Frustration with Blogger has compelled me, reluctantly, to abandon the freebie service and upgrade to Blogger Pro. I had hoped to stay with the free Blogger - encouraged, probably foolishly, by an odd misplaced pride. The sort I had met years ago through a friend who was determined to win the school cross country championship dressed in his brother's ragamuffin hand me downs and battered plimsoles, whilst all around him preened in a blur of silky designer Adidas and Nike swooshes. Just winning wasn't enough. To fulfill his dream he had to win whilst dressed in this shabby travesty. Later, another fantazised about winning the pools (these are pre National Lottery days) so he could continue driving his doddery Citroen 2CV in spite of his wealth not because of his poverty.

Look what I can do with the basics, the modest, seems to encapsulate the logic. Imagine what I could do if I had your advantages. In my case: no labour or time saving devices on my old blog: No spellcheckers to winkle out typing errors and genuine howlers. No draft folders or advance posts facility to allow 'seizing - of - the - moment' writing, surely a preventative against the uninspired and the prosaic, consequences of writing when you just don't feel like it. No thesaurus to advance the cause of elegant creativity and variation. Nothing but your own wits and patience - and you need plenty of that when you're anticipating technical breakdown 'anytime now', the threat of which ensures you're as tense as a Mafioso's garrote throughout. It's slowing, it's slowing… its…stopped. For God's (and other even less polite exclamations) sake! Does that mean… what I have just written …has gone?

Yes it usually had. Snail paced and lumbering and only Blogger automatically generated apologies citing 'heavy demand' offering any form of comfort. Another broken narrative. Another shattered 'masterpiece' never to see the light of day. But now I am a fully paid up member of the Blogger Pro sect: " Look on my works ye mighty and despair." Survey the ruins of a less technically sophisticated format and know that error free entries await. Actually it'll probably turn me into a bit of a lazy bastard and turn my writing into total crap.