Welcome to My New Home
Why I finally gave in and joined Substack
Well, this is a little awkward. For years I said “I’ll never end up on Substack”, looked down my nose (not easy when you’re 5’8”) at those who jumped to the platform whilst muttering: “They’ll never drag WordPress out of my cold, dead hands”. And now here I am. On Substack. Hands empty and WordPress disappearing in the rear view mirror, flattened like so much digital roadkill on the super-information highway.
Here’s the thing: I loved WordPress. I really did. But then that love affair turned out to be a bit like the way I loved our elderly Volvo Estate. Sure, it had lots of memories, was fun to tinker with, and had 300,000 miles on the clock … but suddenly you realise you’re spending all your time tinkering and not actually getting anywhere.
Likewise with WordPress. Too often I’d sit down to write, then the Ghosts of Procrastination Present and Future would turn up and whisper “Hey, there’s a plugin or script that could save you a whole 10 seconds of time” and seven hours (and as many coffees) later, I’d realise I hadn’t written a single word.
After one epic late night “let’s change the template again” session, I finally realised that WordPress had become less a blogging platform and more a very sophisticated displacement mechanism. It was time for it to follow MySpace (that ages me, doesn’t it?) to the digital breaker’s yard.
So this is the new home for andybannister.net and all my writing that doesn’t fit into the work I do at Solas (do check them out by the way). Here you’ll find essays, ideas, reflections on faith and culture, writing and thought experiments, and maybe even early versions of material that will make it into a book in due course.
So, have a look around — I hope you’ll find things that will make you think and laugh, that will inspire your curiosity, make you want to read more, discuss, or argue back. If you enjoy reading the stuff here half as much as I enjoy writing it: well, I’ll have had twice as much fun as you, for one thing.
Oh, and there’s some more good news.
Everything I write here is free and always will be. I want people to discover the wonder of Jesus and the Christian faith and to grow deeper in that faith. So insisting on fees or putting up a paywall seems wrong.
However, writers do need to eat. (Or at least we need coffee1). And my children occasionally say things like: “Dad, I’ve outgrown my shoes again”.2 So I do ask that if you value my writing and if you can afford to do, would you possibly consider taking out a paid subscription? This helps enable me to keep on writing, supports those who can’t afford to pay, and keeps everything on the site accessible to all.
Subscribe for free and you’ll get every new piece straight to your inbox. But paid subscribers also get access to the comments and conversation with other readers, plus the warm, glowing feeling of knowing you’re keeping a writer fed and his children in shoes, Lego, and Tim Tams.3 So if all this sounds like something you’d enjoy, hit subscribe and pull up a chair.
Once again, a warm welcome to the new Substack version of andybannister.net. I hope I’ll see you here often.
Ideally intravenously.
Which is marginally better than “Dad, I’ve eaten my shoes again”.
Try them: you’ll never go back to Penguin Biscuits or Kit Kats.