My Kind of Blogging Day

Now that blogging is the world’s second favourite internet pastime, I believe it’s about time that the Sunday papers acknowledged as much by devoting a regular feature to it in the supplements. Given that all bloggers are in the A or B socio-economic groups, the glossy lifestyle magazines surely provide the ideal showcase.

To get the ball rolling I have taken the trouble of interviewing renowned blogger Donaghue Charlesworth of the popular OrganicCommunitiesAgainstTheWar.com site, for a pilot column.

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My Kind of Blogging Day
With Donaghue Charlesworth

Rise and shine…
I’m generally awakened at 6am by the sound of tiny fountains and tinkling wind-chimes in a Japanese Zen garden, floating from my Bose Wave stereo alarm system. That isn’t just one of those tapes by the way – I actually went to Japan to record the sound of tiny fountains and wind-chimes in an authentic Zen garden. If there is one thing I value above all else, it is authenticity. If a girl is sharing the bed with me I’ll gently ease her aside, and while I go for an invigorating session with my Pilates instructor and an hour’s swim in the outdoor pool, she’ll prepare breakfast. If there are two girls, the other one will help.

Breakfast is usually 48 grammes of natural organic yak’s yoghurt, mixed with slices of starfruit and honey from my own hives, all washed down with a clear glass of fair-trade lemongrass tea. The starfuit is an essential source of anti-oxidants, so I have them imported direct from French Polynesia. Kiwi is also good, but I find it lacks the required pretension. I insist on being fully carbon-neutral, so to cancel out the air miles I’ll get one of the girls to plant a tree.

It’s off to work we go…
After breakfast, work on the blog begins in earnest. I work by writing in four minute bursts of activity interspersed with increasingly long jogs. So it will be write for four minutes, jog a mile, write for another four minutes, jog two miles, and so on until supper time. I never eat lunch.

My computer is of course a Mac – Gaia spare us from Microsoft! – but it is fully bespoke. It is powered by a mini wind-turbine on the lawn, and I had it made from 100% recycled cardboard by a specially-trained team of Romanian orphans. The orphans took it upon themselves to re-name their village after me in honour of the employment it brought them. I know some people would find the existence of a DonaghueCharlesworthberg flattering, but really it’s very humbling.

Silly as it sounds, I’ve never learned to type. I write all my blog posts out in longhand, using recycled papyrus and one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s original quills, which I bought in a Parisian auction. I find this is the only way my writing Chi can flow.

Donaghueina, my Phillippino assistant, will then type them up and post them to the site. No, that isn’t her given name! She took it upon herself to rename herself after myself. I know some people would find that flattering, but really it’s very humbling.

The Magic Hour
I stop working at the Magic Hour. If it’s a good day, there’ll be another lengthy session with my Pilates instructor. I say ‘instructor’. Perhaps ‘partner’ is more the word. I think by now I can teach her as much as she can teach me!

In many ways, we’re evolving beyond Pilates now. Pilates has become rather mainstream and talking about it at great length no longer has the same power to 'wow' people at dinner parties. Instead, we’ve been developing a brand new Pilates/Yoga/Kung Fu/Origami Fusion that really pushes the spiritual and physical envelopes. My partner insists we call it “Charlesworth-do”, which is very humbling.

When the soft night falls...
I live with members of my family, but I prefer to think of them as my ‘community’. We don’t have a television – I believe that TV destroys the art of talking about myself. In the evenings we’ll paint, sing, debate, make organic vegetable stews and discuss our various achievements. I am blessed with a community made up of wonderful listeners. It’s really very humbling. Every night I dream of death. Sweet, forgiving death.

And that’s My Kind of Blogging Day!