New addition to blogroll - The Devil's Kitchen

A link by Gary at A Big Stick and a Small Carrot has alerted me to the presence in the blogosphere of a new, quality, right-of-centre blog billed as originating in Edinburgh and going under the name of The Devil's Kitchen, although who the person behind that pseudonym might be is not revealed to us. From what I can gather, having read a fair bit of his recent output as well as at least some of his writing from earlier periods, he (if the photograph may be taken as a true likeness) certainly knows how to string his ideas together in a very attractive way; whilst there is a great deal of what he writes that appeals to me (his general ideas on economics, etc) there is some of course that I find less appealing (or, to be blunt, that I find completely off the wall) - what he is not is uncontroversial, but the quality of the writing is such that it is a pleasure to read, even when some of the topics he discusses often, and at length, seem to tend toward monomania. Another interesting side to his personality seems to be revealed by another blog to which he contributes, called Kandinsky.

My one serious reservation is his recent attempt to form a rather (no, let's not mince words here - not rather, but outrageously) PRETENTIOUS 'DK Party' with a full complement of other bloggers calling themselves members of his 'DK Cabinet'! What a load of (*) [* - insert vernacular for 'waste material' here]! There are very few worthwhile 'group blogs', or 'participative' blogs - it is possible that The Devil's Kitchen may develop into one of this illustrious group, but the omens do not at this early stage look very hopeful. The person behind this blog seems to write with great fluency and skill on topics that matter to him, as do at least some of those he has 'recruited' to his gang - I think this kind of pretendy puffed-up kind of 'DK Cabinet' idea will quickly become very tired and the initial amusement factor will quickly become mere tedium. [In the way that Nanny Knows Best has moved from what started as a clever, accurate and amusing notion to an insistence on referring to the fictional 'Nanny' in every post - talk about Chinese water torture!] Why can't people just write what they think without dressing up their ideas in some pretend personality or grouping that exists only in their imagination? Possibly its the same kind of sentiment that makes some groups of little boys and girls form their own little groupings with their own arcane little codes and little practices. At least our own beloved pretendy Scottish Parliament does, unfortunately and at great cost, exist in the real world: its great 'merit' is to expose (just for the sake of confirmation, although none is needed) just how vacuous are socialism, the Labour Party and its collaborators the Liberal Democrat Party.

Anyway, if after my little diatribe you still wish to do so, you could do a lot worse than to give The Devil's Kitchen a whirl.
(Readers who manage to wade their way through this whole post might characterise it as being 'double-edged' - and they would be right.)