“What is a blog?” asked the lady opposite me at the table. For such a pretty and soft looking woman she had an incongruously hard edge to her voice, which took me aback a little.

This was a couple of months ago, during my sojourn in Australia, while I was visiting friends on Coochiemudlo Island, just off the coast of Brisbane. I had barely opened my mouth to reply to the neighbour of one of my friends when the narky woman got in first.

“Is it a diary?” she asked patronisingly.

“No, but it may refer to things that I’ve done, or my thoughts on a particular subject, anything I want to say really – it’s my site so I say what I wish, within reason. I don’t want to be controversial or hurt anyone’s feelings.”

“I suppose it’s like Facebook,” she sneered.

“No…”, I was about to explain.

“I don’t like Facebook. It seems to me that it’s all about self-aggrandisement; I bet a blog is the same,” her tongue lashed out like a stingray’s tail.

(The woman really had it in for blogs, or perhaps it was me; maybe she simply didn’t like the cut of my jib.)

“On the contrary,” I answered, smiling, in an effort not to show that I was stung, “in general my posts are self-deprecating and funny – well I hope they are funny.”

“But what is the purpose of a blog?”

Now I could have replied in my usual way, stating my original perception of the purpose for my blog – to get people around the world to see my site, which is also a showcase for my paintings and books; and I could have added that, not only is it fun, but also I’m intending to cherry-pick the best posts and put them into books (in the right chronological order for happy reading); and I could have told her about one of the most unexpected benefits of my blog – of being accessible to friends and acquaintances with whom I had lost contact over the years. But instead I told her what my niece’s boyfriend had told me when he urged me to build my own website and blog:

“Sally, everyone in the world who is anyone has an Internet presence and a blog. Brad Pitt has one, Alan Sugar has one one, all the film stars, pop stars and racing drivers – everyone! You will be nothing without a blog.”

Miss Stingray said nothing more on the subject but I knew what she was thinking…

“Self-aggrandisement!”