"A trolling, a trolling we will go."

ibook, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

You know you've arrived in the grand world of blogging when you start getting trolls come to your site. For those unaware of the term, a "troll" is, according to Wikipedia;

"someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion"

Actually, I think that this is unfair to our diminutive, magical bretheren as those who indulge in such behaviour have much more in common with bar room bores. You know the kind of guy who thinks that half a dozen shots of Jack Daniels has turned them into Plato.

I'm sure many of us have experienced this, cornered by some very earnest drunk at a party/bar/office do who just has to tell you that masons are controlling the government/ floride in water is eroding moral values in schools/ NASA didn't actually put men on the moon etc, etc.

Like drunks, trolls swerve from politeness to vitriol in the blink of an eye, they also share the tendency to repeat the same points again and again. Also like people driving under the influence their conversation is liable to swerve at unexpected moments making them hard to follow. Unfortunately, they feel that the ability to hector and belittle is the same as being right and that if you heckle and deride people into silence, then somehow, you have "won" an argument.

I've decided I'm not going to engage them in debate as they are no more capable of responding appropriately than someone on their second bottle of Johnny Walker.

Comments, negative ones included are more than welcome, provided you maintain a modicum of politeness and understand that this is a blog and not a platform for you to lecture people on whatever you feel is wrong with the world.