11 May 2017

Afterwards

Sorry for this morbid thought but I am sure that many bloggers have died in the last few years. And, yet in most instances their blogs remain. One wonders how long these blogs will continue. Will they go on forever or will "Blogger" one day cull the blogs of the departed?

I think of Carol Harrison. It's nearly two years since she died of cancer. She was one of those bloggers I was naturally and habitually drawn to and we had fun commenting on each other's blogs. She was Molly Printemps and I was Yorkshire Pudding. Her blog is still live and accessible and I wonder will it still be there after five years, after ten years or will it simply outlive the rest of us?

This is an odd thing to think about - the very idea that one's blog will probably be around long after we have died. In time, a blog may become similar to a testament, the evidence of a life once lived - like a granite tombstone in a cemetery or an obituary in a newspaper.

If that is how it will be, I think I still have my work cut out to represent all that I am and all that I have been so that visitors in the future - family, friends and strangers -  might know me entirely. Twelve years of regular blogging has not been enough. There's a lot more to say about daily happenings, the world scene and memories of what occurred in the past. 

To anybody reading this particular post in the distant future, after I have shuffled off my mortal coil, I just want to say please leave your address in the comments and I shall come and haunt you for a couple of nights. There will be a tapping on your window and then you'll feel a sudden and very icy chill. Invisibly, I will be watching you squirm... WHOOOOOOO!

31 comments:

  1. You already haunt me, Yorkie!!! :)

    I, too, have had similar thoughts to the ones you've expressed here. (not the haunting part - but now, that you've mentioned it.....)!

    Over the years a couple of my blogger friends have passed away...but I've not had it in my heart to remove them from my blog list. I guess, in a way, it's my way of showing them respect. It may sound odd, but that is how I feel.

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    1. When we are dead bloggers we will be able to visit our old haunts!

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  2. I have bee told that our blogs will stay out there someplace. I find this hard to believe that the blog would outlive the granite toombstone

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    1. It looks like i don't know how to spell tombstone!

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    2. I forgive you for your linguistic indiscretion Red!

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  3. We'll have to leave our passwords in our wills so that someone can let our blogging friends know we've passed away !

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  4. I just can't get my head around where all this 'stuff' goes. It's a bit like trying to envisage infinity and the universe. If I am ever blessed with grandchildren I suppose it would be nice to think they (and their children)could read my babblings after I'm long gone.

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    Replies
    1. Most people like the idea of a little immortality and perhaps blogging will answer that urge.

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  5. It's hard to imagine what will happen to our blogs in the long term. In fifty or 100 years would we be embarrassed at things we have said? Nostalgic? shocked at how the world has changed? Would we wish we had written about different things?

    Some bloggers actually get their posts printed up into books at regular intervals.

    I have no doubt they will be very important historical documents if they mange to survive for a little while

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    Replies
    1. *manage.
      Heaven forbid a typo on the teacher's blog :)

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    2. Tut-tut-tut young lady! You will have to see me in my study after school for - ahem - extra lessons!

      Good questions in your first paragraph.

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  6. What's so hard about getting someone from your family to simply shut your blog down when you die. Dead, gone, goodbye blogland, hello another land.

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    1. Derek - You try getting in touch with Blogger! It's like getting in touch with The Queen Mother. Even if your family have all your details like passwords etc. they would find it nigh on impossible.

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    2. In Blogger, under "Settings, Other" there is an option to delete your blog. I've never had the courage to hit the link to see what the process is - I'm afraid it would be a one-step, lights-out Delete function and I really don't want to do that!

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  7. Really, didn't realise that. Oh well, blogs become like satellites and go round in space for ever then - a case of Major Tom to Ground Control.

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    1. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on Derek.

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  8. Some of the earlier blogs I used to visit have disappeared, so don't know whether they were actively removed by the blogger or by google. It is somehow comforting to think that even once we have gone our blogs will be out there for future readers. I often think the same about clothes or things a person has made. They live on once the person has gone.

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    1. I agree. A well-crafted piece of old woodwork speaks eloquently of its deceased maker.

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  9. Maybe some of our blogger friends have already passed on and are blogging from beyond the grave....

    Which sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. They should pay me for the idea...what do you think?

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    1. I just said something similar to Steve as I moved up the comments. In fact, I am already dead Jennifer. Dead chilled!

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  10. Funnily enough this is something that has occurred to me because I self-host my blog so if the bills aren't paid to the service provider then they'll pull the plug!

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    1. It would be the death of civilisation as we know it if "Shooting Parrots" was to disappear. Can't you pay up fifty years in advance?

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  11. I've tried to look up whether Google has policies involving bloggers who die. I don't see that mentioned anywhere, but my understanding is that they simply leave the blogs in perpetuity. I don't think they go anywhere unless a relative petitions to have them removed or to have access to them. (Which apparently CAN be done with certain documentation, like a death certificate.)

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    1. Of course some apparently active bloggers may already be dead having cunningly left libraries of date-stamped blogposts behind them. Have you checked your pulse Steve?

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  12. I like to think our blogs will last forever, for the matter, I wouldn't mind doing so either...the world needs me! :o]
    Anna :o]

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    1. I agree Anna. Without your vital presence humanity will be unable to advance.

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  13. nearest to a bit of immortality many of us will get

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    1. That's true Kate - unless we decide to be mass murderers.

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  14. About ten years ago Blogger notified people that any inactive blogs not activated within a specified length of time would be automatically deleted on a particular date.
    And it happened.

    Their very own clearing out of blog clutter.

    Alphie

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    1. A couple that I just deleted from my bloglist had been inactive for over two years.

      Delete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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