ANOTHER GIMMICK FROM ANOTHER WRITER IN THE HOPE OF GETTING PUBLISHED ONE DAY....

Yesterday afternoon I watched my last YouTube video for the next twelve months. I'm not sure whether to squeal with excitement or weep like a small child who has dropped their ice cream. It has been at the back of my mind for some time now that maybe (just maybe) I spend too much time watching videos on the internet. I have done mini web-'fasts' before here and there - no internet for a day; no Kindle for a week - but I've never felt the need to make a big, dramatic statement like this one before. And I still hadn't, just eleven minutes before the end of my last YouTube video till May 2017.

This short excerpt from Michael Voris on a religious form of time-wasting spoke to me more loudly and clearly than when (potentially) the angels knackered my Kindle yesterday so I was reduced to the drudgery of powering up the laptop when I could be bothered or waiting for Mr B to come off the big PC. Voris makes a very good point, that even the best-intentioned research can turn into nothing more than spiritual or intellectual porn if you should be doing something else but you just can't switch off. Maybe you are watching a university professor talk about philosophy, but if you suddenly realise you're several hours passed your bedtime and this is lecture number 47, you're just as much of an addict as someone who can't pass up on a playlist of cats playing the piano. Not that I've ever watched 47 videos in a row. As far as I'm aware.

I used to write a novel a year (sadly unpublished, yes, though there was that one novella...). I'm fairly certain I haven't even written my first poem of 2016 yet. And that Rosary novena to Our Lady of Pompeii would probably feel a lot less rushed if I wasn't also cramming in the offerings of Voris, Hahn, Kreeft and Barron, to name just a fraction. We had best not mention the Star Wars fan theory videos or ultimate diva playlist I have managed to compile lest it start to sound like I live on the cursed video site. Oh no! I just realised I've nowhere to hear Shirley now! Barbra's fine: I have CDs.