It's five years since the inauguration of this blog. Five years! How time flies when one is enjoying oneself. Have I got any special thoughts after five years of blogging? Come on, be reasonable. I'm blogging my thoughts on a daily basis, nearly. I'll just go on doing that.
So, instead of special thoughts, it's the now customary 'thank you' - no less heartfelt for being repeated - to everyone who supports this blog, whether by reading it, sending in email comment and friendly advice, suggesting links, or contributing guest posts or profiles. I had it in mind a while back to go through all the normblog profiles and make a post out of some of the best answers there have been to the regular menu of questions. But soon after embarking on the exercise, I came to a startling conclusion: no, I won't do that, I decided; it'll take too long. Still, this is one answer that has stuck in my mind and would certainly have made the cut. It's from Brian Micklethwait:
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > My favourite bad idea, so to speak, is the belief that the truth is obvious. Believe that and you land in a heap of trouble. Just for starters, neither you nor anybody else have any excuse for not recognizing the truth at once, or for ever changing your mind about it. If you disagree with someone, you have to be right (because you have no excuse not to be) and they have to be evil (ditto). Mayhem.
In the time it's been going normblog has had three and a half million unique visits. It wouldn't have kept going without me; and it wouldn't have kept going without you.