First Post...

I have never kept a blog before, but my three month secondment to Palo Alto seems like the perfect opportunity to start.

I suppose the first question I have to address is why I am writing this. Blogs have always seemed to me the ultimate in vanity publishing, an opportunity (in some cases at least) for people to broadcast their opinions to the world, regardless of whether the world is interested. So if I start writing one it is either because I now think I have something of interest to say or because I am a vain hypocrite.

I know what I DON't want to do:

I don't want to keep a spiritual journal or produce a prayer letter: after all, I am going to California as a tax lawyer, not as a missionary. I think most people who know me know I am a Christian, if they don't I am definitely doing something wrong: (after all, one of the main rules of "Fight the Good Fight Club" is that we DO talk about "Fight the Good Fight Club"). It may be that some of my observations relate to differences between my experience of church in California and my experiences at home; it may be that some of my readers are praying people who feel that prayer would be an appropriate response to something I have said, in which case I would be delighted if they would pray. But I am not going to produce prayer points or sermons, not in this forum anyway.

This blog is not going to be exclusively or even principally about life as a tax lawyer in California. For one thing the average reader finds it hard to get excited about tax (most tax lawyers rarely approach a state that could be described as excitement, least of all at work). And how would I pitch it? I'm not my employer's spin doctor, I don't want to present an unrealistically glowing picture of my work life that can be quoted in the in-house newsletter. But I am not going to produce an anonymous exposé of the firm's seedy under-belly either: for one thing I don't want to hide behind a mask of anonymity (and let's face it, there aren't so many Manchester based tax lawyers being seconded to California at any given time as to make it difficult to identify both me and the firm) and for another thing, I don't suppose its under-belly is particularly seedy, if indeed it has one.

I am not writing a diary or a travelogue. Many days will be spent sitting in an air-conditioned box for hours on end reading tax books and writing emails, I may not go anywhere new and I may not have anything to say, and that's OK, I only want to write when something strikes me as interesting.

I will try to avoid too many jokes at the expense of American English. Yes, I am sure I will have to do a lot of "reaching out" and "circling back" which always sounds more like an aerobics class than it actually is, but I will have to limit myself to commenting on one Americanism a week.

And I won't post any Glee spoilers, because my daughters wouldn't like it, and it has been spoiled quite enough recently by the shock revelation that Cory Monteith was not only a drug addict but was also the oldest actor to pretend to be a high school student since Olivia Newton John in 1978.

So what am I left with? I think my aim is to share as much of my experience as I can with all my friends. One of life's greatest pleasures is to relive happy experiences with others, and to do that they must be shared. It would be such a waste to have a head full of memories which couldn't be brought out and passed around occasionally. But I expect there will also be stuff that will get me down and which I will need to share with the world just to get it off my chest. So that's it really - share the good stuff to enjoy with others, share the bad stuff so I am not carrying it alone. And if anything I write is pointless self-indulgent crap, I am sure somebody will tell me, probably my own family.

Anyway, that's my first post, just to see how it works, next time I'll be doing it for real in America.