Don't call it a comeback

 

Don't call it a comeback, I been here for years. I'm rockin' my peers, puttin' suckers in fear - LL Cool J

When I decided to restart blogging, I went to blogger.com because I couldn't be bothered dealing with web-hosting and wordpress (it's a great tool, I'm just lazy). To my surprise, Google remembered me. There was my dashboard from a travel blog I stopped writing 16 years ago.

For 16 years, electrons in the service of Larry and Sergey (they're not as famous as the Zuck, but they should be) have been patiently waiting for this mysterious Richard person to return and call on them. Well, the beacons are lit. I'm back to blogging. 

But I quoted Mr. Ladies Love Cool James saying "don't call it a comeback" was that just cheap SEO to attract his hordes of fans? Maybe. But to some extent I never stopped short-form non-fiction, I just moved platforms. Facebook was easier, Reddit offered a wider audience, etc. 

It allowed me the freedom to write on various topics too without feeling constrained by things like the theme of my blog or my imaginary audience. An ancient Greek poet (Archilochus) once wrote that the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one big thing. He wrote something similar in Ancient Greek (which I'm not going to pretend to be able to speak) and someone translated it. I am very definitely a fox, perhaps more of a silver one these days as I have a few very light blonde hairs. 

Hence the name of this blog. Cabinets of curiousities was the sixteenth century precursor to the museum. Rich white men (booo, hisssss) would just obtain interesting items and fill their spare rooms with them. I know this because I'm an intellectual magpie (for those of you keeping track that makes me a fox-magpie, the rarest and most annoying of all the Griffin family). I can't always remember to buy milk on the way home but I will take shiny facts and keep them the rest of my life. My dad used to claim he had an excellent forgettery (it's the ability to set boring items free from the mighty fortress of your brain) and it's one of the many ways I take after him. 

In one of my previous incarnations I did half a masters in history and one of the courses was about the development of museums. These cabinets were often just status symbols (much like a history degree these days but that's a different subject I will definitely rant about at some point) but they were also a step towards formalising knowledge and one of the things I know a little bit about is imparting knowledge to people, so hopefully I can do that here while being entertaining. 

In fact, I'm so confident I can manage that, I'll offer you a 100% money-back guarantee! This offer will be removed the second I get a Patreon account.