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The last post of the weekly Blogs … but intermittently hereafter!

The last post of the weekly Blogs … but intermittently hereafter!
I posted the first of these blogs on 6 February 2020, just as the pandemic was getting under way. Since then (and slightly to my surprise) I have managed to post a blog every week. In the case of holidays, I wrote an appropriate number of blogs in advance and scheduled them to post at the appropriate times.

I wouldn’t like to say that I couldn’t have managed this without the pandemic, but it has certainly cut down on my other ways of spending time. And, for that matter energy, because in normal times I play badminton twice a week. At the same time, I should acquit myself of taking advantage of the pandemic. A year or so earlier, I had set up a WordPress site on servers installed on my own computer, and had constructed a somewhat satirical blog dealing with the mythical activities at a fictitious university. This gave me practice, and when the University of Edinburgh advertised a blogging support service for academic staff, I was ready to go. As I hesitated on the brink, a very helpful young person in Information Services gave me the requisite push and my blogging career was fairly launched.

Now that I have completed two years, I am finding the regular weekly deadline rather onerous. To be blunt, it is getting in the way of jobs that need a longer-term approach. At the same time, there are still many things that I wish to blog about. So from now on, I intend to blog only when I can do so without losing momentum at some other task.
What I hope that you will do, is fill in the little form that you will find beside any blog, with your email address. This will ensure that in future you will receive a notification of each blog as it is posted. I realise that people can be hesitant about putting their name on a list. I can myself, one worry being that it may be difficult to get off again. In this case nothing could be simpler. When you receive your notification email, you just have to click on a link and you will be automatically removed. I have checked this and can assure you that it works.

To end on a positive note, I intend to produce a book which will literally just consist of the individual posts organised into chapters corresponding to the months. I think there is sufficient material contained in them to make an index helpful and, in the case of the ebook version, it will also be searchable. I am very conscious of the need for these things, as at the moment I have to rely on my memory to be sure that I’m not repeating myself!