When I started blogging 5 years ago, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. It was a dull Sunday afternoon, somewhere inbetween ironing shirts for work and watching I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. I thought I'd have a go at starting one of those new-fangled blog things, signed up to Blogger and tried to think of a succinct and relevant blog name. Good choice, as it turned out. I picked an off-the-shelf template design (which is still pretty much what you see today, except it used to be green instead of grey). And I kicked off with a themed week of day-related posts, which may just have been a foretaste of what was to come. Not that I realised what was to come at the time.
I sometimes wonder how different the last five years might have been if I hadn't started a blog that day. I'd have had a heck of a lot more spare time for a start, probably adding up to thousands and thousands of hours by now. I might even have gone out in the evenings more often, and kept in contact with various friends, and involved myself at the heart of London's social whirl. But probably not. I suspect I'd just have just sat at home and watched more telly, and surfed the internet and wondered why there was so much crap on there. But I didn't. I joined in, I got involved.
Blogging, done properly, enhances your life. If there's something you desperately want to tell the world you can get it out of your system, even if nobody's listening. It's a particularly useful tool for us single people. We have nobody to turn to during the news and say "who does that Gordon Brown think he is?" or "wahey, two up for the Arsenal!" or "blimey that Amy Winehouse is looking rough". Blogging gives us an outlet, with the ever-present possibility of feedback. It's also somewhere to show off one's literary talents, such as they are, under-practised since your English teacher used to set you essays for homework many moons ago. And a blog is a useful foothold in cyberspace, an online headquarters from which to reach out to others. If they ever want to communicate with you, now they know where to come.
If there's one thing that blogging has brought me that I really wasn't expecting, it's friends. Some of these are just virtual acquaintances, although it's amazing how well you can come to know these people just by reading what they have to say, snooping on their online witterings and joining in with their discussions. Others I've actually met in real life. Only a select few, you understand, because I'm not overkeen on mass random blogmeets. But these are charming, delightful, witty people, who I'd never have had the pleasure of knowing otherwise. Hell, I've even snogged one of them. Who'd have thought that staying in could actually help me to go out more often?
And there have been a few other unique experiences I'd never have had without blogging. I've had some articles published in Time Out. I've been on local radio for seven minutes. I've written one whole page of a book that's currently ranked 5932nd on Amazon. I've been interviewed for proper academic research. I've successfully campaigned to get the official Olympic Countdown Clock outside Stratford station to display the right date. And I've inspired a double page article in the Evening Standard about Metronet's uselessness at my local tube station (which was discussed in the London Assembly, no less, but then summarily dismissed by the Chairman of Metronet as follows: "Articles which refer to an unnamed passenger's account having travelled through a station quite frankly are not worthy of any detailed examination." Well, who's in administration now then, you smug bastard?). It's amazing where blogging can take you.
I'm glad I started diamond geezer 5 years ago, because my life would have been far less rich if I hadn't. I've been to places I'd never have thought of visiting otherwise. I've met people I'd not otherwise have met. I've constructively filled time that I'd otherwise have frittered away. And I've found a way of being creative online that other people actually appear to appreciate. Blogging's not just publishing words on the internet, oh no. It's so much more than that.
