THE 1000 BLOGS OF MARTIN

Not that you’d have actually noticed it because in terms of “published works” and so forth, the numbers really didn’t add up, but nevertheless, I was rather looking for something “momentous” to write about for my 1000th blog posting (which, incidentally, I still suspected might be the last) after a number of days of not really having anything much to say about anything.

And then, rather out of the blue (as it were), former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died and I found that I had something to say about something after all, and, as none of you will probably even remember, I went off and said it, and the “all” list clicked over into four digits (even though the “published” number didn’t) and I then kind of forgot all about that all-unimportant 1000th, which seems to have finally caught up with us today.

[Insert a short and rather disappointing toot on a cardboard cone here]

Of course, that Margaret Thatcher story was weeks ago now and it’s taken the physical day-to-day numbers a while to catch up, because the ever-growing list of unpublished drafts tends to mean that I’ve got more words in the bank than I’ve ever really felt the need to share with the great big wide world.

Thoughts that I half-started, or ones that I put down in a fit of rage or anger but which might just have seemed a little harsh or cruel or ill-thought out in the cold light of the morning after. Things I might be embarrassed to think that you might think I think, and thoughts that I might have once thought but about which I also can find myself thinking amost the exact opposite on occasions.

Then, of course, there is the slight problem that the figure of 1000 is a fairly arbitrary one anyway when it comes to the festering nonsense that I’ve churned out over these past three years. After all, as we travelled this rookie rocky road, there was the blog misfire of the “Tabloid”, the strange month of the “Alternative” and, of course, the surreal world of the “Writers’ Group”, all of which have had their contributions and which, in their own way, add up along with those unseen drafts to a far larger tally than a mere 1000 would suggest.

Still, here we now find ourselves, and I really can’t help wondering whether 1000 blogs (or whatever) is probably enough to be going on with...

Don’t you think that, in life, we all ought to realise sometimes that it’s just time to give up on some things and, perhaps, such things as this? The time comes to us all when we ought to accept that whatever creative spark we might once of thought we might have possessed has blown out, and that things specifically like this colossal waste of time need to finally be allowed to splutter and die so that the real writers of the world can be allowed to get on with their proper work without such idle distractions muddying the waters for everyone...?

To be honest I have had a sense of “coming to the end of term” for this past couple of weeks. On more and more mornings, I’ve found that I have got up and found that I couldn’t think of anything new to write, and so I haven’t, and instead I’ve been happy enough to trawl through one or two of the old and half-forgotten ideas and finally put them out there, simply to help make up the numbers because the current version of my brain is struggling to come up with anything new to say...

I have also begun to wonder whether maybe things have been getting rather too “intimate” lately and the dreary insights into the complexities of certain situations have been as boring to read as they are to endure, and perhaps there’s nothing in them that anyone else would really want to know more about...

However, they do make up a small part of what we might think of as the bigger picture and offer another bit of insight into another facet of a personality which perhaps isn’t so much a diamond but more of a piece of cut glass and, in trawling your way through those thousand or more postings, you’d probably learn all that you would ever need to know about me and my strange little ways as I trudge my way along though this veil of tears...

So there we are then... 1000 blog postings done... Consisting of maybe getting on for a million words when you add them all up... although I'm sure I've wasted a few and the vast majority are probably abject nonsense, but they’re there and they’re done and dusted and I’m unlikely to start tinkering with any of them now even if the march of time makes them, if possible, even more unpalatable than they originally were...

I may return to this from time-to-time of course. You know that I will. Even after that enormous sense of relief which comes from a weight being lifted. After all, I’ve threaten to pull the plug on several occasions along this long and whining road and always been drawn back into it by events or, as is more often the case, my own obsessive compulsion with the keeping the viewing numbers up or hitting that need to publish daily. According to those statistics, some of these pages remain completely unread, even after all this time, and some of my closest intimates still could never be persuaded to read a single word before then complaining that I never tell them anything any more.

So, if you have ventured into Lesser Blogfordshire by accident today, or if you are a regular visitor, how do I persuade people to read the other 999 postings that you’ve well not exactly missed as such because they’re all still there… Waiting... but probably wouldn’t be really interesting in trawling through on the off-chance of finding a nugget amidst all of the dross...?

After all May lost more than 25% of readers when compared month-on-month with April, he said, momentarily sliding into some unfortunate parody of a “sales talk...” and those numbers have been on the slide ever since, so perhaps the great self-levelling market forces really are trying to tell me something and it really is time to fade into blogging oblivion leaving nothing behind but a fond memory or two and the best part of a million words of nonsense for the world to ponder upon - or choose not to - at its leisure.

Meanwhile, in as far as it is possible, I do also sometimes consider pulling the plug entirely on my web presence with the words “end this cruelty” rattling through my brain. It’s not my own cruelty that I’m worrying about, of course, but the inherent cruelty I read time and again in the vapid world of social networking which remains both a force for good and bad in almost equal measure, but which I tire of very quickly, especially if I’m feeling vulnerable... so if the whole lot does suddenly vanish, I wouldn’t be at all surprised and you can’t say I didn’t warn you (assuming, naturally, that you’ve actually bothered to read this far...)

So, I guess there’s nothing left but to finish on a song. Happy 1000th, everyone...

It is time for you to stop all of your blogging,

Yes it’s time for you to stop all of your blogging

Whoa-oh...

There’s one thing you’ve gotta do,

To make me still want you...

Gotta stop blogging now.