Hello, family.

This is my (possibly hairbrained) attempt to bring us all closer together. Of course, you already are closer together, being on the same continent and all, so this is possibly just for my own benefit. But anyway, I really am interested in what you're all doing, I'm just a bit rubbish in the email department sometimes, and I feel that emails are pretty unrewarding and ineffective when it comes to keeping in touch.

But I have some blogging experience, and I've found that it's a great way for people to interact because there are varying levels of interactivity. You can post stuff if you want. Or you can just comment on other people's posts. Or you can simply bookmark the site and silently lurk in the background, like some sort of Gollum. Then of course, there's ignoring it altogether, which you're free to do. But what the hell, let's give it a shot. I'll get the ball rolling by saying ...

Jon bought me Jools Holland's autobiography for my birthday! It arrived just after New Year's, and he says that my Christmas gift will arrive around May. Thanks, fella! It'll have to wait to be read though, since I'm still reading the excellent Alan Bennett book dad and Pete bought me for Christmas last year (yes, I am a pretty slow reader, but it's really thick, and I've also read a Kerouac and a Nabokov in between. So it's not like I'm slacking off.)

There you are. The inaugural post. If you need help posting, there's some handy links on the left, or you can just send me the information and/or pictures, and I'll post it for you. And if you have any links you want included in the "Family Links" section (or, indeed, removed from it) feel free to let me know by email. Hope to hear from you soon!