As someone who uses words as a way of earning a living, it would be fairly reasonable to assume that I have an extensive vocabulary. Trust me, this is not the case.

On more occasions than I care to remember, I have tied myself in knots trying to be clever by using words I don’t even know the full meaning of and trust me, that is never a good thing on live television. Especially when I’ll have been there to speak as an ‘expert’ on a specific subject and will have had precise points I wanted to make. The consequence being that instead of coming across as any kind of authority, I’ll have appeared as nothing more than a thick yob.

Quite why I fell into this trap escapes me because as I’ve always told anyone who wants to write, you must know your market because if you do that, you will always give it what it wants. Given that my market is ‘me’ (and blokes like me) it doesn’t take a genius to understand that simple is best. Be it simple to read or simple to listen to.

I was reminded of this basic truth whilst putting together my new website (www.dougiebrimson.com) because whilst it is primarily a promotional tool for my work, its secondary function is to promote…. well, me! Be it as a potential colleague or as a potential speaker.

Therefore, it seems fairly reasonable to assume that trying to be too clever would be counter-productive.  Not least because when I turn up, whoever has hired me is in for something of a shock!

That’s not to say that the website has been dumbed down at all, but it was put together with the notion of ‘what you see is what you get’ at the forefront of my thinking.  Not easy when you dislike talking about yourself as I do.

I actually think it has come together very well and certainly the response thus far has been extremely positive.  However, I am aware that it is lacking a certain something… it’s not really ‘blokey’ enough. Quiet what I do about that has become something of a quandary. After all, anyone clicking on my blog will rapidly learn all they need to know about me as an individual but those that don’t might well form a very different impression.

One idea was to include a ‘comment for the day’ page but this idea is fraught with danger dependent as it would be on my mood that morning. Similarly, ‘word of the day’ would be fairly misleading given that it would inevitably infer a degree of intellect I do not possess and would fairly rapidly feature words I would never use in a million years. Remember, my favourite word is and always will be ‘bollocks’.

Another idea was ‘joke of the day’ but this was rapidly dismissed on account of my love of www.sickipedia.org and the inherent dangers that lie with that! After all, in recent months I’ve been labelled homophobic, sexist, racist and even ‘heightist’ (long story) and whilst I know that I’m none of those things, anything that adds weight to such outrageous accusations is best avoided.

So quite what I’m going to do about this remains something of a mystery. Of course I could just leave well alone but that in itself isn’t exactly blokey.

After all, tinkering is what we do!