Two thousand, three hundred and twenty three days ago, on Monday 8th February 2016, I wrote (and posted) my first ever blog. Today, Sunday 19th June 2022, I am writing (and posting) my one thousandth. Quite a lot has happened in that time.
When I first wrote I didn't need to wear glasses, I didn't have a beard (see photo at the bottom of this piece to see how I've aged), we hadn't had the referendum on EU membership (though it was looming) and we certainly hadn't got Brexit done (we still haven't - not really), David Cameron was the PM, and Barack Obama was the President of the United States. Most us had never even heard the words 'coronavirus' or 'Covid' let alone lived through a pandemic and a series of lockdowns.
The spectre of the ghastly Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister that had loomed so long came to pass like a slow motion car crash and has remained a disaster since day one - as it will until they drag him from Downing Street. Division and discord have dominated the last six and a half years and, because of that, I have written often about those subjects.
But, in that first ever blog, as well as writing that I'd be "sharing rants about politics, religion, ideologies and other ways humans organise their lives in the 21st century", I also wrote that I was "not sure what exactly I'm going to write about on here but chances are music, art and walking will feature prominently" - and so they have.
My series of 34 (and running) Kakistocracy blogs about this governement's negligence, incompetence, corruption, dishonesty, and criminality has felt, to me, like something I have had to do to stop myself exploding with rage but when I write about music, walking, and art - as well as cinema and theatre - it is with a passion for life and I hope that comes through in the writing.
I'm far from a perfect writer but I do believe I am better than average and sometimes I become upset when people don't read or react to my blogs - especially ones I feel very passionate about. I have to remind myself that people have lives, jobs, kids, and other interests. They're very busy and I write a lot so I can't expect people to read them all.
Mind you, if you haven't read a single one by now then please remind me why we are still friends when you have had six years to support this creative venture and have chosen not to do so?
I only half-joke. For years before I started this blog, and continuing now, there has been a small group of people telling me I should write a book some time. Sadly, it's not that easy. It takes time and it costs money and, ideally, you need somebody to publish it. With blogs, anyone can have a go and though I'd flirted with the idea for a while it wasn't until Damon, of all people, suggested I start one and sent me a link to this website that the idea took hold.
I expect he just wanted me to stop ranting and raving and going on on Facebook (how did that work out?) but, nevertheless, I thank him for finding an outlet for my words. Some of the proudest moments in this blogging 'career' have been the times people have told me they've cried reading my writing. Alex told me she cried reading a thing I wrote about migrant children in Calais, Cheryl told me she cried reading an account of a Broken Social Scene gig in the aftermath of the massacre at the Ariana Grande gig, and my mum told me she cried when I finally plucked up the courage to write a piece about my brother, Steven, who died aged 22 in 1999.
Since I've been writing this, I've lost both my nan, Hazel, and one of my oldest and best friends Bugsy. Both were sad - of course - but though I expected my nan to die, Bugsy was just fifty-one and there were periods before and after his death when life felt unbearably unfair and there were periods when I lost track of my self and fell into a sea of booze fuelled self-pity.
That's something I've done, on occasions, throughout much of my adult life and it's not something I'm proud of. I console myself that unlike another friend I've lost (he didn't die, I just couldn't bear to be around his hatred and violence any longer) I take most of it out on myself instead of others. But, still, it's not ideal.
I like the version of myself that arranges walks, sets quizzes, phones his friends, remembers their birthdays, and, yes, writes blogs a lot more than I like the version of myself that sits in Wetherspoons pubs staring into space and posts ugly remarks on social media.
I've always struggled with anxiety and at times that moves towards, and even into, depression. I've never been fully suicidal but I have had lots of, far too much, experience of suicidal ideation (checking the spelling on that on Google I am directed straight to the Samaritans!). Right now, I feel pretty happy with life - I had a lovely walk and tasty curry with good company yesterday and this coming week I'm heading off to north Wales to go on holiday with Michelle and Evie, but I know that the black dog is a very persistent mutt and will no doubt be back when he's hungry enough.
I have to remember not to feed the incorrigible cur. Not encourage him. Part of the reason I write is to help exorcise these demons but I also write to celebrate all that good is in life. For me, much of that is when I manage to get out with my friends for walks in either the countryside or the city, chatting away, stopping for a beer or two, enjoying a curry, and mucking about on the train.
Nearly 10% of all my blogs have been about walking and some of the walks (I think of the two recent Welsh weekends in Llangollen and Chepstow, an Itchen stroll from Eastleigh to Winchester, and my Magnificent Seven cemetery trilogy though there are many more I could include) really do lift my spirits like almost nothing else.
I say almost nothing else because one thing that lifts them even more is spending time with my god-daughter Evie who is the most wonderful, clever, funny, cute, and curious little girl. Despite being an out and out heathen (and proudly writing about that) I was overwhelmed with joy and happiness when Michelle asked me to become her godfather and I can't wait to see her again. Which I will do - very soon.
Despite my anxiety, I've always been like that. I look forward to meeting people and I look forward to doing things. I'd like to say that every day I wake up hopeful but the picture is a bit fuzzier than that. I somehow managed to not get too down during the worst of the pandemic and that is, I think, because my friends, most of them, were brilliant and so were my parents.
Mum rang every morning during the worst of it and we talked, sometimes for well over an hour, about subjects we'd never touched on before. I felt I got to know her better than I had ever been able to. When Ian suggested we do a weekly, or twice weekly, quiz that, too, was a great way of staying in touch with friends as well as making new ones.
As with my daily music 'challenges', the quizzes had a finite life span but they were both fun, and crucial to keeping the mental welfare up, while they happened. Though Covid remains, the pandemic era is pretty much over and the idea of returning to lockdowns seems almost impossible (not least because who'd trust this government to oversee one?) and life is getting back to normal.
That's good - but also not so good. It's good to be able to go out and meet people in person, to travel, to go to art galleries, theatres, and cinemas again but 'normal'? Normal didn't seem so great before the pandemic. Increasing numbers of homeless people on the streets, increased use of food banks, an epidemic of loneliness and self-medication, and a self-serving government who would turn the UK into a dictatorship if they could get away with it.
That's not the normal I want and it's not the future I want. Gandhi said "be the change you want to see in the world" and, for me, those words are timeless. I can't change the world but I can try and change how I react to it. I can try and bring joy to those that deserve it (almost everyone) via my walks and my words and if that's not enough, if that doesn't work, at least I've tried.
As I move on into my fifties, my own mortality becomes an ever more present concern and, with that, one can't help about thinking what kind of legacy, or to be pretentious - footprint, one has left on the world. Mine's a fairly light one, no fame, no business success, no wife, no kids, and, as such, will most likely be blown away in the gentlest of breezes but I guess that's not that important.
We only get one life each and mine has been a process of learning and trying to improve. Writing these words, self-indulgent though they may be, helps me with that process. So I'll carry on doing them. Who knows. Maybe in another six or seven years, I'll be writing about my two thousandth blog.
In the meantime, thanks to each and every one of you for reading them, for commenting on them, for sharing them, or for just being there for me. It means a lot.
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