Toledo, take 2

The original idea for this blog stemmed from the character of the old Department of Adult and Continuing Education (DACE), and the increasingly turbulent circumstances we found ourselves in, from about 2010 on. I did not want an initial burst of enthusiasm to lead to something moribund so I sounded out some of my DACE colleagues. "I won't start this unless you guys will definitely be able to contribute too," I said. "Great idea, Alec, do it, we'll definitely contribute," they said so I pressed on. Needless to say, almost all of the posts, with a couple of honourable exceptions, are mine.

For a while I tried cajoling: "a blog post doesn't need to be a lengthy essay, just a wee story of something that happened, nice or nasty, a wee thought that occured to you that other people might like, something amusing and/or interesting. Please, don't get bogged down in trying to make it fully referenced, nuanced, watertight in argument. You only need fifteen minutes to rattle out something amusing." Maybe this was the heart of the problem. Serious, responsible academics, authors of books and learned journal articles, maybe did not find it easy to turn to something lighter, possibly closer to journalism.

After a certain point I had to keep it going myself or allow it to join the innumerable graveyards of good intentions that litter the internet. It never gained any huge audience so there is no pressure to churn out brief, entertaining snippets of wisdom. Maybe I now suffer from the same reservations my old colleagues did. The posts are fewer and further between and they often take quite a while to put together, checking facts, finding useful links, etc. Vert often they're for my own purposes, kind of a notebook. If there are any interested readers, so much the better.

All this comes by way of background to the non-appearance of the latest post. I've just spent a few days in Toledo, where the medieval Scottish savant Michael Scot makes his first appearance in history. This is my third Scot-inspired jaunt after Melrose, Scotland and Palermo, Sicily. After a day or two I thought I could rattle out a quick, provisional post about Toledo and its place in the Michael Scot story. But I've started this about three times now, each time I have to edit what I say about where I am in the visit and even the quick rattling out involves fact- and quote-checking. Finally, after a couple of post-Toledo days in Madrid, I'm "rattling out" this totally different, stupid post on a train to Barcelona, one of the stages on the homeward journey. So, you get, "Toledo, take 2" and you haven't even seen "Toledo" yet. Maybe by September.