In 1271 when Marco Polo left Venice at the start of his journey to the land of the Kublai Khan, there was another Marco that traveled with the expedition. 

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Hello to all the people who have sent comments to this blog.

You may have noticed that the comments section is now closed. I have been thinking how to tell you why it has been necessary to do so.  Perhaps a comic would be a good way of explaining the reason. So here goes, please read the comic.

When I started this blog, I received comments, mostly from friends and family. I replied to them all.Then one day a total stranger commented. I was very happy and wrote back to this person and thanked him.Soon, more and more ‘strangers’ from all over the world wrote to me. I was thrilled and thanked them all. I simply felt if someone, whose first language is not English, took the trouble to contact me, I should respond. I even replied to the comments that were negative! All comments are valuable.

Then suddenly, the comments doubled, then trebled and soon I was receiving over 200 contacts a week. I desperately wanted to answer all of them. When my inbox registered 1000 incoming comments I knew I was in trouble.

In desperation I contacted my blog manager and asked him to stop the blog. He wisely decided to close down the comments only and suggested that I carry on with the blog but explain to the readers why we have done this.

I have now dug myself out from under your wonderful comments and want to say THANK YOU for writing. I cannot possibly answer you all individually but I want you to know I appreciate the fact that you took the trouble to comment.

I will open the comments again soon but will only be able to answer a few. Thank you so much for reading ‘The Other Marco’s blog’.

 

 

As this is TOM #18 and being an even number, it is Monster Time again.

Thinking about what kind of Monster to draw, I eventually thought how important it is to say THANK YOU.  So here we have the kind of Monster that never says THANK YOU.  This is how I would have imagined myself if I had not said THANK YOU to all of you who have commented to my blog.

THE THANKLESS MONSTER

Awful looking, isn’t it?