I didn't mean for this blog to last for 20 years. I thought I'd start it one dull Sunday afternoon in September 2002 with no real thought of audience, content or duration. Weblogs were the new big thing, or at least a burgeoning means of online communication, and all I needed was a Blogger account and a name. I picked diamond geezer because I lived in the East End, and because this was so early in the days of social media that few of the best names had been picked. My first post was about how dull Sundays were, which I followed with six further themed mini-rants and hey presto my daily output was up and running.
People couldn't leave comments in those early days, instead they responded by mentioning you on their own blogs and linking back, which made things a lot more friendly but also somewhat incestuous. The tone was generally chatty and conversational: "you must see this..." "I can't believe that..." "oh what a day I've had". From here it was only a short leap to "I have opinions about my TfL journey", which'd soon become a staple theme, but it took rather longer before I fully embraced "I've been somewhere in London and let me tell you all about it".
Blogging became quite popular for a few years with all and sundry starting one in the hope that people might want to hear what they had to say. Alas it often became clear they didn't, and it can get quite disheartening writing to a minimal audience offering no feedback, so most of these blogs swiftly faded away. The dawn of social media in the late 2000s killed off most of the rest because writing a 140-character tweet was a lot easier, and it takes a certain kind of person to continue churning out longform content when all the attention is elsewhere.
I'm still here because I'm self-disciplined - anyone who's kept a daily diary for 45 years is ideally suited to 20 years of daily blogging. I'm still here because I managed to get noticed early - I wouldn't have a hope of gaining an audience if I were starting a new blog today. I'm still here because I'm single - if I had a life partner or a proper social life I totally wouldn't have the time to churn all this stuff out. I'm still here because I haven't yet run out of ideas - it does take a particular kind of creative mind and inquisitive temperament to fill a blank space every day. But mainly I'm still here because I enjoy it - 1000 words about a housing estate in Hounslow? bring it on! - and because other people appear to enjoy it too.
The other joy of being a long-standing blogger is that people sometimes take heed of what you say. If you have a missing timetable at your local bus stop or spot a ridiculously-located Next Train Indicator you could grumble about it, but if I mention it on here something might actually get done. I have a somewhat niggly relationship with TfL, or more particularly with their press office because I don't regurgitate their spoonfed text and sometimes point out things they'd rather weren't highlighted. I still count my biggest investigative success as getting them to confirm that the Metropolitan line extension had been cancelled, dammit, and my biggest rebranding success being widespread use of the term 'dangleway' instead of whatever ridiculous name some sponsor had tried to pay millions for.
I've never embraced the commercial side of blogging because I never wanted to rehash other people's views for money, plus I have enough ideas of my own thanks. But blogging has sometimes delivered rewards money can't buy, like that time someone offered me spare tickets to the Olympic Opening Ceremony dress rehearsal, or that time I spoke to millions on the BBC World Service, or that time I got the opportunity to drive a train, or that time that famous author invited me out for lunch. I even got offered a book deal once, although it turned out that writing a book somebody else wanted me to write was neither easy nor satisfying, so I burned my bridges there.
I had originally hoped that this blog would help me meet people, which initially it did, but what it ultimately led to was helping me to meet London. Initially it was places I was going anyway, then it was places I wouldn't otherwise have been, and ultimately it became any obscure nook or cranny just for the sake of it. I have become a London expert by relentlessly visiting it, officially now all of it, and by having to go home afterwards to try to make sense of what I've seen for a wider audience. There aren't many people who are familiar with Hornchurch, Coulsdon, Yiewsley and Totteridge, not to mention how best to get there, and I have blogging to thank for being so broadly informed.
If you sit down to read this blog every day many thanks, whether that's been for the best part of 20 years or whether you first arrived more recently. If you sometimes leave comments many thanks, because a relevant parallel conversation very much helps to keep the blog alive. I am still going to carry on writing the stuff you're not interested in, sorry, because I'm doing this for me not for you. I am still going to carry on making mistakes because I don't have a perfect understanding of everything, nor more importantly a subeditor, so thanks for putting up with my numerous lapses. I don't always get it right, indeed occasionally I get it spectacularly wrong, but I am always trying to do my best.
Often the best days involve coming up with an idea over breakfast, researching it, going out to collect first hand evidence and writing a post that answers all the pertinent questions for you to read over breakfast the following morning. A special hello to the handful of you who are also churning out excellent content on a regular basis, be that blogging, vlogging or proper journalism, because you'll know this is a lot harder than it looks. The world needs independent interesting investigative intriguing output more than ever these days, otherwise all you're going to end up reading is what someone has paid for you to see.
Over 20 years this blog has become so much more than I ever expected it to be, not least in that it's still here 9500 posts, 6000000 words and 150000 comments later. In that time I've covered everything from flash mobs to step-free blobs, from museums to Midtown and from B Roads to Bus Stop M, and that's only a tiny fraction of it all.
I have so much more to tell you, and excitingly I don't know what it is yet.
