Dear Dad (and other new readers),

My lovely, if at times annoying, sister, tells me you want to have a look at what I've been doing with my spare time for the last few months. Fair enough, I've sent her a link to pass on; I've lost your email address directly after one too many computer crashes I'm afraid.

So, I thought I'd write a brief description of the site and how it works for yourself and any other new readers we've picked up recently. But first Dad, a thank you. We never really talked about politics much when I was a kid, you worked with politicians every day, taught me the importance of being impartial and putting your own views aside when doing a job. You did, however (with Mum), teach me to think for myself, read, learn, research and come to my own conclusions; your refusal to have us inducted into the Church is something I remain grateful for, my atheism is so ingrained I have problems with weddings, christenings and funerals same as yourself. I still can't pay bills on time, and I perpetually forget my head, but I can use it when I put my mind to it, and for that I'm very thankful.

So, what have I been up to

Not sure if you met Paul when we shared the house in Exeter, short curly haired bloke from Shropshire, but together we've been writing a lot about politics; we both studied it at Exeter, and we mostly agree on everything (we sometimes worked to find things we disagreed on in order to debate, we both enjoy it). So I decided I'd have a go at this blogging lark, and asked him to both write a bit and keep me going (always did work better as part of a team).

It's a "weblog". Essentially, an online magazine that we write articles for when we feel like it, and each article has its own, built in, letters (comments) page. Some people come to the site regularly to see if we've written something, others subscribe to our "syndication feeds" (all those coloured button links to the right), methods to subscribe to the site and get regular updates via various types of software, and have recently picked up a few more readers than before.

It's fun to write, and getting feedback on your ideas, especially from those that disagree with you, fores you to think about your opinions. I love doing it, and I'm using the subject of my degree, rather than just the skills I picked up doing it as I do at work. It's going rather well at the moment; we've got a lot of regular readers, We've

1. Won an award
2. Been nominated for the weekly BritBlog roundup (I nearly bought you Tim's book for Xmas as it happens)
3. Lots of other people are talking about what we're saying
4. And I've become involved in a new movement to try and effect genuine changes to the constitution in order to control and repeal the actions of the current government.

Running a site like this is easy, and completely free. Haven't made any money yet from the adverts, but the Amazon links are quite good; if you (or anyone) fancy signing up to their DVD rental scheme (which I'm thinking of anyway), then they'll pay me good money at no cost to you!

Oh, if you're still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer to read websites, can I strongly recommend you get Firefox instead? Button links to the right, it's just so much better, and completely free as well (they'll, eventually, pay me money for doing that too!).

I would promise to come visit you and Mum more often, but I always do, and never get around to it. I'll try to. Much more likely to see you when I get roped in to helping darling sis move house, really good news on that one. And yes, I am slightly scared that I'll be an uncle soon.

There's a lot to read on here (and I try not to swear too often), have a look around.

Your ever loving, but unreliable and forgetful, son,
- Matthew.

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