Tips from the blogosphere

I have been looking at other people's blogs hoping to pick up a few tips: how controversial?, how often?, how pretty? etc.

My partner's colleague has a blog which she describes as "mainly a record of cakes I have made". There are photos of her lemon cupcakes and chocolate brownies but not a lot of writing: she obviously keeps the recipes secret or in a cookbook. Blog as photo album. Must find a few photos to liven mine up.

My ex-boss has a blog called "The Triple Crunch Log". This sounds as though it is about cakes, particularly his Xmas baking, but is actually about climate change, running out of oil and the financial crisis. He started it during the credit crunch, which noone talks about much anymore. This ought to be a lesson to me as I have adopted a name that will probably date very quickly.

Ex-boss' blog contains some full and frank denunciations as ex-boss is permanently at war with the whole of the oil industry, and has an ongoing personal feuds with a well-known journalist and a successful green entrepreneur. I realise that I am a pretty wimpy blogger who must acquire a bit more backbone. I haven't told anyone about my blog yet and am planning to try to persuade people that I don't know to look at it first. Next stop friends in Australia. I will delay telling anyone local about it until my daughter is at secondary school and I only have to appear once a year for parents' evening in dark glasses(I don't think she will be in any sports' teams or plays).

Ex-boss is a bit erratic about filing copy on his blog, but a woman who applied for a job at one of the charities I am involved with this summer has a blog on which she has written 4 entries in 2 years. Perhaps she is trying to signal that she works so hard on her day job that she has no time for blogging? Or perhaps the rather depressing content (refugees, female circumcision etc.) means she needs a long time to recover between entries.

Next I looked up a proper mummy blog which a colleague's daughter-in-law writes. She is an ex-journalist and he billed her as "very big in the mummy blogging world". Her blog is a blow-by-blow account of life with baby twins, currently particularly focused on getting them onto solid food. "J ate two teaspoons of mashed carrot at 11.30am but P was not interested - perhaps his 2nd bottle was too late this morning". Apparently an avalanche of free buggies that fit through doorways and double potties have been product-placed with her. She has over a hundred "followers" who are presumably also at the plastic bibs and ice cube tray stage.

What would my equivalent be? "M left her pants tangled up in her school trousers on the bathroom floor again - perhaps she was thinking about her maths homework. I need to wash the bath mat." Are there pants-detangling devices that could be product-placed in our household?

So I'm still feeling my way but have reached a few conclusions. Mum-subjects will be discussed when of interest, otherwise mumminess will have to chunter along in the background and not be allowed to crowd out other interests. I'm ten years on from mashed vegetable cubes: it was lovely but now I will aim to write stuff that I might want to read again in ten years time. And illustrate it with a few photos of cake.