At some point in a blogger's cyber life they will invariably suffer from a bout of online-foot-in-mouth syndrome. You know how it is, your blog is your own space on the intwerweb, your own personal soapbox where you can write whatever you want, express opinions, hone your writing skills, keep a journal of your life. The fact that other people can come and read what you write is just a bonus because really, if you wanted to keep it private, you would, but you don't.

So then what you have is a space of your own. A place where you feel comfortable enough to say what you want, right? Well...wrong actually, because with other people reading there will always be a danger that you may write something that could offend or hurt someone else. But, and it's a big but, I like to think that no one deliberately writes inflammatory posts in order to scar and wound people.

But that's the risk you take when writing in a medium that allows joe public and his dog to read your work, right? The blogger must take caution not to upset the reader right? Merrrp. Wrong again, because actually in my humble opinion, I think it's the reader who should take caution.

And let me qualify...as a reader of other people's blogs, no one has forced me to read anyone's work. I do not have a gun to my head. If I find a blog boring or unreadable and just plain offensive, I can use my hand, guide my mouse and click elsewhere. If I read a blog and I see a well written, intelligent site that I wouldn't mind becoming a regular of, I can do that too. Hell, if I read a post I particularly like, I can leave a comment. I can even join in with a debate via comments box if I see a fellow blogger's well articulated point of view regardless of whether their opinion has caused me pain or offence.

At no point do I see it is any business of mine to leave a bastarding fuckwit comment/send a vacuous e-mail which accuses the blogger of being bland and boring and bitchy and whatnot. Or that claims the blogger has no sense of justice, or reality or humour. Because if you ask me, that's just not cricket.

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