I’m finally rid of torturous Powweb and that endlessly annoying self-hosted blog. What a saving in terms of money and time, and it gave me no more than I get here at WordPress.com. If you’re going to host a blog yourself, and frankly what is the point, use Laughing Squid or else you’ll have no time to actually write the blog. Laughing Squid are easy, cheap and good fun and they don’t bombard you for money. However, I’m off self-hosting. If you don’t update religiously, you’ll get hacked no matter what.

I’m unpacking boxes and art work. I just dug out a couple of items I haven’t seen since June 2006. A framed poem from the Writers’ Live contest in Reading 1994. It was the poem that was selected by the poet Moniza Alvi to go on Reading buses. I also uncovered a giant poster from the Art and Power exhibition at the Hayward 1996. Vera Mukhina, The Industrial Worker and Collective Farm Girl 1937. It has a different title on Wikipedia. The 24-meter-tall, 75-ton monument has gone straight back on my office wall to remind me to get on with it and stop gazing out of the window. After all it was saved from demolition by Stalin. Nowadays, a banker and the CEO of an oil company would be holding a large bag of money aloft in a statue entitled At The Global Corporate Frontier.