Changes to this blog...

Last night I made a few changes to this blog. The most obvious is the picture in the Header. When I created this blog, I made a point of using art by J.R.R Tolkien himself, and the first picture was taken from Chapter VI of The Hobbit. The new one is also from The Hobbit, although the illustration was not included in some editions - the only edition I have in which this illustration appears is the 2007 70th anniversary edition, which is supposed to be based on the First Edition (I have never actually seen a First Edition of The Hobbit, much as I'd like to own one). The painting depicts Bilbo's journey in the bitter cold down the River of Northern Mirkwood, and is a rather nice painting, considering Tolkien was not the greatest of all artists.

Other minor changes include a ''Reactions'' thingy, added to all posts. I had wanted to include more reactions, such as ''incomprehensible,'' or ''funny'' but Blogger would have none of it. As a result, I have only used two. The first is derived from reported meetings between Tolkien and C.S Lewis, in which Tolkien would read Lewis some of his manuscripts, to which Lewis would (if he approved) wave his pipe and pace up and down crying ''distinguo, Tollers, distinguo!'' The other is pretty straightforward. The other changes (I can't remember them all, and it was 4:00am in the morning when I made them) include changing ''Favourite Blogs'' to ''Blogroll'' since many of the blogs in my Blogroll are not, in fact, my ''favourite'' blogs. Some are there because I find them especially interesting, others because they are amusing, some out of politeness (since the authors have added me to their blogrolls), some because I find it easier to just have a quick link to a blog without typing in the URL. As you probably know, I don't link to some blogs because I don't like the bloggers. Apropos, I have also done away with some blogs - only because I have realised that it is months since I last looked at them.

I hope you find this blog a tad more interesting because of the changes. I might make some more in the next few days, provided that I am spared for a time the rigours of scrupulous research (by that I mean leisurely sitting in the Library with a Lewis & Short and going through St Bede!)...