Well, it’s been a while since I last had a blog but now seems as good a time as any to establish one. The next few months promise to be interesting for me, both in terms of my own personal life and also in terms of the world at large.

One of the things I miss about keeping a proper web diary is that when you have one you have a record of your thoughts, the things that mattered to you on a particular day and also how you saw the events going on around you. I don’t know whether this will attract any sort of a readership but I’m happy enough plugging away at it by myself and if it is of interest to someone else then so be it.

As I say, this blog will feature a mix of things from my thoughts on television, music and art to politics and current events. I do not expect to be the most committed blogger out there – there is always too much going on in my life – but I hope to find the time to update this at least a couple of times a week, if not once a day.

I’m in a “between place” right now – I’m going to be moving to America this year and so whilst I feel like I have one foot in either camp, I also feel like I am a little apart from both. I’d like to pretend this gives me extra insights into both my British world and my American one – I suspect it simply disconnects me a little.

I believe in individuals. I believe in human rights and that the state is the creature of its citizens which finds its value in what it can do for them, not merely in its own existence. I can be cynical about the sprawl of government – not because I believe in deregulation but because I think it bites off more than it can chew.

I think that it’s no one’s right to tell me what I can and cannot put into my body and who I can and cannot do it with. That it’s my call how I live my life unless I cause harm to another with my actions. In other words, I feel that I am a liberal – not in the American sense of the word but in its classical, libertarian sense.

There is a clue to another side of my thinking in the sub-header that I have given this blog however. I do believe that it is not enough for us all to have the right to make our own decisions – we also need to ensure that others are free to make their own choices. This means a genuine meritocracy – where people can aspire to be who they want to be, take on the career they want to do without finding barriers of sex, race or class in their way. For me it’s not about forcing everyone to be equal but to give everyone an equal basic standard of opportunity and the ability to recover if they find they made bad choices early in life.

I am sure that I will expand on the above ad nauseum in future posts so I shall leave it there. I just wanted to say to anyone other than me who finds this blog, thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy reading my postings.