When I clicked 'NEW POST' to start writing this, a huge blogging milestone ticked round.
But it's not my ten-thousandth published post - that's still months away - merely the ten thousandth post on my dashboard. And that's because there are still almost 200 posts in my 'Drafts' folder, started but never finished, because not every idea is worthy of seeing the light of day.
So I thought I'd have a look back through 20 years of Drafts to look at some of the rubbish I never pushed to completion or consciously hid away so you'd never see it.
My oldest Draft post is an early version of my 2003 blog index, while my second appears to be a plea to Blogger Support that something isn't working properly...
Test post, for the benefit of Blogger Support.
Please join the scientific experiment in the comments box.
Hi Kimmy - see? 13
I've no idea what that was about.
My oldest genuine unpublished post is from May 2005 and featured 49 tiny favicons...
Do you have a favicon? If so then you might appear in my (clickable) blog gallery above. Favicons are those tiny 16x16 graphics that you probably see displayed in your browser's address bar or in your list of bookmarks. Some are miniature works of art - it's amazing how creative people can be in just 256 pixels. You can create your own favicon here. Then you just save the resulting image file to your server, probably as favicon.ico, and other people's browsers do the rest. There are 49 fine favicons in my gallery above, each lifted from a blog on my reading list. Go click. Or, even better, go make one of your own.
...except the 49 tiny graphics proved undisplayable so what you got instead was me moaning that I couldn't publish my draft post.
In October 2007 I wrote a post that consisted of 500 words of Lorem Ipsum...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer ipsum nunc, laoreet eget condimentum eget, egestas id velit. Nullam ornare, diam dignissim posuere tempor, urna enim convallis ante, sed pulvinar metus felis non tortor. Maecenas at mollis tellus. Sed non mauris pellentesque libero malesuada suscipit...
...so I'd either run out of ideas or I was really busy and desperately needed to publish something.
In September 2008 I have a draft post that just says...
"So, where did you go on holiday this year?"
...which sounds like I was sick of work colleagues telling me about their summer jaunts when I'd been no further than a day trip to the Isle of Wight.
In May 2009 I started a list of '50 London things I've never done' but ran out of ideas after five.
Been round Buckingham Palace
Watched a TV show being recorded at BBC TV Centre
Watched the New Year's Parade (noon, it's far too early)
Watched a Parliamentary debate
Paid for a deckchair in a Royal Park
I've since done all of those apart from paying for a deckchair in a Royal Park, so it's an even worse list now.
In May 2010, after a pivotal General Election, I wrote a short poem which I decided never to show you.
I sing you the ballad of Gillian Duffy,
Her cardie was pink and her slippers were fluffy.
With straight northern talking she brought Labour down,
And let the boy Cameron ride into town.
She went down the shops for a medium loaf
And bumped into Gordon the blundering oaf,
He smiled to her face as they talked immigration
Then slunk to his car with increasing frustration.
His mike was switched on but he just didn't twig it
And furiously slagged off the elderly bigot.
His rant hit the media and quickly went viral
On Facebook and YouTube - a bleak downward spiral.
As votes drained away to the blue opposition
The crown passed to Dave and his Clegg coalition.
Take heed politicians - one slip of the tongue
Can end your career and leave Parliament hung.
I think I made the right call there.
This could have been first post of 2011 but I chose not to publish it.
2001 - two thousand and one (not twenty oh one) 2002 - two thousand and two (not twenty oh two) ... 2008 - two thousand and eight (not twenty oh eight) 2009 - two thousand and nine (not twenty oh nine) 2010 - two thousand and ten / twenty ten ? 2011 - two thousand and eleven / twenty eleven ? 2012 - (not two thousand and twelve) twenty twelve 2013 - (not two thousand and thirteen) twenty thirteen ... 2099 - (not two thousand and ninety-nine) twenty ninety-nine
So, when does the year-naming methodology change. Was it last year, is it this year, or will it be next year? When is/was the last day of the "two thousand and"s?
It's still a good question though.
In February 2011 I did some consumer research...
How much 415g of Heinz Beans costs
• single 415g tin = 64p (64p for 415g) • pack of four 415g tins = £2.35 (59p) • pack of six 415g tins = £3.49 (58p)
• one 1kg fridge-door pack = £1.79 (74p)
• single 200g tin = 48p (£1.00) • pack of three 200g tins = £1.43 (99p) • pack of four 200g microwaveable tubs = £1.89 (99p)
Which begs the question, why do people buy beans in anything other than the normal-sized tin?
Shockingly a 415g can of Heinz beans now costs £1.40 at Tesco, which is more than double what it cost in 2011.
In November 2011 I had a good thought but got no further than the first sentence...
There are two kinds of people. Those that think to look behind them, and those who don't.
In March 2012, when they repeated the Dragon's Den episode about Diamond Geezer the jewellery start-up, I published this temporary post and left it up for an hour or two before returning it to 'Drafts'.
If you're watching Dave, no, the Diamond Geezer jewellery site is here.
In March 2014 I never bothered to publish this seasonal snippet.
The first time we've had daffodils on St David's Day for years. (and at least six weeks ahead of last year)
Once Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park opened my local daffodils were never going to be that late again.
In April 2016 I cut and pasted a paragraph from a Wikipedia page being considered for deletion.
On 1 April 2016, blogger Diamond Geezer published an April Fool, that stated UK supermarket Waitrose had partnered with TfL and would be opening a Little Waitrose store, only accessible by Tube train, in the closed Down Street station on "31 June 2016".[4] Chambers, believing the April Fool to be fact, began posting on his Twitter feed a series of tweets[5] threatening legal action, directed at the managing director of Waitrose Rob Collins: "London Disused Tube station legal case will involve Waitrose should I find proof of their involvement and use of my IP through TFL #waitrose". Chambers, having had the April Fool pointed out to him after a number of hours, still forced Waitrose to respond[6] denying any plan to open a store in Down Street. Chambers subsequently apologised tweeting: "@waitrose Cough Cough. thats an apology."[7]
It's just as well I did because they did indeed delete it.
In September 2016 I published this, very briefly, then hid it away again.
At 8am this post will be deleted, along with any comments it may have gathered, and today's real post will be published.
In May 2017 I put a lot of effort into this draft post which for some reason I never brought you.
Stations in Bow: Bow Road, Bow Church
1 station from Bow: Mile End, Bromley-by-Bow, Pudding Mill Lane, Devons Road
2 stations from Bow: Stepney Green, West Ham, Bethnal Green, Stratford, Langdon Park
3 stations from Bow: Whitechapel, Plaistow, Canning Town, Barking, Limehouse, All Saints, Star Lane, Abbey Road, Stratford High Street, Stratford International, Liverpool Street, Leyton, Hackney Wick, Lea Bridge, Maryland, Romford, Shenfield, Chelmsford
4 stations from Bow: Aldgate East, Upton Park, East Ham, Upney, North Greenwich, Shoreditch High Street, Shadwell, Woodgrange Park, Dagenham Dock, Upminster, Fenchurch Street, Poplar, Westferry, East India, Royal Victoria, West Silvertown, Bank/Monument, Moorgate, Bethnal Green, Homerton, Tottenham Hale, Leytonstone, Forest Gate, Chadwell Heath, Gidea Park, Emerson Park, Brentwood, Billericay, Ingatestone, Hatfield Peverel, Witham, Colchester, King's Cross St Pancras, Ebbsfleet International
5 stations from Bow: Tower Hill, Becontree, Upminster Bridge, Canary Wharf, Hoxton, Wapping, Wanstead Park, Rainham, Ockendon, West Horndon, Laindon, West India Quay, Blackwall, Tower Gateway, Custom House, Pontoon Dock, St Paul's, Waterloo, Cannon Street, London Bridge, Old Street, Barbican, Hackney Central, Cambridge Heath, Hackney Downs, Northumberland Park, Ponders End, Cheshunt, Harlow Town, Seven Sisters, Blackhorse Road, Wanstead, Snaresbrook, Manor Park, Goodmayes, Harold Wood, Wickford, White Notley, Kelvedon, Marks Tey, Colchester Town, Hythe, Manningtree, Ipswich, Farringdon, Kentish Town, West Hampstead, Luton Airport Parkway, Luton, Market Harborough, Leicester, Finsbury Park, Stevenage, Letchworth, Cambridge, Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, York, Gravesend, Ashford International, Lille, Bruxelles Midi, Paris Nord
6 stations from Bow: (actually, best stop there...)
In March 2018 I devised a really easy tube quiz but I haven't yet found the right time to post it.
In March 2019 I thought about tagging this table onto a summary of my West Midlands bloggage, but left it out.
In February 2020 I knocked up a post called London's Best Hidden Secrets, and it's actually quite good and I might use it one day.
In November 2022 I started researching the decline of London's free council fireworks displays.
2010: Blackheath, Clapham Common, North Kensington, Southwark, Victoria Park, Wanstead Flats, Willesden 2013: Blackheath, Brockwell Park, Chiswick, Lord Mayor's Show, Southwark, Victoria Park, Wanstead Flats, Waltham Forest 2016: Blackheath, Lord Mayor's Show, Southwark, Victoria Park, Waltham Forest, Wanstead Flats, Wembley 2019: Blackheath, Royal Docks, Victoria Park 2022: extinct
On New Year's Day 2023 I started an anniversary quiz but couldn't finish it so gave up.
2023 anniversary quiz
Here are 26 events celebrating an anniversary in 2023. How many can you identify?
a)opened Apr 1923 (100 years): Brent's arena b)raced May 1923 (100 years): 24 hours on wheels c)unveiled Jul 1923 (100 years): letters over LA d)founded Oct 1923 (100 years): a Mickey Mouse company e)joined Jan 1973 (50 years): continental cooperation f)picked up Oct 1823 (200 years): oddly-shaped balls g) xxxxxxx xx23 (x00 years): xxx
And finally last month I put together this list of all the UK seaside I've been to, then decided you wouldn't be interested in seeing it.
And those are just 20 of the posts in my drafts folder.
Some are rubbish, some may one day see the light of day, some are ideas that fizzled out, some appeared briefly, some would have worked but their time has been and gone, some evolved into something else, some are great ideas waiting for the right moment, some are merely housekeeping and some just shouldn't be there at all. A good blogpost has to start somewhere.
Oh, and while looking through my drafts I've realised that several can be safely deleted, so I have, which means my blog no longer contains ten thousand published and unpublished posts. Meanwhile my ten thousandth published post remains several months away, there's no change there, and obviously I'll be sure to let you know when that milestone finally comes around.
How much 415g of Heinz Beans costs
