A holiday farewell, and some thoughts about Coffee House
Fraser Nelson 1:12pm
Many smokers I know say they aren’t addicted, they just choose not to stop. By the same token, I’m seeing if I can give up Coffee House for a fortnight as I take my summer holidays in Sweden. I was asked by a media reporter for the Sunday Herald newspaper last week if I mind when anonymous people attack my pieces online. On the contrary, I replied, it’s why I blog. When James Forsyth got Coffee House going for last year’s May elections, I had no idea I’d end up writing far more as a Coffee House barista than for the magazine. The comments are the pull. There’s something gratifying (and, I admit, addictive) about writing an idea at 2pm and having CoffeeHousers – a strikingly smart, diverse, eloquent and well-informed group of people - comment by 2.15pm. And if I’m trashed, it’s normally for a good reason. In newspapers, writers normally get only two forms of feedback: promotion or a P45. Your friends and parents normally praise what you do, it’s the devil’s own job finding an honest assessment. And this is what the web offers. Up to a point - those thinking “this Nelson drivel is beyond derision” won’t comment, of course. But more often than not in Coffee House, I find the flabbier points in my arguments are noticed and skewered. Many writers would pay good money for that kind of feedback.
On the internet, arguments stand and fall by their strengths - no matter who makes them. The web flattens hierarchies, producing a level arena where eBay sellers compete with John Lewis, but where professional pundits like me must compete with – and, often, be spectacularly outshone by - amateurs. The primary voter opinion, contempt for the whole system, is given a proper venting. Guido, who (as far as I know) is an ordinary bloke who took an interest in stirring things up in politics, has become the guy who David Cameron and Ed Balls privately admit they read regularly. Iain Dale didn’t get elected in 2005 but through his blog wields more influence than any backbencher could. Robert Fisk is knocked off his pedestal and – how you say? - Fisked. ConservativeHome now has such stature that Jonathan Isaby has quit The Telegraph to work as Tim Montgomerie’s co-editor. Like The Spectator magazine, Coffee House is not a mass market product and doesn’t attempt to be. Guido can put up a post saying just “hungover” and get 51 comments. We don’t. But what we get is, for my money, the best comment thread on the web.
When we first started getting comments, James and I wondered if Matt d’Ancona (a novelist, as well as our editor) was adopting different personas such as Tiberius and TGF UKIP, and leaving comments just to make us feel better about the blog thing. The comments being left were suspiciously pithy and knowledgeable. But unless Matt really has been working overtime, the commentators are real and you can often learn more reading the thread than the original post. To my mind, this is what’s best about Coffee House.
My wife says she can tell when I’m blogging, because I smile when I type. But for the next fortnight, my laptop will be closed as the three of us (we called him Alex in the end) head to the archipelago. So if you see my name on Coffee House before 18 August, please trash me and say no one cares what I think. And if you don’t, my wife certainly will.
Previous
Comments
Bruce. UK
August 4th, 2008 1:25pmGive it a rest, why don't you?
fulcanelli
August 4th, 2008 1:35pmEnjoy your holiday!
Scandinavia seems particularly popular this year. I know a number of friends who have also chosen that area. The people are so friendly.
daniel1979
August 4th, 2008 1:43pmFrasier, you are an addict. I suspect you will be posting again in uder 4 days
Faceless Bureaucrat
August 4th, 2008 1:51pmWhy Fraser, I’m (we’re) touched…
Enjoy your break – you have earned it. Meanwhile, just think of all the potential material that will be waiting for you upon your return (let’s hope Brown doesn’t go while you are languishing on a beach somewhere – that really would be lousy timing!).
Philip Wright
August 4th, 2008 2:23pmFraser, will you really be able to keep your itchy fingers off the keyboard of your laptop if Team Brown and the Milipede start to get it on over the next two weeks, I wonder?
Anyway have a great break!
Tiberius
August 4th, 2008 2:51pmEnjoy your hols, Fraser, but I'm disappointed you won't be in your home country for the next week when I'm on holiday there - I was anticipating a chance encounter in the Galloway Forest, but c'est la vie.
It's been an enjoyable year observing the unravelling of New Labour. It's overthrow (if that's not too strong a word) is my motivation for posting on here. I want to see a start to putting Britain back on track.
Finally, make sure you relax with Alex - these times away with him will be so precious.
Ray
August 4th, 2008 2:57pmI too enjoy the Speccie website and comments. However, I must hire myself a proper proof-reader because my most irritating fault is changing words or sentences here and there and then forgetting to reread my whole comment through again to make sure everything is still in context.
Take care, Fraser.
William Norton
August 4th, 2008 3:17pmHmmm. I'm sure I read somewhere or other that the only holiday Kruschev took was the week that Brezhnev decided to oust him....
Ian C
August 4th, 2008 3:22pmI reckon you'll be coming back to one of the more interesting Septembers - and the proper kickoff of the US elections as a pure bonus.
Verity
August 4th, 2008 3:31pmWhere did David Cameron get his photo taken on the ice floe with those two handsome huskies? Was it Sweden? If so, you might be able to contact their agent and have your and your family's photo taken. ("I 'ad that Fraser Nelson and 'is family in the back of my sled once, Lars.")
Happy hols!
Marian C
August 4th, 2008 3:49pmFraser, hope you and your family have a great holiday; we will all miss you I'm sure.
Chuck Unsworth
August 4th, 2008 3:54pmBon Voyage!
bill
August 4th, 2008 4:23pmFraser
Enjoy your holiday in Greece (?). I have been going for almost thirty years and still love it.
I think the Coffee House is great: both posts and comments thereon. Changing computers recently caused me to cull a wide swathe of blogs which I read. The Coffer House remains a must read along with Guido.
PS
If you have not read it before, I recommend an englishmans castle to you.
Max Kaye
August 4th, 2008 4:37pmEnjoy your break, Fraser.
DM
August 4th, 2008 4:39pmYou'll be taking David Cameron's reading list along though, won't you?
..or just Thomas the Tank Engine.
Enjoy the break!
D Short
August 4th, 2008 4:42pmHow much dumber can this place get?
Why ever did the Barclays give a blank cheque to you know who, and his henchmen?
We mourn this once-wonderful magazine.
Why are some people created simply to be destructors?
And why do we allow it?
Keith
August 4th, 2008 5:27pmMissing you already!!!!!!!!!!
Jack R
August 4th, 2008 5:52pmOf course, the fall of New Labour, and the rise of 'Spectator'/Coffee House/Blogs is no coincidence.
Coffee House, etc. should remain wider than being pro-Conservative Party; Coffee House should be a continuing critique of the political correct, multicultural tendency of the liberal/left.
Paul B
August 4th, 2008 7:27pmFraser, happy hols. Not too much binge drinking now, we know what you Fleet Streets hacks are like :-) Pity I do not take my own advice.
TGF UKIP
August 4th, 2008 8:17pmFraser,I'm disappointed, I've been patiently waiting for you to comment on the windfall tax. Or are you escaping to avoid the possible embarrassment? Is Dave in his best headbanging green, social democrat persona going to promise to double it or is he, for once going to flabbergast me and act as a conservative and undertake to immediately repeal it, pointing out the damage done to the N. Sea oil tax take by Gordon's doubling of N. Sea oil companies supplementary tax a couple of years ago.
Anyway, have a good time Fraser and beware young RR doesn't come under too many soc dem influences otherwise he might turn out like Dave. (BTW - Alex - did you chicken out or is your missus a Swedish SocDem who put her foot down?)
Meanwhile, with you in Sweden, your aged alter ego, Tiberius, in Scotland and James in the Lakes who am I going to have to wind up? Perhaps, the Dear Editor will come to my rescue and become an omnipresence again in the Coffee House. That should do nicely.
Tiberius
August 4th, 2008 11:01pmSo!
The silly season is in full swing (someone even suggested Harridan could be PM), and TGF UKIP admits it was all a wind up!
I told him he loves Dave really - but he persists in playing hard to get.
Austin Barry
August 5th, 2008 8:35amFraser, have a good holiday, and at all costs avoid any thick-set, haunted-looking man in an ice-cream vendor's jacket who may dither towards you muttering imprecations in which the word 'Milibastard' may be prevalent.
Tankus
August 5th, 2008 10:04amLeave your laptop , not just close it , because you will ,and you know it !,
Like any junky , because its there..!
Hava good 'un
TGF UKIP
August 5th, 2008 7:58pmTiberius, you know me so well. It's true really, I do love Dave with all the passion and ferocity that DD does!