Merry Blogmass

In a shameless piece of promotion, I have included a puff for Hofflimits on recent Christmas greetings to friends and family. Nothing by way of explanation, but I shall be interested to see if my visitor figures go up, in the absence of any other promotional activity by me.

Since the round-robin formatted letter that carried the URL is mostly for consumption by my American relatives, I shall keep an eye open for any spike in the site visitors logging on from over the pond. And if you are one of those mystified relatives, welcome to my world, or a part of it - mostly the part that deals in fatuous opinions and lazy assertions.

There are only two rules that govern content for Hofflimits - it must be about the external world rather than self-obsessed, self-referential solipsism, and the opinions must be my own, rather than received wit published elsewhere.

And if you are logging on from the States, here's a quick guide to some of the characters: Gordon Brown is our Prime Minister, like Tony Blair but fatter; football is almost certainly what you would call soccer; the House of Commons is the equivalent of the Senate; and Anne Widdecombe is a society beauty known for her devastating put-downs and an unbroken series of number one records.

And this blog is one of the most influential sources of opinion in the UK that can bring down governments at a stroke.