Is there anybody out there?

My son Bernard (this, I admit, is not a recent photo of him), who set up my website and taught me how to set up this blog, has now created a link between my website and this blog. This is good for me - I have no idea how the website works but can post regular blogs here. So hopefully people will find their way to regular news from me here - I plan on writing one or two new posts a week. It would be nice to know if anyone is reading them!

I am also hoping to use this blog as a way of drawing attention to my books and films and whatever else I may be up to. The next blog I'm going to write will be about PEG LEG GUS, the children's novel I wrote for my daughter, and I'll be writing the blog in the hope of selling some books!!! I'll write more often about life in Berlin - in the hope of drawing advance interest in my now completed book A DUBLINER'S BERLIN which I now have out and about seeking a publisher. I'll also be writing about family research and related subjects as a way of drawing interest to the book I wrote about my parents: BARNEY AND MOLLY: A TRUE DUBLIN LOVE STORY. I'll also be spreading the word in a few months' time when my film THE BOY FROM MERCURY is released on DVD.

But mostly I'm hoping that a blog will be a good way of connecting to people and of connecting people - as for instance Bernard attempted when he set up this myspace site for the book about my parents.

So there you go - this is kind of a mission statement! From here on in I take an active regular interest in this blog in the hope of getting connected to whoever is out there!

Toytown

I've just been helped by 'Editor Bob' to sort out the mess I had initially made in becoming a member of Toytown Germany, a website and forum for English speaking people living in Germany. I've been doing a lot of exploring of forums and chat rooms in the past months - not least to try and let more people know about my family book. I very much enjoy visits to Dublin.ie and to Rootschat.com. What I found with both of those was that older people are finding a way to use the internet to connect and I think that's wonderful.

Indeed, having WLAN at home has connected me to another part of times gone by: radio. I check in regularly for old comedy programmes on part of the BBC website. A favourite delight of mine is to sit out on our balcony on a warm summer night with headphones plugged in so I can listen to classic programmes like 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue'. Another wonderful link to the past is the fact that sites provide out-of-copyright books to download. I found Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, and Nikola Tesla's autobiography - and even a charming book about bees that I referred to a friend.

I know there are plenty of racy and funky chat rooms out there. I know there are downloads of software and who knows what. There's even Second Life - to which my reaction after trying it out for a while was the quote from the teeshirt 'get a first life'.

But the web is for us oldies too.....