I've been thinking for a long time now about Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and Richard Steele ((1672-1729) who cofounded The Spectator, a daily paper that ran from March, 1711 for a relatively short time until 1712. They wrote essays and I had to read a selection of them in first or second year university, I forget which. Addison wrote fewer essays than Steele but Steele seemed to think he couldn't do it without his childhood friend. They wrote in the heyday of English coffee houses and I have been thinking of Starbucks and then of inter-net cafes and of course, blogs, which got hot only in the last seven years.

So what better reason to write a daily blog? I'm part of a long tradition. My blogs, of course, are shorter than essays used to be. Everything is, shorter, that is. But it's longer than a twitter, and I use bigger words. Have a cup of coffee with me.