The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Link: Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe.

Of all the Blogpowerers, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe is perhaps the closest to what most people imagine a blog to be. Well perhaps that’s a bit unfair. The author Colin Campbell, a "transplanted Scot" in Australia, is not a teenager posting chattily and ungrammatically about shopping trips with girlfriends, (although he does have the cutesy penguin logo such a blogger might choose). However, when he describes his blog as "Random Musings from Adelaide" that’s fair dinkum. Call me an old grouch, but I don’t generally read blogs that put me in any danger of encountering photographic posts entitled "Holiday with Granny" or (worse) which contain words of childish wisdom.

Yet here I am reviewing it. Why?
It’s not just because it’s a Blogpower Blog and I have undertaken to review ten of them. I could easily have chosen ten of our blogs covering my usual political interests. I chose this one for my list because I do regularly read it. Why? Because Colin has catholic tastes, an eye for the absurd and a knack for le mot juste.
Here, here, here and here are some examples.

Unfortunately, he has also transplanted some prejudices to Australia. He dislikes America to an extent that I find hard to handle. Sure, there are direct undiplomatic Americans. Trust me, I have friends from New York. But there are more than 250 million of these people and, while of course there are good and bad among them they constitute a nation which makes – overall – as positive a contribution as any in history. This kind of stuff or this just seems petty to me. Anti-Americanism is sadly a common enough vice in Britain – largely driven by jealous nostalgia for superpower status. Colin’s is at least based on direct knowledge, having lived there, and maybe he had bad experiences, but it jars with me almost as much as the occasional granny shots and kiddy humour.

However, there’s no point in reading only blogs that say what you think yourself. Any time I want to listen to me, I am right here. As I hope is apparent from my reviews so far, I don’t like only blogs that share my views – or even my tastes. I look for intelligent observation, stimulation and – ideally – the unexpected. I keep going back to Colin’s blog because – despite occasionally telling me more about his children than their granny should want to know – overall, he keeps delivering.

If you’re not a patriotic American, give him a try. Actually, if you are a patriotic American, give him a try anyway. Your great nation could use some advice on improving its PR.

Next up: The Tin Drummer