1.Woke up, drank coke and blew nose, then started this.

I woke up feeling a little rundown - a mix of early morning hey fever, caffeine withdraw and a wee little hangover scratching at the back of my head. Yesterday I had a few drinks after work and it didn't settle well. With this melange of states, I switched on my computer and started this page!

Sadly the image of me, unwashed and unshaven, hunched over my keyboard with a haze of stale cigarette smoke is one that I will try not to foist upon you. But be rest assured that my fingers are not stained brown with nicotine and I do not have the shakes - but there is the curious hint of petroleum in the air as I spilled lighter fluid over myself as I was refilling my old zippo and now it wont light; probably a good thing on account of the level of combustibles in the room.

So what is going to happen here? Don't ask me, I just woke up! But off hand I thought of the following introduction;

In a world beset on the one hand by tragedy and on the other by uncertainty, this small and timorous blog makes its quiet entrance into the big wide world. There are so many voices, so many ideas out there that I think it only fair that I should add my own. Who am I? Hopefully that question will be answered by this electronic page. But I am interested in history and politics but I do not take an active role in either. I would like to think that “The Avuncular Vowel” might raise some important issues, provoke debate in some quarters or at least get some things off my chest and make me feel better. But if, in the end, all it does is bring a wry smile to my friends and family then it will have been a success.

Actually that reminded me of Orson Wells in "Citizen Kane" where he writes up and publishes his declaration in the first edition of the newspaper he has just bought. OK, little pretentious but it was all that I could manage to think of before I've had a chance to drink my coffee or read my morning paper.

What I will do is that little personal comments will be numbered - hopefully they will mark some general improvement but equally they may signpost my decline! We shall see.