This is my last blog - I’m moving to Substack. However, I will post a weekly link from this blog (Ardmayle) to my Substack post for that week. I’ve been writing as Ardmayle for 20 years. It started out as regular snippets on the arts, sport and political matters - with occasional personal references (some of which are now an embarrassment, such as that one about a female tennis player from my teenage years). Here’s my very first blog written on 20 December 2005 - it’s one I could write every December:
“Yule Regret It
A great weariness enfolds me as I contemplate the looming Christmas debacle. Already the lunches and parties are in full swing and I mostly feel ill during the day. Saying no is often not an option as these are annual gigs that friends or colleagues expect you to attend and your absence would be a snub to someone. One must endure it or go abroad and hide.
Beneath all this desire of oblivion runs...”
Beneath all this desire of oblivion runs...”
Not bad, although that Philip Larkin quote that I appended, if apt, seems a tad pretentious
I’ll publish on Substack every Thursday (@johnposullivan) employing shorter and more varied material (art, poetry, music, politics and of course sport). You can access it via www.substack.com or by installing the Substack app. It you select Subscribe within the post and enter an email address, future posts will go directly to your in-box. Subscribing does not entail any payment. Substack also has a Twitter-type notes function for short comments. In Substack you’ll meet a more literate and temperate audience. There have been criticisms of it for having some Nazi and white supremacist adherents but so far I haven’t encountered any of these and I believe that Substack’s light touch moderation has cleared most of them out. Besides, unless you Subscribe to them, you won’t meet them. Aside from my modest effusions, you’ll meet the likes of Anne Applebaum, Timothy Garton Ash, Paul Krugman, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, Stephen Fry and Tina Brown (try her - you’ll like her).
Just to reiterate, I will continue to post a link to my latest Substack on this Blog every week (See below). So the Ardmayle Blog will live on and its 20 years of posts will remain accessible. There’s a lot of art history up there, some Cheltenham triumphs and disasters and plenty of book reviews. I just wish I hadn’t declared so emphatically that Rory McIlroy would never win the Masters because of his flakey putting.
