[bloghounds] stirring myself to write on us

Bloghounds is an unusual combination of bloggers and it confuses those outside of it.

Someone says, "What's happening with Bloghounds?" and I reply, "We're hibernating just now." He might reply, "Hibernating? Moribund more like."

Bloghounds would be likely to reply, "Well, we're sorry you feel this way."

Actually that statement is to misunderstand what BH is about. It's more like a label, a badge. Does anyone ask, "What's Pajamas Media been doing lately?" Well nothing, actually. It just is.

We do have plans to run a Fun Awards early in this new year and the categories are almost ready to present to members. Some of them are quite funny and we should be cutting loose soon. But don't hold your breath.

I suppose the best way to describe it is that BH is a loose affiliation of very busy people who have a real life out there and not much time to blog. We are often bemused the way we're viewed by the outside world. Any action tends to happen inside the site but we've also been criticized for being too nice to each other in there.

BH is most certainly democratic and that's why I don't dare post this over there without member approval, nor did I visit my issue from 2008 over there either. We'd definitely support a universal cause or a blogger who was being oppressed by Evil Powers.

We don't lay great claim to defending the blogosphere, per se and we don't canvass for members although we did at the start, wanting to get the right people in there early.

Bloghounds was born out of a mini-crisis in this corner of the sphere but very soon began to develop its own persona, via the members and though there are differing opinions about how large we wish to become [we've recently admitted two more members] and whether we should set anything in writing, we've been fairly easy-going up to now.

That's the special feature I particularly like about BH which makes me happy to be a member. No one bothers with quotas and votes and the like and the reason is at the point of inclusion of new members. We regard this as fundamental - that new members adopt the spirit of BH, such as it is and as Wolfie said, "We don't have many rules but those we do have we like to see observed."

So, we press on, as and when we can and occasionally even get ourselves into a loping stride but more often than not, we snooze by the fan or the fire, depending on the season.