Belfast Blogs.com

I stand corrected.I have been languishing under the delusion that blogs were a time-killing online goof, something that people slightly too intelligent for Bebo read and post in between checking their email compulsively and viewing hilarious clips on Youtube during the quiet times at work.For sure, there is the odd blog in America or someplace that breaks news about political scandals. Or there's the occasional one by some British chick talking about her sex life or living in France, who got to turn her blog into a book.But basically, apart from these rare and well-known exceptions, it seemed to me that blogs don't really make an enormous impact in the world. I can see their potential, the benefits of the medium and the format. But at this point in time, they're below the tipping point...

Did you ever invent your own word?English is a very adaptable language. It has in previous times incorporated large chunks of classical Greek, Latin, French, Germanic Saxon, Celtic and other languages into its lexicon.This adaptibility may well be why, alongside British and American imperialism, that English is well on its way to becoming the first genuinely global language.But there are still concepts in existence that English is lacking words for.One great example is the joy of witnessing someone else's pain. Only the Germans could have identified the need for such a word, and they did. They call it 'schadenfreude'. And English has gleefully borrowed it.But there are still many concepts missing a word to define them. and when we were young, we used to create our own.These weren't...

This BBC radio 3 debate was only recently drawn to my attention. It dates from December 2006, prior to Liverpool's assumption of the European City of Culture title. But it has possibly more relevance now.The question posed is fiendishly simple: Is Liverpool really an English city?Or is it actually the primary outpost of Irish cultures (Gaelic and Dissenter) in Britain, some sort of proto-capital of a notional East Ireland?Or is it better seen as a city state, a one-time global port now irreparably independent in spirit with a greater regional than national sense of identity?Or perhaps like Hong Kong or Cape Town, Liverpool is really just the nearest of the many obscure outposts of the Empire to London, a post-colonial entity struggling to shrug off the post-imperial hangover?There's no...

2007 is a real year for anniversaries. One of the most important is that it will be 400 years next month since the settling of Jamestown by English settlers.Where's Jamestown, you may ask? Good question, as it's not on any contemporary maps anymore. It was the original settlement of the English in what we now call America.Forget that fake origin myth about the Pilgrim Fathers. The original settlement was at Jamestown, though it didn't last very long.In December 1606, over 100 settlers from London sailed from London under orders from James 1st (or the 6th, depending on whether you talk to the English or the Scots) to find gold and a westerly route to the trade centres of the Orient.Yup, like all imperial adventures, it was a moneygrab, nothing more or less.They settled Jamestown island in...