No Wonder He's Grumpy

The Financial Times, via Grumpy Old Bookman, reports that 175,000 new blogs are being created every day; Technorati recently tracked its 50 millionth. GOB also links (here) a (London) Times story on kids of politicians whose blogs embarrass their parents. The Times story is great but GOB is better:

I was going to say that none of this is remotely surprising. Why should we expect, I was going to say, that politicians' kids would be any different from anyone else's? But actually, when you think about it, there are quite good reasons why politicians' kids should be whackier than average.

For a start, Dad is never there. He's far too busy being an important mover and shaker. Secondly, when he is there, the kids hear him sounding off about this and that in forthright terms, only to see him on TV the next day saying the exact opposite, or making a statement which, when examined closely, says absolutely nothing at all. Such close exposure to the political process is pretty much guaranteed, one might think, to engender a more than usually high level of disgust, distrust, and contempt. Hence the habit of some daughters of dancing on bar tops and posting the pictures on the net. Fuck all that, you can practically hear them saying, this is what life is really all about.

I wonder if my kids are embarrassed by my blog? My grandkids? Heck, they’re probably too busy creating their own blogs. I’m just as glad I don’t know.