Around the time I started SoFo I found Jessamyn's wonderful Donald Barthelme page, and noticed her clever use of a snazzy random quote code thing. ("Snazzy random quote code thing," is, if you're wondering, the actual technical name. Sadly, the acronym never really caught on.)

"I should put up some random quotes of my own," I thought, in a short lived attempt to be equally snazzy. So I did.

A year has now passed and I'm getting awfully tired of looking at the same dozen or so random quotes. These are no longer snazzy, I decided. So I removed them and put up a dozen new ones. Along the way I added a new item to my "things I've learnt from writing a blog" list: snazzy quotes can lose their snazz.

Obviously, adding new random quotes meant that I had to work out what to do with the old ones. Eventually I realised that I should make them an entry on the blog itself. Otherwise Google can't find them, which is yet another item on my "things I've learnt from writing a blog" list: Google can't index a snazzy random quote code thing if it's a piece of Javascript code.

In other news I've been writing a blog for more than a year, and so far I've learnt exactly two things.

At any rate, here are my random quotes for the first year of SoFo. Three are from songs I've written, or partially written, and the rest are just thoughts I've had kicking round for a while. If you're a regular reader, you can safely stop reading now.

London is an enormous research project that ran out of funding.

Bertrand Russell's magnificent response to postmodernism was to die before it came along.

I went to a careers counsellor, unsure whether to pursue art or music. The upshot was my first band: the Jackson Pollock Five.

A picture says a thousand words, and a mime doesn't.

Pakistan is not a great place to look for overwhelming reassurance that all will be well.

The moon is rising and the road is calling out my name
Think of me by the fireside when you stare into the flame

I came closer to the village. I came so close that I could see how angry the villagers were. I could see their hunger, their weapons, their eyes glimmering with evil. 'What the hell,' I thought. 'May as well try to sell these people some life insurance.'

Trial and error: the way of the future.

A long time ago in a faraway land, God was invented by a schizophrenic man.

India is a kind and generous place, but only if you're a god, or a cow.

Quantum healing: paying thousands of dollars to feel a tiny fraction better.

Depression is like Zen practice, but without the point. And without the practice, and without the Zen.

Is it still a long way to the top if you start from Tipperary?

Folk music. Made by people who mean well.

Folk music. The great refusal to entertain.

Folk music. Imagine the most boring, pedantic, nitpicking teacher you ever had ... trying to sing.

As a poet, William Blake is like a pinball machine. Every so often he lights the board up.

Look before you leak.