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This humble blog is four years old today so tonight I will be taking Blog in isolation and some of its closest friends to LazerQuest (Mega Death Match Party Edition with Pizza and gallons of Coca Cola to ensure the kids are well and truly revved up).

Everyone loves meaningful statistics so here is a pretty chart of posts by month (for all you management types):

Curiously, since I returned from my holiday, I seem to have rediscovered a little of my zest for blogging. Also, I have a feeling that things are gradually turning full circle. My initial decision to dip my toe in the water was prompted by reading and enjoying the writing of other people and I sense that element is slowly returning. More recently, reading blogs had turned into mindlessly hitting 'J' in Google Reader as fast as humanly possible simply in order to say 'Done'.

Over the weekend, I spent time enjoying some brilliant posts from the dusty archives of one of my favourite UK bloggers - Diamond Geezer (pseudonym alert). This, in turn, (via his blogroll) led to the discovery of a handful of other interesting and downright funny UK blogs. I have bemoaned my failure to find decent UK blogs more than once - maybe I just didn't look hard enough or in the right places.

Before my holiday, I was experimenting once again with Tumblr and Posterous and while these services may have a place for a rapid fire linkblogs, scrapbooks and ready made, easy blogs (for people who don't know or care what a blog is), I suspect that posts I made there were simply posts I could have equally made over here. But I was too lazy.

Blogging takes time. Blogging is difficult. Blogging is time-consuming.

Firstly, you have to think of a subject. Then you have to waste time thinking up all the words. Then you have to login. to your blog Then you have to actually type all the words in. Then you have to endlessly preview and endeavour to fix all your typos and grammar. Then you have to add an image to spice things up and break the article into logical sections for your reader (just like the 'Blogging 101 Guide' says). Then you have to add tags. Then you have to monitor and reply to all comments. Then you have to publicise it.

Yes - blogging is hard. So much easier and a lot quicker to hit 'Like' what someone else has produced.

Ironically, the well publicised death of FriendFeed sparked my interest and I was briefly active again over there, providing counselling services to the bereaved.

So, what does all of this mean for the next four years of this blog ? God knows.

Memories of the annual summer vacation are now fading, the digital photos have been rationalised and printed, the video footage remains on the camcorder (thankfully) and the entries for 'Holiday Highlights' have now been received and short-listed.

Norma - 'So many memories. Catching up with friends and family, the climate, the lifestyle, The awesome scenery of the Bungle Bungles, the idyll that is Hamilton Island, sailing to Freemantle, cuddling a Koala, the endless miles of white sand and blue sky at Cable Beach.'

Norman - 'When Norma spotted the first kangaroo in the wild but couldn't tell anyone because she was squatting down in the bush, having a pee.'

Norman Junior III - 'When we were having that lovely Aussie sing-song on the 4x4 truck, we ran out of songs and there was a brief silence until Dad piped up with 'Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.'

Norma Jeane - 'Free Internet access and those little drawers where you can charge cameras, phones and iPods at Singapore airport.'

Auntie Vera - 'When Norma mounted the kerb while driving the beach buggy on Hamilton Island. And nearly ran that lady over.

Theres been a lot of chatter recently about Feedburners support for the PubSubHubbub protocol.

Apparently, it means that blog posts show up much quicker in FriendFeed, Google Reader and other services. I must admit I was fairly sceptical as my posts still take a couple of hours to appear.

However, I was wrong (again). Look at this recent example. The post showed up a full three and a half hours on Google Reader before I published it.

Apparently, the next release will read your mind, type the words in, link to relevant pictures and publish your blog entries automatically. It's called the 'real-time Web'.

Recently noticed a couple of additional HD channels now available on Virgin Media.

• C4 - not that much of a bonus.
• ESPN - will broadcast all the football matches previously screened by Setanta - in High Definition - at no extra cost. Superb.

Slightly irritating that Virgin Media can send me a fun packed newsletter (via email) but don't have a blog or sensible way of communicating this useful information to me.

Mum and Dad

Having cool time on Crete (geddit ?) with Bazzer, Nobby, TenBob, SickNote and the three Ss.

Sun = wicked. Sea = wicked. Sex = wicked (geddit ?). Loadsa Brits out here. Able to get The Sun delivered. Happy hour - all day long (nudge, nudge).

Last night, I asked a bird if she fancied a ride on my very own 'banana boat'.

She slapped me (just like being back at home :-) then she poured sambuca all over me balls.

I went: 'Hey - hang on love, let's get back to me hotel room. There's people watching here, innit ?'

Then she got a lighter and set fire to me balls. Ouch.

Bazzer said I should have said 'OK - I suppose a shag's out of the question then ?' but I was diving into the swimming pool.

Will be laid up in hospital for a bit (but I won't be getting 'a bit' for a while - geddit ?).

Hope to be out by Thursday as Julian's taking us all to Knossos for the day.

Luv ya - Stuart.

This is a quick test to check that Habari is no longer adding additional paragraph tags and random line breaks for people consuming this blog in a feed reader.

Both of you.

Many thanks to arthus (possible pseudonym alert) aka Morgante Pell (additional pseudonym alert) for creating the plugin that made this possible and the death of autop().

Garry Tan, a developer for Posterous (a simple but powerful blog platform), wrote a brilliant post about product design.

Are there any questions? I said yes -- one last one: "When do we decide to remove features?"

In a similar vein, Amit Agarwal asks 'What's Common Between an iPod and Google ?' Answer: Simplicity.

If I had a cube, I would print both articles out and pin them up.

As we meandered our way through Western Australia, we took a taxi from the rather mediocre accommodation provided by Ocean Lodge to Broome airport to fly back home via Darwin.

As we turned a corner on a deserted road, an Aboriginal woman and her daughter crossed the road in front of us. They looked up before crossing and walked quickly across the road towards a school. It would have been courteous for the taxi driver to have slowed down but he maintained his speed and turned to me in the passenger seat:

'Damn - missed 'em. Maybe next time, eh ?'

I simply couldn't believe my ears. I looked at the driver's smiling face and replied:

'Still - they were here first, weren't they ?'

An awkward silence followed. I could feel my wife's eyes drilling into the back of my head and even the children looked a little uncomfortable at the chilly atmosphere.

Cogs slowly turned. The driver paused and then retorted:

'Yeah - they were here first alright but that doesn't mean they should get an allowance to keep four dogs though.'

I'd dearly love to end the story with how I pointedly waited for the racist, ignorant taxi driver to slowly and laboriously count out every last 10 cents of my change for a $12.20 fare.

But I didn't - I gave him $15, grabbed our four heavy bags from the boot and got out of that cab as fast as I possibly could.

Of course, unfortunately, there is another less attractive side to Aboriginal culture.

When I last visited Australia in 1990, we took a flight to Alice Springs. Back then, Uluru was more commonly known as Ayers Rock and people were freely able to climb the massive sandstone rock. I used to be quite proud of the fact that I had scaled Ayers Rock and written: 'Nice view, bit busy, could use an ice-cream stall' in a tatty visitors book on the summit. Now the rock has subsequently and rightfully been returned to the local Aboriginal communities who view it as a sacred site, I am almost ashamed of the fact.

Twenty years ago, en-route to Alice Springs we saw small groups of Aboriginals congregating in dry creeks, drinking and obviously under the influence of alcohol and we heard that sometimes, they perished when the rains came and the creeks flooded. On this visit, we also saw small clusters of Aboriginals on parkland, sitting, chatting, drinking and occasionally shouting and arguing.

Now this behaviour can be (understandably) intimidating to tourists but to be honest, I walked straight past and the Aboriginals didn't pass me a second glance. They didn't speak to me, they didn't harangue me, they didn't ask me for money. In fact, I've had more hassle off beggars in the South Bank underpass at Waterloo station in London.

It was as if we simply didn't exist and in many ways, I suspect they probably wish we didn't. Not in their country anyway.

In the last week of the great Australian adventure, we took a guided tour from Kununurra to Broome, in a 4x4 truck, visiting Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungles.

The scenery was fantastic, the company was great and our guide was interesting, professional, humorous and knowledgeable.

One day, we also took another boat trip and a bushwalk at Fitzroy Crossing with an Aboriginal guide.

The Aboriginal guide was fascinating. He talked about Aboriginal culture, the importance of Dreamtime, respect for the environment, respect for each other, how Aboriginals lived off the land for 40,000 years, the extended kinship model, the need to take just what you want and not what you need. In fact, there are so many areas we could learn from the Aboriginal culture.

At night, we were able to gaze up into a beautiful, dark, crystal clear sky. I was amazed to be able to clearly see the Milky Way, Venus and identify various constellations in the night sky. Then one of my new found Aussie friends broke the silence with a statement that staggered me and made me pause for thought:

'Of course, the Aborigines don't look at the stars. They look at the spaces between the stars.'