The Curious Incident of the Blog in the Night-Time
Eagle-eyed readers will notice the disappearance from my sidebar of a blog posted about three weeks ago. No need to call in Poirot: I shall reveal all now.
Recently, I installed a Statcounter on this site. This rather interesting device allowed me to see how many different people were reading my humble little masterpiece. After a few days of getting rather excited (who knew anyone in Venezuela was interested in what went on in my corner of the world?) it began to cause me more and more anxiety. Firstly, I was beginning to get jealous of the globe-trotting ways of The American Geordie. More than that, however, the facility which allowed me to see the referring link to this blog started to worry me. It became abundantly clear that just about any Google search involving the word Malawi eventually led to this blog; if you add any number of basic economic terms, then it may even come up on the first page. One specific Google search I used as a routine course of my work led to the top result being a link to the now-deleted post.
Now, none of my colleagues know of my secret life as the Maradona; even though I have taken great pains to avoid mentioning anything that could compromise the Ministry's position, I'm not too keen on any of them discovering my flagrant disregard for the Official Secrets Act. I'm not sure how they'd react, but I don't want to find out.
Fortunately, the only colleague I've singled out for criticism, Oblomov, will never find this. He uses his computer solely for the use of Spider Solitaire, I've heard, and besides, he'd never Google anything work related...
* * *
Well, enough navel-gazing. The work week is being truncated by the Easter holiday's tomorrow. I'm going to Zomba to recharge the batteries and do a spot of bird-watching (I have also located a satellite TV on which I may be able to watch the Milan derby; be still my heart).
This week has been tiring, as we've stepped up our efforts to engage our donors in our drive to reform the way aid is managed in Malawi. We set up what would have been a large and extremely important meeting for earlier this week, but the vagaries of the post office ensured that most of our colleagues from the donor community didn't receive their invitations or the supporting materials. As a result, when we called around to confirm attendance the day before, most promised to send a representative, but these poor people had no idea what we were about to spring on them. Our guests, understandably, got rather confused as to what we were trying to do, and we spent most of our time resolving that confusion. As a result, we have to have another meeting after the Easter break to actually give them our detailed plans and ask for their support.
We're hand delivering those invitations.
* * *
I'll try and post some photos of Zomba next week; I've worked out how to upload pictures from my phone onto the computer. If you can handle the dodgy quality, you might be interested to see what this paradise looks like.
Recently, I installed a Statcounter on this site. This rather interesting device allowed me to see how many different people were reading my humble little masterpiece. After a few days of getting rather excited (who knew anyone in Venezuela was interested in what went on in my corner of the world?) it began to cause me more and more anxiety. Firstly, I was beginning to get jealous of the globe-trotting ways of The American Geordie. More than that, however, the facility which allowed me to see the referring link to this blog started to worry me. It became abundantly clear that just about any Google search involving the word Malawi eventually led to this blog; if you add any number of basic economic terms, then it may even come up on the first page. One specific Google search I used as a routine course of my work led to the top result being a link to the now-deleted post.
Now, none of my colleagues know of my secret life as the Maradona; even though I have taken great pains to avoid mentioning anything that could compromise the Ministry's position, I'm not too keen on any of them discovering my flagrant disregard for the Official Secrets Act. I'm not sure how they'd react, but I don't want to find out.
Fortunately, the only colleague I've singled out for criticism, Oblomov, will never find this. He uses his computer solely for the use of Spider Solitaire, I've heard, and besides, he'd never Google anything work related...
* * *
Well, enough navel-gazing. The work week is being truncated by the Easter holiday's tomorrow. I'm going to Zomba to recharge the batteries and do a spot of bird-watching (I have also located a satellite TV on which I may be able to watch the Milan derby; be still my heart).
This week has been tiring, as we've stepped up our efforts to engage our donors in our drive to reform the way aid is managed in Malawi. We set up what would have been a large and extremely important meeting for earlier this week, but the vagaries of the post office ensured that most of our colleagues from the donor community didn't receive their invitations or the supporting materials. As a result, when we called around to confirm attendance the day before, most promised to send a representative, but these poor people had no idea what we were about to spring on them. Our guests, understandably, got rather confused as to what we were trying to do, and we spent most of our time resolving that confusion. As a result, we have to have another meeting after the Easter break to actually give them our detailed plans and ask for their support.
We're hand delivering those invitations.
* * *
I'll try and post some photos of Zomba next week; I've worked out how to upload pictures from my phone onto the computer. If you can handle the dodgy quality, you might be interested to see what this paradise looks like.
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 8:13 PM
