10 years of blogging

This is my 10 year blog anniversary. Yes folks, that inaugural post was on August 11 back in 2006. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it was about David Bowie. I've had 158,000 page views which, let's face it, isn't going to make The Huffington Post lose any sleep.

When I started, blogging was quite new in the UK.  I was forever trying to reach out to other bloggers, because the name of the game was having other bloggers visiting you and leaving comments. There were quite a few blog challenges and "link ups" where you left a comment on someone's blog and they linked to yours via a widget called Mr Linky. Most of the people who linked to me were young moms from New Orleans, so I wasn't really getting to the right demographic.

Blogging was quite naive and pure then.  Nowadays blogs from young wannabes writing about clean eating, fashion and makeup, with immaculate companion pages at Pinterest, Instagram and so on are ten a penny. I take my hat off to the successful ones, where they're fortunate enough to be deluged with "product", ads and trillions of followers. Some, like Zoella, have reinvented the nature of celebrity. We can all be famous, and not just for 15 minutes.  Sadly the only product offer I had from a big brand was for Impulse, and I sniffily disdained it.

Blog Litter 

When I started, there were a few blog aggregators --- I suspect these were nerds in their bedroom --- who would include your blog on their list. 

Technorati was one of the biggest and best known. There were others like MyBlogLog and BlogFlux.

Meanwhile I was swotting up on spiders  (not from Mars but from Google) and learning about meta tags. Now I don't do much to promote my blog except for a mention on Facebook and Twitter when there's a new post. 

Blogger got bought by Google and they don't do much to develop it, although the search and translate functions are nice to have.

A lot of the blogs I genuinely liked have not been updated for years. They litter the web like shipwrecks on the sea floor.

My topics have been many. I went through a period where I reviewed TV programmes including Big Brother (how mortifying), The Apprentice and Celebrity Big Brother. I've also done a few restaurant and theatre reviews. I bore for Britain on the subject of my garden.  I occasionally use to snipe at celebrities I didn't like. I also like a bit of nostalgia, so there are plenty of reminiscences about childhood and teen frolics and my former life as a journalist and radio reporter.

I used to opine about newsworthy topics until a former colleague asked if I was still writing "that right wing rant blog." To be called right wing, in those days, was completely intolerable. I considered myself a leftie! After that comment, I reverted hastily to the safer waters of gardening and nostalgia.

The way I look at my blog now is that it's a useful archive of my life, for when I'm in my dotage.

My Most Popular Blog Posts 

1. Posts describing traditions do well with the search engines.  My Christmas traditions, parts 1 and 2, the history of bank holidays and applebobbing at Halloween traditions are good stalwarts.
2. Some posts have done mystifyingly well and I can only assume it's because there's very little web dross available on the subject.  My post, "Does John Torode wear a wig and More About Stenchpipes" still does well when Masterchef is on. I think it's Torode rather than the stench pipes who are the big draw. You must admit that the headline sums up the sheer randomness of my blog pretty well.
3. I attempted to scam the spiders and get massive hits with a cheeky post called "Carol McGiffin's bare bottom."
4. Certain nostalgic posts strike a chord - particularly the lure of the bottle stall.

The demise of the autobiography

Biographies and autobiographies have always been a great pleasure of mine. I love the witty anecdotes, the turn of phrase, the remembrances of less hectic times and the odd bit of salatious detail about a celebrity.

Lately however, the whole genre has fallen into a steep decline.

Any two-bit celebrity feels obliged to rush into print. Consider for a moment the Top 10 bestsellers. Two of those are books by the minor celebrities who make up the TV show "Loose Women". Against my better judgment I downloaded Carol McGiffin's book "Oh Carol!" because I find her amusing and like her robust views. She admits in the book that she was urged to write a book by the publisher of Denise Welch (actress, fellow Loose Women pannellist.) The McGiffin book is very badly written and the chapters which I think are supposed to be amusing simply aren't. The chapter on life with Chris Evans is the only part of the book that seems to have been given considered thought.

Oh Carol! indeed.

I won't even mention all the books by WAGs, Z list celebrities and footballers all under the age of 30. What can they tell us about life? Much of what Katie Price actually does in life is manufactured purely so she can update her turgid autobiographies and her ITV2 TV shows.

And then there are the appalling misery memoirs. What does it say about us that so many are in the book chart at any one time?

Among the books I have enjoyed the most are several by people who aren't remotely famous. "Where did it all go right? Growing up normal in the 70s" by Andrew Collins was a refreshing antidote to the misery memoir. "Misadventures" by Sylvia Smith was an eccentric hit, recounting many incidents in the life of a career secretary but none of any significance. The deadpan delivery is somewhat fascinating. I loved also the books by actress Liz Smith. She didn't become famous until she was 50 and her book "Our Betty" is a poignant account of a hard life of struggle.

John Torode's wig, more on stench pipes and is it cricket?

Now that I've mentioned stench pipes we're seeing them everywhere. Vaguely linked to the subject I am currently enthralled by my new book "The Big Necessity: Adventures in the world of human waste" by Rose George.

This is the last taboo subject, according to George, and her meticulously researched book challenges our assumption that decent sanitation is our right, whereas in many parts of the world it is still a privilege.

Does he wear a wig?


As I've mentioned before, Google searchers for Masterchef judge John Torode often end up here because I wrote about him many months ago. I notice that Google is still delivering but this time people are searching for "does John Torode wear a wig?"

Meanwhile Carol McGiffin (Loose Women) still delivers hits, both for her bare bottom and more recently for her engagement ring. Someone searching for "the biggest human bare bottom" also found themselves at my site and was probably sorely disappointed. No bare bottoms here.

It's not Cricket

It's not on that the England cricket team plays in Wales and the Welsh national anthem gets played. I guess it was inappropriate to play the British anthem, so in my view the match should have stayed in Old Trafford.

Carol McGiffin's bare bottom

The traffic stats for this blog make amusing reading in terms of the search words that sometimes bring visitors here.

Some poor schmuck arrived after a hopeful search for Miss McGiffin's bare bottom. I once wrote about how she would make a great dinner party guest. It seems she has a tantalizing effect on the male. Many seekers of "Carol McGiffin naked" have also found their way to these pages.

I was sharing some search word secrets recently with Bill Blunt on the tags that really pull in the visitors. Real crowd pleasers. For me it's Elizabeth Hurley's Indian wedding and John Torode. Check out Bill's blog where he shamelessly featured both of them in a most amusing post.

Torode doesn't seem to have a website of his own so hapless searchers find themselves looking at my scathing review of his restaurant, Smiths at Smithfield. As for Hurley, I remember writing about the overkill nature of her nuptials but wasn't expecting it to be such a rich source of page views. My prediction for Hurley is that she and Arun will probably not be together this time next year. Then I shall write about Liz Hurley's Indian divorce.

As for Torode, he was eclipsed somewhat on the recent Masterchef "professional cooks" variation where Michel Roux Jnr joined the "ingredients expert" (grocer) Gregg Wallace. Torode does a good line in smacking his chops and nodding but Roux was more knowledgeable about the technicalities. So I predict Torode may be spending more time in the kitchen.

Other search words that continue to deliver are: Sharon Maiden (who featured in the seminal comedy "Clockwise," and is often Googled by people who've seen the film and wonder what happened to her); single men with cats (as if it's a nasty illness), bottle stalls, and the world's largest horse circa 1968. Whose name still escapes me. If only I could get the answer.

It's a bit depressing really. Hardly Goethe is it? For eternity my blog ramblings will be posted, espousing on such superficialities as the Eurovision song contest, single men with cats and conundrums like why do teapots always leak. Actually I've never written on the latter but it does trouble me, so perhaps this is my next topic de jour.

The Hall Marks - a new type of award!

You may have heard of the Blackwell awards where some unknown American lambasts celebrities for their frock horrors each year.

Well, I'm now launching the Hall Mark Awards, a list of people I find interesting - and a list of people I would avoid like the plague.

I can see this becoming a big property on Living TV and I'm quite happy to be styled and loaned some rocks and Manolos.

So without further ado, here is my list of The Most Interesting. I wouldn't invite them to a dinner party at the same time because there would be too much competitive preening and bitching. But on a one-to-one basis, I'd quite happily share my picnic with any of these.
In no particular order:

1) Carol McGiffin: the mouthy one on Loose Women and ex-wife of Chris Evans (see entry 9). We seem to share the same robust views on a number of topics and both belong to the "get a grip" school of, well, getting a grip.
2) Jane McDonald: hmmm there's a Loose Women thread developing here. And do you know, I am actually seeing Lady Jane in Torquay soon with my mum! Love her deadpan northern humour.
3) Sarah and Gordon Brown: I would much prefer to have dinner with the Browns than dinner with the Camerons (see my Really Boring List). I imagine dinner would be simple and unpretentious, Gordon is probably very erudite and well read, and they wouldn't subject their guests to a lot of emperor's new clothes type nonsense.
4) Russell Brand: to start with, I thought he was a mouthy big haired loon, but I now "get" him. Love his word play and cruel personality.
5) AA Gill (Sunday Times critic). Another one with an interesting way with words. His nemesis Giles Coren is on my other list.

6) Jerry Hall: a woman ageing gracefully without using botox or other nasties.
7) Dame Vivienne Westwood: complete class act and as mad as a hatter.
8) Dame Helen Mirren (a dame thread is now developing). For showing what a 62 year old can look like, without making us feel bad about it (see other list entry #10, Madonna).
9) Chris Evans: I didn't use to like him but I get so affronted when he's on holiday and we're lumbered with Richard what's his name (Allison?) that I won't listen.
10) Cynthia Nixon: my favourite from Sex & The City.

The Hall Mark List of Really Boring Tedious People
1) The Camerons: achingly "trendy" Boden clad smoothies who no doubtdrone on about the provenance of their food, which schools are the best, which cars are the most fuel efficient and how they're listening to the Ting Tings (when really they're listening to Shirley Bassey).
2) Gordon Ramsay: so over!
3) Sienna Miller: file under "slapper"
4) June Sarpong: smug

5) Mylene Klass: smug and ubiquitous. Someone stop her from appearing in everything on TV! Fully expecting to see her looming up in Strictly Come Dancing and Countdown.
6) Kate Spicer: hang dog looking journalist and alpha woman, always moaning on about eating disorders and hating fat people (needs to see a shrink if you ask me)

7) Giles Coren: as we saw from "Super size", the man has had a personality bypass. All he seemed to do was frantically chew whatever it was he was given, testicles etc.
8) Jennifer Aniston: needy.
9) Angelina Jolie: pious and smug.
10 Madonna: I admire her for showing that 50 year old women do not become invisible. But she's so controlling and disciplined I long for the couch just thinking about her.