It's always interesting to read back on why people do things, especially people who end up making a career or a fortune out of the seemingly benign choices they make. Thelma Schoonmaker, the film editor whom my previous post was about was one of those people; she got into editing after seeing an ad in the New York Times. I'm in no way suggesting I'm going to make a fortune, nor that I'm a Thelma Schoonmaker in the making, but I certainly do make a lot of benign choices. Art blogging, for me, was one of those benign choices. I made the decision to start an art blog very randomly, so randomly I'm not even sure where the idea came from. At the time I had been studying a bachelor of psychology for about two years and found myself interested in the subject, but underwhelmed with the lack of creative ideas and media I was being exposed to. I'd always been interested in art and most creative mediums, often recording music or taking photographs on the side. But the pages and pages of white and black scientific journal articles must have got to me, because I found myself yearning for splashes of colour, moving imagery, challenging concepts and undefinable ideas. The next thing I knew I had started an art blog aptly titled: Artistic Expansion and I began spending hours a day searching through the internet for content, often finding my best pieces in the most random places, often not even defined intentionally as 'art'. Over the last two years I must have blogged hundreds of multi-coloured, multi-textured and multi-layered images, accumulated over 2000 followers and consumed more art than I ever had in my entire life. I find it interesting not because of it's success, but because before I started my art blog, I really had no idea how much I did or could love art and once I had made my art blog I couldn't imagine how I ever functioned without it. After the story ends, the author probably: A. starts a new hobby of car repairs B. continues pursuing artistic ventures C. not enough information D. stops doing art
B

I have unfriended someone over his near daily harassment of me to come over to his way of thinking. Way back in 2006, when Facebook was a young whelp and I had a newborn who steadfastly refused to sleep at night, I would sit and connect with old friends from university and high school, many of whom I had not seen or spoken with in more than a decade. One of those people was Scott. Scott was a super nice guy. He was a year ahead of me at university. He was a bit socially awkward but you really couldn't hope to meet a more genuine individual. Like most people, Scott had had some ups and downs in his life. At some point he found religion. Like he really, really found it. Now, I am somewherere between an agnostic and an atheist but my attitude is generally live and let live. But Scott couldn't do that. Almoost every day he would send me some sort of message. "What do you pray about?" I don't. "God loves you, he gave his son for you, why don't you love Him?" Because I don't believe He or his Son exist. "What are you going to say when you die and stand before Satan instead of God?" Missed that by a mile, didn't I? This went on for a few months. His questions became increasing unhinged and the only thing that mattered to him were his beliefs. Mine were of no consequence. I had asked him, politely at first and then more assertively, to stop bombarding me with his attempts to convert me or to witness to me. All to no avail. Finally, I'd had enough and decided I had better things to do. I pulled the plug and unfriended Scott. He's sent me several friend requests over the years, all of which I have summarily ignored. When did Scott get unfriended? A. after he refused to stop pushing his religion B. not enough information C. before he refused to stop pushing his religion D. as soon as he found religion
A

With almost two years left of my law degree, and with no intention of doing anything so idiotic as actually attending lectures or studying law, I had plenty of time to come up with my next bid for online fame. The Griff Rhys Jones TV project had stalled after a couple of meetings when everyone involved realised that the idea - to pipe broadband comedy programming into the nation's workplaces under the noses of bosses - was a bit of a non-starter. But I had become quite good friends with Rhys Jones's partner in the project, a comedy writer called Charlie Skelton, and he, Clare and I frequently met to brainstorm possible projects we might work on together. It was during one of these meetings that Clare proposed the idea of starting a comedy magazine - something like Private Eye, but for the Internet generation. My days as a school magazine publisher had taught me that printing magazines and distributing them was a royal pain in the arse and, anyway, if it was to be a magazine for the Internet generation then shouldn't it actually be on the Internet? The Zingin.com newsletter had attracted a ton of subscribers and had a distribution cost of basically nothing so why, I suggested, didn't we start a weekly comedy ezine, sent out by email? And, in a nod to Charlie's failed office comedy project, we could target it at bored office workers, sending the email to them on a Friday afternoon to cure the crushing boredom of those final few hours of the working week. And with that, The Friday Thing was born. To promote our fledgling publication we came up with a brilliant ruse: an online petition to have Friday afternoons declared a national holiday. British people worked harder than any other Europeans (we made up) and so it was only fair that our working week should end at noon on a Friday. We created an official website explaining our demands, registered a web address - letsgetitoff.com (snigger) - and sent a press release to the media. Clearly we had tapped into a seam of strong feeling among the nation's overworked... The Friday Thing probably became: A. The pivot of Clare's career B. not enough information C. Popular D. Charlie's biggest failure
C