what's in a name?

I'm sorry. I've done it. I've become a blogger. I'm that guy/girl (I'm a guy). My opinion just became 100% more important and you will from now on be treated to the inane thoughts of someone who actually knows very little about anything. But here we are. Thanks for coming.

I understand we're all very busy and some of you even have jobs and do important things so I hope I can always keep my posts relatively short. First things first, why blog?

'Why anything?!' I ask you! Why jog? Why doesn't my kettle work?

Okay, bad start. Here's how I got here:

1. Free Time. "Who says students get a load of free time?!" Everyone. Because its true. I have 3 months to kill this summer, during which my midwife sister will probably bring a number of new lives into the world. New Life. How can I match this? I shall blog! That makes total sense doesn't it? No, but hopefully blogging more will encourage me to...
2. Read More. I wish I read more. So if I have to blog about what i read, hopefully that will encourage me to actually read stuff. (Ignore the fact that that doesn't make any sense.) Witty satires on modern culture, astute book reviews, powerful responses to newspaper articles...I can't provide any of these things, but I can try, right?
3. Write Better. Some recent essay feedback has been pretty scathing about my grasp of English grammar, so maybe I should try and improve it. "Well you should've gone to Grammar school then!" Don't go there...
4. My opinion is amazing. Seriously. Everyone needs to hear what I have to say! Okay maybe not, but if I write something, I do hope that it interests or helps someone somehow, or adds something to the discussion of life. I might get things wrong and you can let me know if I do. And if reading my blog makes you hate life and want it to end, then do let me know! (And I'll stop)

So, that's a start. And oh why the name? 'For the love of Pimilico'? I assure you I won't be blogging about fun things to see and do in Pimlico. (Is that possible?) I've never even been to Pimlico. Its inspired by something G.K. Chesterton wrote about in his quite brilliant book Orthodoxy.  

"Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing- say Pimlico...It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason...If men loved Pimlico as mothers loved children, arbitrarily, because it is *theirs*, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence...Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her."

Its about rejecting Pessimism and rejecting Optimism. Its about loving things because they're great, and if they're not great then loving them all the more. Maybe that's how you'll approach my blog. For me its about lots of things. I think its about you and me. I think It's about the Church and the Kingdom of God. It's about the fact that life is at once beautiful and tragic. That we're brilliant but also broken. To you maybe its nonsense, and that's okay! It's just a name right?

And after all.

What's in a name?