Sermon

The last post was something different - a sort of blogging experiment that I arranged with Lady Elizabeth of Burton Agnes Hall, East Yorkshire. If you hadn't figured it out, she wrote my last post and I wrote hers. Being technologically advanced computer users, we were able to email our posts and pictures to each other ahead of a carefully synchronised posting at midnight on Sunday. I expect we will be nominated for Blogger's Innovation Medal later this year.

An enjoyable collaboration with a nice, intelligent woman who for one reason or another has not always found blogging a comfortable or easy activity to get into. Whereas most of we Yorkshire folk are hard as nails - about as sensitive as the rocky outcrops on Ilkley Moor - a few of us are almost as soft as Aunt Bessie's instant Yorkshire Pudding mix.

Comments we make after other bloggers' postings can sometimes be misconstrued. Receivers can jump to wrong conclusions. Equally, it is easy for senders to pitch comments inappropriately. I suppose this is all bound to happen when the medium is the electronic keyboard and the bloggers we are exchanging comments with are far distant and unseen. In ordinary face-to-face relationships, which are symbiotic, what we say is clarified through body language and further explanation. We also learn to hold our tongues, keeping many possible wisecracks or objections under wraps for the sake of social harmony.

Therefore, when commenting, would it be wisest only to write lame and pleasant remarks? Platitudes? "...Another marvellous post which I enjoyed reading" or "Thank you. You have taught me something today." Do you know these sayings - "Manners maketh the man" and "Manners don't cost anything but are worth a lot"? In everyday life, my manners are exemplary. They call me Mr Please. However, in my estimation, if your whole life is about being well-mannered and always saying the right thing for fear of upsetting people, it will be extremely dull and rather false. We've got to laugh, to rib, to be light-hearted and sometimes to reveal the thoughts that are usually hidden, even if they may cause some offence. As long as we are not downright abusive, we owe this honesty to ourselves.

Sermon over. Here's a horse I snapped on Lady Elizabeth's vast estate. But look carefully. It's an optical illusion. Can you see it? If commenting, please don't say what you see as this could spoil someone else's revelation. In the light of what I have just said about comments, I guess that's a rather ironic request!

A horse is a horse of course of course...