A time away from the blog which has nothing to do with the number seven

And as such, is not a sabbatical, although I will admit that “Blog Sabbatical” would be a snappier title.

I have to wonder if my absence was a mistake, especially considering the detrimental effect that it had on the ACT. Clearly missing my sound judgement and influence, Canberrans went mad and doomed themselves to four years with four Green Party MLAs in the Legislative Assembly wielding a dangerous “balance of power” sword. Perhaps if I had spent more time prior to the ACT election blogging and podcasting about the dangers of letting the Greens have any power then we wouldn’t be in this situation.

A tad egotistical? Well maybe, but when you consider the effect that I had on the ACT election when I decided to wield my influence, you would have to consider the evidence compelling. For example, I wrote about Labor candidate Mike Hettinger breaking a Labor promise ^[1] and a mere handful of hours later, the Labor Party powerbrokers froze his campaign funding. He also failed to win a seat, quite possibly on the back of my noted disappointment that “Mike has decided to try to become part of a Labor government that he has previously accused of using policies which are against “core Labor values”.”

More of my influence could be seen at work in the election count when my number one preference, Liberal candidate for Molongolo Jeremy Hanson, secured a seat in the Assembly. My second preference, Liberal Leader Zed Seselja, also secured a seat, although the power of my influence on that one is debatable.

None the less, I did fail in my duty to “warn, warn and warn again” the Canberra public about the dangers of a Greens dominated government, and before I explain where I have been for the last little while, I shall take this opportunity to humbly apologise for my lack of warning in the leadup to the election. The detrimental effect of my absence is quite clear, and I’m sorry. I’m starting to think that my previous idea of organising a fill-in blogger during future absences would be a very good idea.

Anyway, the question of where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing has come up a few times during my absence, both in comments on this blog and in emails sent directly to me. There has been a fair bit on my plate recently. I have been back at work for a couple months or thereabouts, I’ve been volunteering at 1WAY FM ^[2] since late August, primary as the panel operator for Open House with Sheridan Voysey ^[3] and local weather presenter on Sunday nights, but also doing some production work, co-presenting/producing the ACT election coverage and filling in on the odd air shift. I’m also continuing my work with AIR News, albeit on a much reduced scale due to my personal time constraints…I may be about to increase my workload there if it fits in or around the rest of my schedule.

Ultimately, all of this has taken so much of my time and effort, and considering that I have delved in to all of this off the back off nearly burning myself out by working myself in to the ground, I have had to work out what the right balance of work and rest is again…enough so that I don’t go completely mad from not having enough to keep my active mind entertained, but not so much that I don’t have any time to unwind. Some of this involved a (not quite as) gradual (as it could have been) return to the rigours of work, although another important step was my conscious decision to return to the anti-depressants which, as much as the side-effects can be annoying, have been prescribed for a very good reason, and it’s quite clear to me that I struggle quite badly without them.

That, admittedly, is a very abbreviated version of the last few months, but it seems to sum it all up reasonably well.

For now, I’m back on the blog and will hopefully be back on Editorial Echoes shortly.

I have a written editorial on the US election which I’m working on at the moment, and I expect it to be online tomorrow. In the meantime, it’s great to be back, and I hope that you haven’t all missed me too much.

Samuel