great believer in the inter-connectedness of all things but that, despite this, I am still striving to connect the three subjects mentioned into a coherent whole. Be assured that, should I succeed, you will be the first to know.

Which leads me nicely into explanation mode. Life, linguistics and Laphroaig...well, as far as I can tell, life is something that happens to all of us, at least those of us with the sense to vote Labour****** in any general or local election. Linguistics, well...as a fully qualified linguistician*******, I am always concerned with any aspect of language and as far as the Laphroaig goes, I am always interested in the development of any single malt Scotch whisky that hails from the isle of Islay. This will include Bowmore, Ardbeg, Laphroaig and even Ardnave at a pinch.

Should stocks be hard to come by and, seeing as I live in Hungary, they just may be, then I will struggle to apply the same theory to stocks of Stella and Amstel lager.

The links which may or may not be forthcoming on this page will fall into two categories.

For those of you who have detected a slightly patronising attitude to the Americans amongst us, I would plead ulterior motive. It is but a ploy to antagonise Jess, a link to whose blog you will eventually find on these pages and whose wit and humour has kept me going through many a long night in the SUFC chatroom.

Other links may fall into the category of interesting diversions among which may be Lamps blog which has burgered up several of my evenings by posting links to numerous on-line games, several of which have proved seriously addictive.

Anyway, bye for now...if you have been, you've only yourself to blame.

Si.

*A hooded, zip-up, sometimes quilted, waist/hip length, semi-waterproof garment traditionally favoured by train-spotters, twitchers and sundry geeks, nerds and stattos. If clothes say a lot about a person, this one says, "My mummy still takes me shopping."

** A supporter of the finest football*** team ever to have donned kit and linament in any of the numerous divisions of English football***, that is the mighty red and white wizards, Sheffield United Football*** Club.

*** That's foot as in foot for all you Americans out there.

****Anglicism, I'm afraid. Arse = ass...can't be arsed = can't be bothered.

*****ref: Mike Harding: Bugadifino Gland.

******that's Democrat to you stateside lot.

*******Someone who has difficulty speaking one language but who knows an awful lot about a whole clutch of them.