I refuse to use the word blog, partly out of contrariness, partly because I suspect it will be horribly dated sometime in the near future. And the idea that anyone would want to read what I have to say on the most random of subjects strikes me as a great conceit, but then we would all be the poorer if diarists of the past, both major and minor, had felt themselves limited by such constraints. I am at the moment reading Vere Hodgson’s Few Eggs and No Oranges, a fascinating record of the author’s day-to-day life in Notting Hill during the Blitz. I’m sure that Vere, who comes across as a practical, no nonsense sort of person, didn’t think of herself as important, but felt that her account might be of interest both to her relatives outside of London and to any future readers. There is a frightening immediacy to the entries–no revisionist history here–as she didn’t know if she, or London, would survive the war. I, for one, am glad that she took the time and trouble to record her experiences.