Salut! and its offshots, Salut Live! and Salut! Sunderland, have no special rule book about the separation of editorial and advertising.
These site take a lot of time to maintain, and have no obvious source of proper income. They are, on the other hand very rewarding in other ways and I love the exchanges, many of them sharp or funny orilluminating, that my postings sometimes inspire.
A lot of you have said you like at least some of what you find here. Some, as I have admitted before, will arrive by chance, recoil in horror or yawn and scarper as fast as their cyber legs will carry them.
But if you are in the first category, please do not be offended if I occasionally draw your attention to small ways in which, absolutely according to your own choice, you can help me keep the sites going and keep looking as enthusiastically as now for interesting material to share.
The book and music links are obvious examples. If you come here, and then find out about something you might like to read or hear, please use the links down the right hand column to make such purchases from Amazon.
If you like a flutter, and are at Salut! Sunderland, look up the Boylesports link (the Irish bookmakers are, for unsuspecting folkies and francophiles, the new sponsors of Sunderland AFC.
And if it's a visit to Cornwall that appeals, visit the site of my old friend and former colleague Mike Fleet, whose B&B near Lostwithiel makes an appearance from today. I have not been there and will offer no personal recommendation save to say that Mike's a grand lad, despite being a Plymouth supporter, and is rather proud of his fry-ups.
If only I'd had a dozen of these and other ads in place yesterday. My "hit rate" across the three sites was very nearly 1,000, the best ever.
But with any luck, enough of the first-time visitors will have been tempted to return, and some may even fancy books on France and Hamida Ghafour's Afghantistan, albums by Kate Rusby and Fairport Convention and even a copy of Alice in Sunderland .*
It goes without saying that responding to any of that publicity, or clicking on the array of Google ads, is not a pre-requisite of being welcome here. The sites have other functions. Or at least I think they do, so come and read and, if the urge appears, take part in the debates.
There is very little censorship: I may from time to time tire sufficiently of tit-for-tat exchanges that stray so far from the point of the posting, and descend so far into unedifying abuse, that I intervene. More likely still, I'll just ignore it and steam on regardless.
And if you think you have a guest column in you, for any of the sites, just let me know.
* In each of these cases, incidentally, I have sampled the goods and heartily commend them. Even Hamida's book, though I repeat the interest to declare: she's a freind.
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