No more comments for a while, please

This blog isn't a social media platform for exchanging news and views. It's what I say on the tin: an autobiography, written as I go along. 

Having published a post, I don't look for any comments on it. The sole aim of the post will be to explain or explore what I think about its subject. It won't be calculated to provoke discussion, nor to influence anybody, nor to speak or persuade on behalf of any group. I speak only for myself. 

It's nice of course to generate an interesting and relevant response, either immediately or in due course. I do regularly look through the list of comments made on my recent posts, and I will reply if I feel like it. But I am not looking for a conversation. In particular I will always pounce on any form of commercial advertising, or anything that promotes someone or something. Those 'comments' have always been deleted without further ado. 

It's more than a ten years since I last had to do it, but I have now decided to restrict all comments until further notice. The blog settings have been altered to repel most of them, and those that still make it through to me will have to survive my personal moderation. It will still be possible to email me, but I imagine only a few people will want to do that, as they'll have to give away their own email address. The ban won't matter to my friends and other proper people. If requested, I can make them 'members' of my blog - listed as 'contributors' - and that will get their occasional comments posted as usual.

The blog itself won't change. It'll still be 'Lucy's Travel Adventures' or 'Lucy's Take on This or That', with lots of pictures to illustrate what I'm writing about, and all expressed in the usual way. I enjoy writing - when I have the time! - and there's never any shortage of potential subjects. So things will carry on as before. 

Am I restricting free speech? To be honest, I think much so-called 'free speech' is not worth hearing. There's no point in sounding off at me (or anyone else) unless the message is honest and meaningful. Empty comments - essentially time-wasting junk - just baffle and annoy, and are a nuisance to me and whoever likes to read this blog. 

There's certainly no point in sending inane comments like these, which have started to appear in response to some of my posts. Dozens of them at the same time, a veritable bombardment. Here's a small selection of the latest.

I first noticed the current crop of silly comments a few days ago, all showing up on an old post (about my teeth, of all things, though perhaps the subject doesn't matter) which I had written back in January 2015 (so in fact very few people would see these comments, making them even more pointless). They mostly seemed to come from the Philippines. 

And now, these latest ones on a post about my 70th birthday. 

On the surface it looks to me like a stupid college-student prank. Well, I'm not indulgent where children are concerned. 

I suppose you could say these 'comments' are harmless, not being threatening or obscene - only irrelevant to the post, and irritating to delete. In fact I'm already weary of deleting them. But I suspect there's a darker purpose behind them, and that it's not simply an obscure game. Maybe there's a sinister intention to plant links to my blog via rarely-read posts, with a scam or some other mischief in mind. Well, I don't want to be the unwitting accomplice of whatever lies behind this, so it seems sensible to insulate myself from these communications altogether.  

At some stage, I will quietly allow comments again, but for the present the blog will have to be much like an online newspaper article that nobody can respond to, unless they send a formal email to the editor. Such as:

Madam, I read with disgust your blog post on why you never use hair spray, which totally misses the point and can only inflame the passionate and poisonous national debate on this contentious issue. You deserve severe censure for fanning the flames in this dangerous manner. You are are disgrace. Naturally I concede your right to a point of view, such as it is; but really, what possible qualifications do you have for what you say? None, I assert. So shut up.