This evening I was browsing my favorite Youtube thing, Dylan Winter’s Keep Turning Left. I was pecking around the playlist which is now 42 videos long (attaboy Dylan). I was viewing the first one and noticed that very kindly Dylan had given the Messing About blog a plug.
At first I was chuffed (that’s limey for warmly but humbly pleased). I am big fan of what Dylan Winter is doing and it was nice to have some reflected adulation. Then I noticed the URL. Rather than www.messingaboutinsailboats.com or www.messingaboutinboats.typepad.com, the URL was http://messingaboutinboats.wordpress.com/.
Well as I use Typepad, I assumed that Dylan had made an error. I commented as such. I then checked it out and there is a blog with that address and it’s a legit sailing blog and it’s quite good and like me the guy is a fan of Dylan Winter and had has blogged as such. In fact I have just given it a link.
At first I was outraged. How could anyone dare do this? That soon passed as I have absolutely no grounds to be annoyed by this:
1. Messing About is play on the famous Kenneth Grahame quotation – There is nothing absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. It’s one of the best known quotes about boats in the English language so it’s totally understandable that someone else had the same idea. By the way, I have been meaning for a long time to fix the spelling of Grahame in the masthead.
2. There is another web site called messinagboutinboats.com. It’s been around for much longer than my blog. If I had half a brain or maybe three fewer glasses of wine when I started my blog I would have checked this out and come up with another name. I should know better as I am so called digital marketing expert. Pah!
3. The blogger in question did a very nice apologetic post. No apologies necessary. Good luck to you mate. You have as much right to the blog name as I do. BTW: Who are you? There is no about page on your blog. We need to know more.
To be on the safe side though I registered the Blogspot address. Two’s company but three’s a bloody nightmare.
Thanks for the shout out and the offer of a t-shirt, I’ll mail you my details 🙂
Briefly, my name’s Joe, I live in St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK – much too far from any decent stretch of water. I do a lot of daft sailing that involves going fast and getting wet. There’ll be an About Me page going up soon I guess, I just find it much more interesting to write about boats than myself!