Jump in both feet first (the spider's web)

Hello out there!

This is my first ever B L O G and stupidly I am shivering in my bare feet. I called my blog "grasping the nettle" as it forms part of my personal efforts to come to terms with a technology which I find immensely scary because I can't grasp (here goes again with grasping!) its extent, whichever way I turn it around. Like the concept of infinity, the Net leaves me gasping for breath (that, and the usual asthma of course...)and wondering why my brain does not manage to get round it like it did simple algebra or the rules of French grammar. I didn't even understand the plot of the Matrix or that of the Matrix reloaded and I have fairly given up on that. I like things I understand, and things that are predictable...

Anyway I will regale you with a tiny piece of writing I did for Alain.

"This morning I am a small spider, with very fine and delicate legs who has lost the thread of its web.

What was I trying to catch? A great big mosquitoe which would sting me and drink my blood? An innocent and sweet fruit fly who never did me any harm? A huge horse fly, which hurts like mad if you rub against it?

I am not too sure..

Let's get back to the thread of our thoughts, then.

Ah! Right! I was only weaving a web for show: it would sooner break than emprison any being. My net only catches jewelled dew drops which land there to better define its geometry. It's a web made to rock dreams, to fill with delight the anxious angles of a life; transparent, elegant, light as a flegling's breath, floaty, diaphanous and strong.

You see: already the spider has created in my head the thoughts that must be had. Thoughts that are where they are meant to be!"

Translated from the French it's not quite the same, but may be that's right too?

I am very, very proud of myself for doing this. More another day when I have recovered from the shock...