My husband has a pet peeve – apart from the term “pet peeve”natch – that is the relatively new trend of opinions being spun as “news”.  For example: a presenter interviewing a presenter and this being passed off as news, when it is in fact just opinion and “filler”. Or worse still, tweets being read out on broadcast shows as if they provide legitimacy / credibility.   It is the rice cake of the broadcast world if you ask me so I think he has a very valid point… And yet…. The blogosphere is broadly based on this concept that “my opinion, may not be formally recognised but no matter, it probably has an audience somewhere that might be interested in it”.  It was principally for this reason that I hummed and hawed about writing a blog.  For years.  My first blog I set up in 2008 and did two posts, felt like a fraud and then stopped.  Now I just write for fun and because I am opinionated and full of vim (read: bile).   I restarted blogging also because I realised that many people pass themselves off as authorities on subjects in which they have no formal qualifications a number of “Doctors” spring to mind, (you know who you are!) and that in the end, it doesn’t really matter as long as you have an interesting perspective/ style.  I have to confess that I LOVE derived info masquerading as fact, even if I do feel a bit shallow after reading it.  Take Mumsnet.  Or a particularly guilty pleasure of mine: reading the Comments section of online articles.  It is like Rod Liddle in the Spectator who said that his favourite weekend pastime is to buy the Guardian and read all the indignant diatribes of the public in the Letters section.

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