My first blog in January 2009

Today marks the end of my first 15 years of blogging.

What started out as a ham-fisted attempt to write a public diary in January 2009, has become just that. My blog is my public diary on which I publish what interests me, whether it be my thoughts or those of the people I like to work with. It continues to be ham-fisted but has published over 7500 articles and has become a part of my life. Cast your eye down the right hand side of this page to follow what’s published since January 2009.

This past year has been particularly fun, by the end of today, I expect to have more than a third of a million visitors over the past 365 days. Many people read my blog by email or on various websites , most notably linked in , but also Twitter, Facebook and most recently Blu-Sky. thank you for reading.

I try to blog every day and sometime more than that. People keep sending me interesting stuff which I often publish. I get a lot of rubbish which I don’t and that’s because there’s a silly industry that tries to use people like me as an influencer.

I don’t consider myself an “influencer”, if people like what I say, I’m flattered but I’m not for hire. The people whose work I promote, are people who I have a particularly high opinion of. Con Keating, Iain Clacher , Chris Sier, Stuart McDonald, Laura Trott, Ros Altmann Nausicaa Delfas, David Fairs, Steve Webb, Edi Truell, Sarah Smart, Paul Maynard, Adrian Boulding, Arun Muralidithar, Stefan Lundberg, Johnny Timpson , Guy Opperman, Iain Clacher and William McGrath are some such. All have been published on my blog

But I am really grateful to those who comment anonymously and in person. Thanks for all 15,500 of these comments, many have been amplified into blogs.

This year I wrote over 1000 bogs and published over 800,000 words. I know that some of them get printed out and put in briefing packs, some of them are ignored and some are only read by special interest groups like fans of Yeovil Town or steelworkers or WASPI women. It is interesting that by far my most read blog this year was about the WASPI campaign.

Blogs by numbers read in 2023

I know that the written blog is unfashionable and some people have asked me to Vlog – video-blog. But I have a face made for typing and will continue the way I am.

From time to time I make a mistake and publish something I shouldn’t. It’s happened twice this year. I am sure that some of the 7500 blogs still up , I would not write now, but this is a public diary. I am quite sure that all such diaries include “author regret”.

But on the upside, I have had great pleasure in my work and great satisfaction to know that it finds general interest. As I write the dawn is bringing Windsor Castle into view from where I write. It is a privilege to sit where I do, metaphorically and literally