I am a muppet

I am a total an utter muppet. During the daylight hours and sometimes later I am an Internet professional. OK, this is a bit of an oxymoron. I am paid to advise clients on how to use the web to market their wares (no I don’t spam people).

One of the first rules is to select your URL very carefully. It becomes your identity. Well in my haste to set up this blog I forgot rule #1. There are actually two sites with a similar web address www.messingaboutinboats.com and www.messingabout.com. They actually have a legitimate claim to the bloody thing as they are the web addresses of the sailing magazine, Messing About In Boats. Doh!

Now I don’t know if you have ever checked out this fine organ but I felt that the least I could do would be to subscribe and for a rather aggressively priced $32 per year for Internet subscriptions you get a year’s worth. Worth every penny I don’t doubt. I would have to proffer that it has a rather narrow audience. It seems to be geared mostly towards the build-your-own crowd. It’s chock-full of men with beards and Cornish sailing smocks. The articles are not for the faint of heart. They make Wooden Sailboat look like USA Today.

The page 1 editorial is a long diatribe from the editor about the vicissitudes of using third party mail as a distribution mechanism. Basically, people go for months without receiving the damn thing and then nine show up. It’s rather like waiting for a bus.

There are some choice articles. Try this one for size

“…The boat was an ancient wooden Peapod 14′ in length, a double ended, round chined pulling boat with high, fine ends and hardly any rocker. Carvel planked of cedar over numerous oak frames…her keel was rotten but her garboards were good…her breast hooks decayed…”

(I don’t know what breast hooks are but they seem like the sort of thing Mr Boat Blog would be writing about, that wacky Dutch guy.)

The rest of the magazine is full of articles with subjects like “Cupped Planks and Tunned Hulls” and “How to Build a Tin Canoe.”  None of my poncy articles about swanning around on overpriced charters in the Med, this is a sailing mag for real men.

I am having nightmares that burly men with adzes showing up outside my door demanding that I relinquish their typepad URL.