I have spent most of the day writing an article for a magazine. Does this get any easier with practice? In fact I really started the article yesterday as a collection of notes. Only today did I do the wordsmith bit and try to weld it all into shape. It has taken hours and hours and hours.

I make this point because there has been some discussion lately (well, two or three letters in the Guardian) about the point, or influence, or not of blogs. While I agree with the basic arguement that most blogs have a tiny readership and nothing like the influence some would claim, I personally find the usefulness of this blog is to practice writing and to do so on a regular basis. Perhaps if I keep it up, the next time I have to write anything which is going to be published on paper, it might be slightly easier? Somehow I doubt it.