**** RESEARCH WARNING **** 

BUT NOT TOO HEAVY

**** RESEARCH WARNING ****

I have just been responding to some comments on something I wrote about implied readers - fair critIcisms of what I'd done but not stuff which made me back off totally, because now I've done a bit more reading I know there is a whole range of these unreal readers - implied, ideal, constructed, imagined, single, plural, targetted and so on.  As I typed my reply, I was conscious that I was constructing a reader for my answer, inferring certain characterstics of him/them (two real, male readers) and of myself as the writer/narrator.

This is the trouble isn't it - you start thinking about something and it takes off on its own.

Who is the implied/imagined/constructed reader of this blog?  Who is the implied/constructed/imagined writer?  How close is either to reality, and what is that anyway?  Aaargh, I think I need to go and lie down in a darkened room!!