I’ve imagined my own death countless times, in countless ways.

I’ve pictured myself passing quietly in a sterile white hospital room, alone, at a very old age, in the dark.

I’ve seen myself collapse in the street, clutching my chest, suddenly and without warning.

I’ve thought about all manner of violent death too, from a horrible car crash, to being brutally beaten senseless by a gang of teenage thugs.

I’ve thought about this a lot, too much, to the point of it being easily labelled a decades’ old obsession.

Its not really death that I fear, its the process of dying and my morbid curiosity at how I will go, whenever that time comes.

Will it be painful?

Will I suffer?

Will I linger?

Will it take long?

Is it going to happen soon?

The roots of my fear of death were planted by my father. He was an older dad, I was the child of a second marriage who came late in his life. He talked about dying all the time and how he just wanted to live long enough to see me and my brother right in the world.

As a child, hearing this mantra of his frequently, I worried about his death a lot. I was close with my father when I was a child, his talk of death scared me and dug deep into my sub-conscious, where it remains to this day.

As it turned out, he lived a pretty long life, but had an unpleasantly long and drawn out death. From his diagnosis to his passing, it took about a year, with his health declining steadily in between. The last couple of months were particularly bad, with his decline ever more steep and his hopes dashed with each treatment option failing. His final days were spent heavily medicated, but he was at home, in his own bed when he drew his last breath.

As deaths go, I’d give it a 6, he loses points for the duration of suffering, but gains some for being able to choose to be at home. Also, he scores well on the life to death ratio, he lived to be 84 and was sick for only a year.

You can’t really do a scorecard for death, each one is unique.

There’s an old joke about a guy who, when asked how he’d like to die, said “when I’m 100 years old I’d like to be shot by a jealous husband”. That sounds like an OK way to go, as long as you’re a sprightly 100.

My mother’s death, unlike my father’s, was relatively quick, happening over about 48 hour period, from becoming ill to slipping quietly away.

Where my mother loses out is in the quality of life stakes, she had a massive stroke about 7 years before, which left her severely impaired.

She couldn’t walk, had a lot of trouble talking too, and her coordination was particularly poor. For the 7 years she survived after the stroke, she was dependent upon help for absolutely everything, like dressing, washing, eating and going to the toilet. Its no way for anyone to live, or rather exist.

When my mother had the stroke and was being treated in the hospital, my father was given a choice of whether or not to put her on life support.

He had been told it was a very bad stroke and her recovery would be problematic and never complete. He was also aware my mother had a living will, which pretty much said, if she was ever in this position, not to take drastic measures to keep her alive if the prognosis for recovery was grim.

My father ignored my mother’s wishes and said yes to the life support. He couldn’t bare to think of life without my her nor could he imagine her not making a full recovery. Nature would have killed my mother off then and there, peacefully, in her sleep, but instead my father chose to use every miracle machine known to modern medicine to sustain my mother’s life.

His mantra to all hospital staff became this: “She walked into this hospital on her own and she’s damn well going to walk back out”.

How wrong he was.

My father could have spared my mother seven years of a horrible existence, but he was selfish. He paid for this decision himself as his life got much harder when my mother was finally allowed to go home after several months in the hospital and a rehab facility.

My mother could only get around in a wheelchair and had several medical appointments a week that my father had to transport her to, unaided. He was in his 80s.

He refused all assistance at first, and not until he was overwhelmed, did he relent and hire some home help.

My father’s own death obsession kicked into overdrive and his new catchphrase became this: “What would happen to my wife if something happened to me?” This thought ran through his head constantly, it kept him up at night, he mentioned it every time he spoke to me. His fear of his own death now had a tangible focus, my mother’s fate.

What you think about can become real, as it wasn’t too long after this that they found a large, malignant and inoperable tumour in his bladder. Thus began his one year decline into death.

The “what to do about my mother” question became intertwined with the “beating this cancer” goal. “If I can just beat this cancer,” thought my father. “then I can continue to care for my wife.” It took him a few months to realise he couldn’t and the part time home help turned into a full time, live in carer for both of them.

When my father died, my mother continued to live in their house, with the live in carer. As it turned out, she would have had enough money to continue living this way, which was what I wanted for her, but her fear helped her decide to move into a care home. It was a good one, but expensive, more expensive than staying in her home, but it was my mother’s choice.

My mother spent the last five plus years of her life in that care home, before slipping into a coma and dying in a hospital bed, alone and unconscious. She should have died many years before, her life was no richer for those last, post-stroke years of hardship and suffering.

We all have to face death in all its varied forms and permutations. Death and dying come in many assorted flavours.

I lost four friends and many more colleagues, who all died while doing what we do, covering the news. I’ve been a journalist for over 20 years and when I was younger and more foolish, put myself in harm’s way too.

I’ve spent time in war zones and other dangerous places and the people I work with still do, every day, to tell you about people and places many people don’t give a shit about. Hey ho.

My four friends who all perished while working abroad, had quick, yet violent deaths. I’m not going get into any great detail here, Three of them were chased by armed men or rebels before being gunned down, one was killed by a stray, unexpected mortar shell. Each death effected me personally and professionally in quite profound ways.

All four of them were relatively young, some left behind partners and children. Each one was a decent, thoughtful and respected colleague and journalist.

One of these deaths was particularly hard on me because I was on duty when the news broke. I was working on a news desk, the central point of contact for everyone in my organisation. A lot of the telephone calls I received were from distraught people all over the world, waking up to the news of the death of a close friend. Many were in tears, many wanted me to tell them that the news got it wrong.

I wish I could have.

When death comes to the young and good, its particularly hard on those left behind, trying to make sense of out it, trying to understand it.

I’ll tell you something right now, there is no sense in any senseless death, there is no understanding. Shit happens, you just deal with it as best you can.

After that spate of deaths, my industry tried to improve on safety. More hostile environment training was brought in, safety advisors in dangerous places are deployed regularly now, but journalists still continue to be killed in the line of duty.

Losing friends makes you think about your own mortality, not that I needed any help.

There are two other friends I lost, both of their deaths remarkably similar.

They were both about the same age, both had similar interests and lifestyles. One was a musician, the other a journalist.

Both of my friends were 50 years old when they died, both had massive heart attacks. One was found in his flat, sitting in his favourite chair, the other was at home with his partner and fell over dead as he got up from the sofa. Both died fairly instantly and may not have had much time to work out what was happening.

Both used viagra and cocaine regularly and drank heavily too. You don’t need to be a doctor to work out that’s a bad combination.

As I get older, my death obsession seems to have more things to fuel it.

People my age (I’m pushing 50) die from all sorts of things, natural and otherwise. I think about my health more often. I don’t actually do much about it, but I think about it…does that count for anything?

I get my cholesterol and glucose checked regularly, along with my blood pressure. All are good, especially my cholesterol, which was 3.1 at my most recent test. I don’t look like I should have low cholesterol, but I do. Go figure.

None of that means I’m immune from whatever’s lurking out there, waiting to pounce on me. I don’t drink at all, but I do smoke, cigarettes and weed. I don’t exercise, I don’t watch my diet and I work only nights. Not exactly the regime you’d pay a thousand quid a day for at a health farm.

If you would pay a grand a day to live my lifestyle, get in touch, I’d be happy to sort you out, as long as you are happy always being high and masturbating several times a day, but not in public, because that’s just gross.

Will it be a heart attack that gets me? My father had one of those.

How about a stroke? My mother’s got that covered.

Cancer? It got most of my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side.

Car accident? I think about it every time I get behind the wheel. Will this be my last journey? Is there a drunk driver or overtired lorry driver out there with with me in his sights?

How about some freak accident, like a plummeting jet engine a’la Donny Darko? A stray bullet from some silly gang related shooting on my north London ghetto street? That could happen too.

Terrorism, viral pandemic, earthquake, tornado, take your pick, the news is full of so many lethal things.

There are so many ways I could die and not knowing how its going to turn out for me is a genuine obsession.

But would I really want to know how I’m going to die?

Wouldn’t it be the ultimate spoiler?

If there was a box I could click online that would reveal the details of my death, would I click it?

Would I really want to know the big three facts about my inevitable death; when? where? how?

Hell, yes! I would definitely click that box. And then I am sure I would regret it.

What would I do if I did knew the details of my death?

I’d try to cheat it, if I could. If I knew a bus was going to hit me on the high street next Friday, I’d damn make sure I was someplace else.

But what if I couldn’t cheat it, some horrible disease or medical catastrophe that couldn’t be avoided. What would I do with that knowledge, that my own body was a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off on a certain date?

Would I get my affairs in order, whatever that means?

Would I make a bucket list and try to cram whatever time I had left on doing things I suddenly felt were important?

Or would I just sit quietly, awaiting destiny, safe with the knowledge that my fate was well and truly sealed?

Who knows? I’ll never find out.

There is no real way to know when you’re going to die. Some people do find out the “how” from their doctors, along with a rough timescale, but I think that’s about as close as it gets. In that situation, I’d have no choice but to know.

Whether or not knowing would be helpful, well, who’s to say?

Whatever does get me, is out there somewhere right now, in the world or inside my body. Whether its today, tomorrow, next week, next year or next century is anybody’s guess. Who knows what miracles science might provide in the next decades?

There are two things I’ve always thought would happen to help people cheat death.

One is my view that ageing is simply a genetic disorder that eventually will be corrected with gene therapy. I think they are close to this discovery, isolating what it is in our DNA that makes our bodies age and then figuring out how to manipulate it and switch it off. It may sound like sci-fi, but its not and it will have all sorts of ethical and practical implications for the future of our planet.

Perhaps only the super rich will benefit from this discovery, maybe it will be available to anyone and everyone. Maybe it will be mandatory. Maybe it will be kept a secret.

While not delivering real immortality, it certainly would be a massive step in that direction, as long as you’re not hit by that bus on the high street.

The second scientific innovation that I think will eventually come, will be the ability to import (ingest? upload? scan? pick a verb) the entire contents of a human brain into a computer. Once you can do that, you could effectively recreate a person’s consciousness and construct a virtual world for them to exist inside. As long as you had a sustainable power source, this theoretically could deliver immortality for all.

Imagine being able to continue your existence in a perfect digital world, freed of the constraints of your flesh. For all intensive purposes, this digital world would be as real as our world and your sense of self, your identity, who you are, would be the same too. You would be reunited with your friends, your relatives, your loved ones, to spend eternity together in the most wonderful place imaginable.

That sounds a lot like heaven in the traditional sense, with one key difference. The heaven of our ancestors was an imaginary idea, this heaven I propose would be built by man and could one day really exist.

Do I think I’ll see these innovations in my lifetime? That’s the trillion dollar question.

I think the genetic discovery is not that far off, but its use in practise much further. Its unlikely in my socio-economic class that I will have access to it, if it is in my time.

The digital afterlife is harder to predict, as guessing at the future capabilities of computer equipment and the rate of change is slightly more complex than Moore’s Law would have you believe. Advances in quantum computing are making the news and once the real breakthrough happens, we very well may end up with more affordable computer power than anyone can currently imagine.

The singularity, anyone?

Once the contents of a human brain can be uploaded into a computer of unimaginable power, a multiverse of possibilities awaits. If I can live long enough to see that happen, I will be very lucky indeed.

I don’t hold out much hope.

I’ve always thought these amazing innovations would come the day after I die.

So it goes, as Vonnegut used to say.

That leaves me with a death obsession that won’t be resolved until its my time to shake off this mortal coil.

At least I have a pastime. They say having a hobby adds years to your life.

Let’s start with a big one, admitting to ourselves just how primitive a species we are, even though we have iPods and Microwave Ovens and other modern wonders of technology. We still remain quite primitive and relatively ignorant of so very much regarding the universe and our place in it.

We are extraordinarily primitive, more so than anyone would ever like to think. We are still a tribal race, unable to take a long term or global view of the true nature of our existence or the context.

We still cling to an “us versus them” mentality, we view people like us, living in the same place as more important than others, we foster rivalries and dissent between races and nations, rather than encouraging stronger ties based upon our similarities.

We are all the same, we are all earthlings first and foremost, every individual on this planet should have an equal worth, with the operative word being “should”, because the reality is nothing like that.

We value different people, different races, different classes, different nationalities as all having different and unequal worth in our so called modern society. We remain incredibly selfish when only selflessness will redeem the human race.

Imagine some space aliens arrived, imagine them any way you like, as long as they seem real and somewhat ordinary, because chances are intelligent life in the universe would be both of those things, ordinary and most likely real.

Imagine they didn’t read the fine print in their Travel Guide to the Universe which carried the caveat to our small blue planet, advising against any direct contact when visiting, because of our unevolved and primitive nature. They missed that bit and landed their space craft in the centre of a big city, expecting to be warmly welcomed by the friendly residents of our world.

Imagine the many surprises in store for these space visitors as they discovered our planet was not unified, we still believed we were the only species in the universe, created by an invisible, yet all seeing, all knowing space god, fighting each other for land and oil and religious differences. Oh, how they would laugh and mock us, seeing us as no more than insects scurrying around in the dirt.

They wouldn’t be too far off in their brief assessment of our world.

I keep coming back to the word “primitive”, because it truly applies. Our knowledge of the universe, of our world and ourselves is so blinkered, narrow and incomplete and yet we exist in a giant state of total denial. We have no collective self awareness of this fact and most would scorn me for me suggesting it.

Sometimes the bitter truth hurts.

If we want to have any hope of surviving what lies ahead for us as a species, the starting point needs to be a giant collective realisation of just how immature we are as race, and that we continue to evolve both biologically and socially.

Following that first realisation, must come another big realisation, that our knowledge of universe is minuscule and we know next to nothing about the true nature of matter, space and time.

If we ever did truly understand the true nature of matter, space and time, then most likely we could manipulate all three and make them bend to our will with ease.

We are eons from that point, but that doesn’t make it out of the realm of possibility, it just depends upon how long we last as a species.

I’ll give you an easy example of what I am talking about; the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, which cost a gazillion dollars (or pounds or euros, or whatever currency you prefer) and is the largest scientific experiment ever constructed, is trying to find an invisible particle which theoretically gives mass to matter.

If that’s gobblygook, I’ll try to explain it, though many of these ideas often feel unexplainable to our tiny, meat computer brains.

Our understanding of subatomic theory is so (and here’s that word again), primitive, that we can’t see what gives mass to matter, because at the microscopic levels we can physically observe, most of the structure of an atom consists of empty space. Scientists theorise that there must be additional, invisible particles that are part of the subatomic architecture which give matter mass. I hope I am getting this right, I am not an actual physicist, but I do play the home game a lot.

To me, this seems like quite fundamental stuff that we are only guessing at, scholarly straws at which we can only merely gently grasp.

We are a long way away from any deep, meaningful understanding of anything big or important.

We still have no idea of the true origin of our universe. Again, we can and do only guess and then only to a point. Most theories start at some incomprehensible singularity that somehow erupted into the Big Bang and many only start one second after the Big Bang happened.

I’m not denying the Big Bang, on the contrary, there is plenty of evidence to support it as a theory, but many theories are incomplete, or depend upon things like cosmic inflation and expanding theory to fill in their quite considerable gaps.

The term “singularity” is thrown around quite a bit in science and yet to me, it seems to mean something that can’t be explained, or understood, so let’s just set it aside and take it as read that it exists and is a point on which we can build speculative theories.

Take Black Holes, which are pretty much theoretical mindfucks anyway.

There is a physical point to a Black Hole that scientists refer to as the singularity, where all that is known about time, space and matter doesn’t apply. Its just an easy way to admit our ignorance in a scholarly way.

The same is true for the theory surrounding the day when our computers become smarter than we are and can autonomously design and construct ever smarter and better machines than themselves. Theorists refer to this as the singularity as well because they don’t know what the impact will be on our world. Unless you’re James Cameron and you can envisage a Skynet like computer deciding we are bad for the planet and seeking to wipe us off the face of the earth.

Wouldn’t it be prudent to better ourselves as a species and a race, so when that day arrives, the machines see us more of a benefit worthy of keeping around and allowing to flourish?

I’m just sayin’…

Perhaps we need to label more things that we don’t get with the word “singularity” and increase its common usage and understanding. For example, when men collectively complain that they don’t understand a woman’s mind, instead of labelling it a mystery, you could say its a singularity.

Or these kids today, they are a total singularity to me. You get the idea.

Let’s take religion. No, seriously, let’s take it somewhere and dump it and leave it in the past, where it belongs.

Religion is a prime example of our primitive nature that we desperately cling to like a comfort blanket. Religion is a primitive way of dealing with singularities, by filling in the blanks in our rudimentary knowledge of the universe by consigning everything we don’t understand to a benevolent/vengeful space god.

Religion is the epitome of our primitiveness, it is the best example of how undeveloped we are, because we still allow it to colour how we treat each other and dictate our moral code.

When we finally transcend religion, as we need to do if we want any hope for a better future for our species, we will need to base our moral code on more humanist ideals.

I try to be a good person, not because I want or hope for a better place in the afterlife, but because being good and doing good is something that matters to me. I care about my fellow man and woman. We all need to find that spirit of kindness in our own hearts, from a genuine belief in the betterment of our world.

What we don’t need to do is base our morality on the fear of a non-existent god who will punish us for our bad deeds.

Murder is wrong, not because it is in the Ten Commandments, but because it is immoral to unjustly take another’s life. We should understand that at an innate level, in our bones we should all know that killing is wrong.

And we do all know that, but we find ever more creative ways to justify killing on an industrial scale, all over the place. We kill with weapons just as much as we kill with our own selfishness and greed. There should be enough of everything to go around for everyone, no one should starve or lack fresh, clean drinking water, yet we all know that is not the case.

We don’t view the world as one big extended family, we highlight our differences, rather than stressing our similarities. Its actually amazing if you think of what we all on this planet have in common, yet you never hear anyone talk about it.

We all want a better world, the differences lie in how we all think we get there.

We need to move to a post-tribal mindset, we need to view things globally, rather than locally.

We need to care more about what’s happening to everyone, not just the people who are exactly like us.

We need to move to a point beyond religion, where science explains as much as it can, while actively pursuing answers to the things that remain unknown.

We need to put individuals first and agree at every level that we are all truly equal on this earth.

We need to act responsibly and think in terms, not of years or decades, but millennia, because if we want to have any hope of surviving, we need to be that forward thinking.

I know I’ve been knocking us for being primitive, but I don’t want to take away any of our already considerable achievements. We’ve worked out some impressive things, but we’ve only really scratched the surface of what there is to be known in the universe. I’m glad I have a microwave oven and flat screen tv, but we can go so much further and at an exponential rate.

I dream of a time in a time in a few thousand years, where we are the masters of all time, space and matter, where all the mysteries of the universe are finally revealed and understood by one and all.

I like to think of the many developments I’ve seen in my short lifespan, and how many more I will see in my remaining years.

I’ve joked before that they will discover the key to eternal youth and longevity the day after I die. But in the back of my mind is the tiny hope that I will find a way to cheat death, even if it is only in machine form, so my consciousness can carry on learning about and observing the human condition. Our best days still lie ahead of us and it drives me nuts that I won’t be here to see it all.

So how’d I do?

Well, I wouldn’t call it an unqualified success, but I wouldn’t count it as a failure either. I was able to give some genuine help to a handful of people, but I do feel like I could have done a lot more.

The hardest part was finding people in need of genuine help. I started by searching my own stream, ie people I follow, for questions or pleas for help — there weren’t many at all. So I switched to the public timeline and searched for “help me”.

Turns out, the only help most people on Twitter seek, falls into three categories:

- Help me get more followers
– Help me to get Justin Bieber to follow me
– Help me to get Miley Cyrus to follow me

I couldn’t help with any of those things, even if I tried. What this meant in real terms was that using the public timeline to find people in real need was like searching the proverbial haystack for the proverbial needle, and I don’t even shoot-up. I had to wade through literally thousands of tweets just to find one that was genuine.

So what did I actually help with? Here’s a rough list:

- I re-assured someone who was frightened by stormy weather
– I recommended the best places for a day of shopping in London
– I helped someone troubleshoot an iPhone/Twitter app
– I provided advice to someone looking to advertise adult education courses in the media
– I welcomed a new user to Twitter and gave them some basic advice

That’s just the highlights, I also retweeted loads of other people’s tweets and exchanged friendly tweets with loads of other people, including some I follow and some I don’t. Many of my #helpfulhippy tweets went ignored, but that’s to be expected. People are not accustom to strangers offering assistance without ulterior motives, especially online.

Overall, I found the entire experience provided me with a weird mix of frustration and satisfaction, much like real life. I was frustrated at how difficult it was to locate people I could help, but found it very satisfying when I was actually able to, in a very small way, make a difference to someone’s life.

I’ve come away from the day with the desire, not to do a #helpfulhippy day again, but to include this genuinely helpful approach into my life online on a more regular basis. It cost me nothing to help out strangers, my knowledge is free, so is my time frequently, so why not try to give something back all the time?

Life is indeed incredibly bleak, dreary and pointless, but it doesn’t take much to occasionally make it into something more, even in almost imperceptibly small ways. It felt good helping strangers and I’m going to try to do it more often.

So if there’s ever anything I can do online to help you, just ask. I might surprise you with the perfect answer. Or not.

If you need anything today and you think I can help, just ask. I’m not long awake, so no heavy duty math-based equations for at least an hour, but anything else is cool.

Ladies, gentlemen and any one in between, welcome to #helpfulhippy day.

Go on, tweet me, I’m here to help.

As I mentioned a few days ago, on Weds 16th June, I will be mostly spending the day online, trying to offer help and assistance to as many people on Twitter as I can, whether its trying to answer questions, retweeting important and worthy messages, or, well, pretty much anything else I can think of that might help.

I’m calling it #helpfulhippy day and that will be the hashtag I use on all my attempts at being helpful. If you would like to play along at home, you can also tag things with #helpfulhippy or you can just tweet me old school-style to my Twitter name, @nthlondonhippy — either way, I’ll hopefully see it and respond quickly and helpfully.

I’m doing this because I want to give something back to Twitter because I get so much from it. I’m hoping that by trying to engage with people on a positive, life-affirming level will help alleviate my perceived debt to you all.

I’ll give you a small example. There are lots of people I follow on Twitter, who I think follow me, yet I’ve never (or rarely) tweeted them directly. That’s my fault, what with being a somewhat shy, withdrawn, socially awkward misanthrope, who lives in his own make-believe hippy world. On #helpfulhippy day, I hope to let these people know I enjoy following them. If I played along with #followfriday, I could have done it already, but I don’t, remember the whole misanthrope thing?

What I am not really aiming to do is exploit #helpfulhippy day as a way to raise my online profile or increase my followers. For a change this is not about shameless self promotion, its about genuinely helping others. If anything, I’ll probably lose followers because I plan on being a very full-on, #helpfulhippy — searching for unanswered questions and pleas for assistance.

Tomorrow’s the big day, I’ll either fall flat on my face or in some small way, I’ll make the world a better place for a short time. Either way, I’ll know I’ve tried my best to pay something back and maybe, just maybe I’ll despise myself just a little less.

Nah. Self-loathing is for life, you can’t shake it like you shake the common cold.

See ya on Weds!

That is, you might not have heard if you’ve been in a coma, but even if you’ve been semi-conscious, it would be difficult to have missed it with the blanket coverage available on every media platform.

This has been one of the most interesting campaigns in decades and one of the most entertaining. With just a few days ago, there is no certain outcome and predictions vary widely on what sort of government we might be waking up to come Friday morning.

Cool by me, I enjoy uncertainty and I like the up-in-the-air-ness of the whole thing. I watch the daily polls rise and fall with amusement, because any sensible person knows the only poll that matters is the official one on Thursday. All the rest are just idle speculation and spin.

The truth is, you can’t really trust most of the polls, because the data is weighted and manipulated before it is released, usually to reflect the bias and opinion of the media outlet who commissioned it. Yes, I’m looking at you News International, your stilted coverage and unbridled analingus performed on the Tories has been shameful. Ol’ Rupert Murdoch anointed David Cameron as the chosen one and all of his newspapers and his TV news channel went about crafting a narrative that tried to assure an outright Conservative victory.

How’s that working out?

Possibly not as well as they had hoped, as the polls suggest the Tories are only slightly ahead, with strong possibility of no outright majority. Ooops.

I think one of the biggest surprises for me in the campaign is how disappointing Cameron’s performances have been, especially at the leader’s debates. I really expected Diamond Dave to walk this election, but he is not nearly as charismatic or magnetic a speaker as I would have expected. Part of their poor showing in the polling is down to this.

This election isn’t about policy, though of course it should be, but it is about personality. Cameron has revealed himself as lacking in that department.

And speaking of someone completely void of personality, have you caught Gordon Brown lately? Just look at his forced, fake, uncomfortable smile; I have a theory (that I’d be happy never proving) that he has the same expression on his face when he smiles as he does when he is taking a dump.

I have never been a fan of Gordon Brown.

OK, that’s an understatement, I detest him and have him a vocal and vitriolic critic of him since he assumed power. I can never forgive him for publicly labelling cannabis a “deadly drug”, propagating other false claims about it and ignoring all the advice, scientific and otherwise by re-classifying cannabis to Class B.

Gordon continues to go on and on about the “global financial meltdown” which he claims can only be fixed if he remains in office. Well, there’s some logic to that, because as he was Chancellor for so many years, he must feel very responsible for the mess he created and he would like to mop it up. No thanks.

Brown really showed how deeply nasty he is to the core, with his shameful treatment of Gillian Duffy, who by all accounts seems to be the sort of salt-of-the-earth Labour Party supporter that has kept them in the game for a very long time. If he treats his base with this much contempt and scorn, imagine what he must think of the undecided.

I feel sorry for the poor saps who have to media-manage Brown on a daily basis. Whatever you’re getting paid, its probably not enough by half. Wrangling that sourpuss from appearance to appearance would destroy the soul of the strongest PR flack.

The one good thing about Brown’s piss-poor performance during this campaign has been my absolute vindication that he would drag the Labour Party into the political wilderness for generations.

They had several chances to replace him and they lacked the courage and balls to do it. Now they will suffer and get what they deserve, a complete decimation at the polls on Thursday. It will be the worst showing by Labour in history, any other MP from the party wouldn’t have done as badly as Gordon. They really only have themselves to blame.

I like being right and I love saying “I told ya so”.

Hey Labour.… I told you if you stuck with Gordon, you’d be fucked. Yep, I TOLD YA SO!

Oh that felt good!

I’ve always been a big fan of the LibDems, if not an outright supporter. Their policies seem to be anchored in reality, with a healthy dose of common sense. We could use both of those qualities in government.

The best example I can site is their drug policy, which in their manifesto, loosely says that they would take a scientific and evidence based approach. In practise that would mean they would follow closely the advice of their advisors, in this case the ACMD.

Taking it further, in previous statements, the LibDems have supported decriminalising or legalising cannabis, though with all the bullshit media nonsense over the discredited research into the (very much unproven) link between weed and psychosis, they haven’t mentioned it recently. I don’t blame them as it would only be used against them as a sign of weakness.

The Liberal Democrats are not a weak party, they are actually the strongest on sensible policies that work towards the common good and benefit the most people. It takes strength to fly in the face of conventional (media) wisdom and openly declare that the “war on drugs” is an absolute failure that does more harm than the drugs themselves. The LibDem party is the one party that’s not afraid of speaking the truth.

They’re also not aligned with big media or big corporations, they seem to be more independent of the establishment and therefore more able to do good for the country, rather than serving special interests.

Nick Clegg has impressed everyone and made them sit up and take notice of his party. Its about time they get taken seriously. Clegg has also frightened the two “old parties”, which has been fun to watch as they both mount attacks him.

The leader’s debates have truly changed the face of politics in this country, seeing Clegg go toe-to-toe with the other two showed the nation in a very tangible way that there is an alternative to old-style politics. After thirteen years of Labour governments, this country is in desperate need of a change.

The LibDems are the only party that really offers that change.

The Tories won’t change anything so much as bring back a sameness. They don’t have any new ideas or energy or personality. Don’t vote for them.

Gordon Brown is a megalomaniac dictatorial buffoon and embarrassment to the nation, but the reason not to vote Labour is simple, one word: Iraq. This is the party that dragged this nation into an illegal and pointless war, for absolutely no good reason. And they lied to us about it, repeatedly and they still do. They deserve to come in third or worse.

A vote for the LibDems is a vote for change and a vote for a brighter future.

People say they can’t win with an outright majority, but they could if everyone voted their heart. If you think the LibDems are the best choice, and I believe a lot of you out there do, then vote for them. You are NOT throwing your vote away on a minor party, real change comes from people having the strength of will and conviction to not fear change. If everyone who supports them follows through on election day, then Nick Clegg could be the next Prime Minister.

More likely, if you believe the polls, is that we are headed for a hung parliament and the possibility of a coalition government. There are worse things that could happen.

Many other countries have coalition governments, formed by opposing parties. Guess what happens? They learn to work with each other and compromise and things get done. You have nothing to fear from this outcome and maybe we all might even benefit from the mix of the strongest ideas from both parties involved.

But which parties? That’s the real question.

If I was going to gamble on the outcome, I would say a Tory-LibDem coalition, with Cameron in charge and a healthy mix of both parties in the cabinet. I could live with that.

Less likely and certainly less appealing would be a Labour-LibDem government with someone other than Brown as PM.

And at the very outside and many would say implausible, a Tory-Labour government. I have this weird theory that these two polar opposites (who really aren’t that different) could do a deal with each other to lock the LibDems out. Maybe its not as impossible as it sounds and if it does happen, won’t I look like the poly-sci genius?

Whatever happens, of one thing I’m certain, come Friday, Gordon Brown will no longer be Prime Minister and will go down as one of the most unpopular, unsuccessful, worst PM’s in history.

Who wouldn’t want a high that was legal? Isn’t that the ultimate goal? Sure, booze is legal and will get you absolutely blotto, but so what? People want a choice of intoxicants.

I don’t like liquor and if asked, will declare that I no longer drink. Its true, I can’t remember the last time I had even a sip of alcohol. The hangovers were just too much to bear. I’m too old for a self-inflicted sore head.

Where does that leave you if you don’t like booze, but you do enjoy altering your state of consciousness? Black market drugs like weed and coke and smack and MDMA and speed and LSD I guess.

But what if you don’t want to break the law? I’ve already suggested voting for leaders who would change the laws, but we can’t seem to find any, except for the Lib Dems and if its going to be a hung parliament anyway, then we should all vote for the Lib Dems so they can have a bigger share of the eventual coalition government.

But I digress. If you want to get high without breaking the law, you look for something legal.

Until 2005, fresh magic mushrooms were legal to purchase and possess in the UK.

Finally, there was a legal high available that was profoundly effective and readily available. I shroomed regularly for a couple of years, every week or two. I was always careful, I stayed in a safe, comfortable environment (my own home) and had very pleasant, enjoyable times. It was easily one of the best drug experiences of my life, I can’t begin to express how much I enjoyed it.

Well, I can and I did, if you read the first couple of years of my output here, I rave about shrooms continually. Taken responsibly and with a rough knowledge of the appropriate dosage, shrooms are relatively harmless. You would need to consume your own weight in mushrooms for the dose to be fatally toxic and I haven’t heard about anyone who’s tried.

You could always pick fresh mushrooms in the wild, provided you knew what you were looking for, because the wrong type of mushroom could be fatally toxic at a much lower dosage. But if you were buying them from someone who could reliably tell you the strain, with knowledge of where they were farmed and advice on how many to take, you would be much better off.

And for a few years, we were much better off, with our safe, easy to buy fresh shrooms. It was bliss.

And then they got very popular. And then the media got interested. And then the government got involved. And then they were banned.

The above paragraph will be repeated again, you will notice, I promise.

And so I did sadly lament the demise of my beloved shrooms because the government man didn’t want me to have any more fun.

But it was too late, the market for legal highs had been established, a decent customer base still existed. All they needed was another product, something legal that would fuck you up a bit.

The answer came from New Zealand:

BZP

BZP came as something called party pills, which was a big change from fresh shrooms, it was a man made chemical of dubious origin. Rumour was it was used for worming pets, but it gave people a buzz, so we tried it.

It worked. It was quite speedy and a bit spacey, pleasant but not overwhelming. There were many brands, legal high forums were brimming with reviews to help you choose. People were happy to have anything that was legal and had an effect.

And then they got very popular. And then the media got interested. And then the government got involved. And then they were banned.

Right around the same time, the first legal marijuana substitutes that worked came along, the first was called Spice, which has become a generic term for these drugs. The ingredients were kept secret, so we didn’t know what the magic herbs we were smoking were, but we knew they got us high.

Turns out the herbs weren’t magic, but the JHW-081 they sprayed onto it was. JHW-081 is a synthetic cannabinoid, made in a lab to mimic THC. Sneaky fuckers, no wonder it worked.

As if overnight, many different brands of smoking mixtures came on to the market, all with a very similar weed-like effect. It was legal, but it was also expensive, and in some cases pricier than real weed.

Think about that, people were willing to pay more for a legal weed alternative, than actual weed. That says a lot.

And then they got very popular. And then the media got interested. And then the government got involved. And then they were banned.

In the gloom of my post-legal-shrooms existence, I tried many of these legal highs and a few years ago, I was getting these rather delightful little capsules shipped in legally from Israel.

They tried to keep the ingredients a secret, but with a bit of research, I discovered it was a chemical related to cathinone, which is the active ingredient in khat, the Africa plant that is used as a stimulant when chewed.

At first, I only ordered a couple and found them quite pleasant and quite strong, closer to real MDMA than BZP or the crap that followed. I ordered a few more, and then a few more.

And then I ordered a lot.

And then I lost a couple of days. No lie, I think my bender lasted around 48 hours. People were concerned, I just disappeared. It was the most morish drug I’ve ever had and I used to do coke years ago. I kept going until I swallowed the last pill I had.

Then I crashed for a couple of days and felt extremely depressed. I was angry with myself for losing control, something I rarely if ever do while under the influence of anything. I didn’t control this drug, this drug controlled me.

It didn’t, ever again. I didn’t touch any more after that. It seemed to target my pleasure centre with laser-guided precision. No thanks.

Guess what I am 99.9% certain that drug was?

Mephedrone.

Kids, listen to your old uncle hippy, that shit’s not worth it. Its way too morish. It feels absolutely wonderful when you’re taking it and you will want to take it endlessly. You can’t, eventually the money, or your body will give out and then you will crash. The crash sucks. Its not worth the pleasure.

As much as I don’t like mephedrone, I am merely suggesting (in strong, unambiguous terms) that you not take it, I am not suggesting some knee jerk reactionary ban. Actually, I think it makes more sense to keep it legal and out in the open. at least until you have an alternative to offer.

If the government can’t offer an alternative (I suggest weed, please), the marketplace will find one. It always does, because we live in a capitalist society and supply will always try to meet demand.

Oh, and if you’re against supply and demand, even in the illicit marketplace, then you are against the very foundation of capitalism. So take that all you anti-drug commie pinko socialists! Get on the free market bandwagon, don’t get in the way of trade!

Banning mephedrone isn’t the answer, unless the question is: “how can we get another untested, cutting edge man-made intoxicant into the hands of our children in the quickest possible time?”

I’ve yet to see one conclusive report of a death being caused directly by mephedrone. I’ve seen lots of bullshit about it being “linked” to a few untimely deaths, but alcohol and other drugs have also been in the mix, though that hasn’t been highlighted.

If I drank myself to death right now while eating a banana, you could quite accurately state that, until the coroner’s report is issued, my death was linked to eating a banana. I can see the headlines now, “Ban the Yellow Scourge”.

Booze kills and kills often, but the alcohol industry spends a lot of money on image and reputation management. When you think of liquor, you don’t think of corpses, do you? No, you think of good times, parties and women in tight dresses that you know will have sex with you.

Think about how many times you’ve gotten pissed, puked your insides out and woke up the next day feeling like death, swearing you’d never ever do that to yourself again. Until next Saturday.

That’s either effective marketing or addiction. Or both.

The legal high industry isn’t organised, they don’t have a centralised body to speak on their behalf and be their public face. Its the same for illegal highs for that matter. Who represents them? Who does their spinning?

No one.

Maybe its time they did.

People’s need to get high, to be intoxicated, to alter their state, is not new and its not going away any time soon. There will always be a demand for substances, legal or otherwise, that change your mood.

Recent history has shown that when given the choice, people prefer legal substances, even if they cost more and have less pleasant effects than their illegal rivals.

If the government left well enough alone with my old friends, magic mushrooms, none of us would have ever heard of mephedrone and whatever might follow.

Go on, if you let us all have legal weed, we can leave all is designer drug shit alone. Please?

This is not a food blog. A recipe is something out of the ordinary. Normal service has now resumed.

As I sit here, typing away, we are around 9 hours from the expected Apple Tablet announcement. Its pretty big news so I expect you’ve already heard all about it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about it too much.

I’ve got 2 predictions, one is an easy one that’s probably true, the other is a long shot.

Prediction one: It will be a premium product with a premium price for early adopters. Yes, I mean it will be very expensive, but will be cheaper in a year.

Prediction two: It will be called ‘iBook”, which used to be the name of one of their best selling laptops. They already own it, so it would be an easy yet inventive choice. I am far less certain of this one and will be pleasantly surprised if I am right. I’ll also brag a lot about it too.

I’ve wanted something like what’s expected today for years. Yes, I will buy one as soon as they are available though I am guessing it will be like the original iPhone, sold is the USA exclusively for 6 months, then launched in the UK. That will be frustrating!

Today isn’t just tablet day. Had my mother still been alive, today would have been her 80th birthday, but she missed it by around 13 months. I miss her, a lot.

At least Apple were nice enough to schedule their announcement on the same date as my mother’s birthday, its a welcome distraction.

So roll on 18:00gmt, when the big show starts in California. I’ll be online, following the announcement live as best I can and I’ll be tweeting my impressions as well. That is, assuming the entire internet doesn’t come crashing down to a screeching halt under the weight of all that Apple Tablet hype.

Oh yes, that’s my last prediction, Twitter is going to crash like Oceanic Air 815 as soon as Steve Jobs takes the stage. Maybe I should just plan on tweeting again tomorrow.

All over America, attitudes and laws are changing and changing fast.

What are we doing wrong here in the United Kingdom?

Lots, by the look of it. How is it possible that we are falling behind America on this very important issue?

A few years ago, the situation was reversed. The attitude here to weed was relaxing, Tony Blair and David Blunkett downgraded cannabis to Class C, making possession a very minor offence. In America, so much as a seed or a used hash pipe was enough in most states to get you a lengthy, mandatory prison sentence.

Cannabis didn’t remain Class C for long, as Gordon Brown asked the ACMD to review its status. The ACMD did just that, twice and recommended that it remain in Class C. That was unacceptable to our very desperate and weak, make-believe Prime Minister and he pushed ahead with restoring cannabis to to Class B. Class B increased penalties for possession, but had no effect on production or distribution, the penalties are the same for either classification. Gordon wanted to send a “strong message” that cannabis was a “dangerous, deadly drug”.

Now, you can ask any teenager if cannabis is lethal and once they stop laughing, they will set you straight. Cannabis is in no way lethal, but our current government and ruling party don’t have a problem lying to the general public about anything. These are the same shitbags that invaded Iraq on the basis of utter fabrication, so a little white lie about weed won’t cause any issues with their consciences.

Well, I can tell you right now, its causing major issues with mine!

America is moving apace to legalise weed. This is a huge shift in attitude and approach from their previous policy of “just say no” and the war on drugs. Its seismic!

America is the most litigious country in the world, if there were any risks to cannabis, someone would be getting sued for damages, whether its the government for allowing it or the people who provide it. America has accepted that cannabis is not a bad thing, but a beneficial product that can help millions medically.

C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States declared that cannabis was the “most therapeutically beneficial substance known to man” years ago, but it is only now that America is accepting his assessment. At least they got there in the end.

We are still so far away from taking a common sense approach that I’m not sure what to do. Gordon Brown, in his ignorance and desire to appear strong on drugs, has set the cause back at least a decade. Its time we regain some of our lost ground.

Its not just America, many countries have relaxed their drug policies to reflect common sense, the most recent being the Czech Republic. How could the UK be lagging behind them?

We’re lagging behind almost everyone.

I want to change that. I am going to change that.

I just don’t know how yet.

Every journey starts with a first step and this is mine. My goal for 2010 is to combat the ignorance and stupidity that is UK drug policy. Its time for all decent, upstanding, otherwise law abiding residents of this fine country to stand up and demand that they are not criminalised for enjoying a smoke.

We can fight the lies, we can fight the ignorance. We can fight, fight fight until we get what we want, which is a legalised, regulated and taxed cannabis market. The time is now!

A year from now, we will be closer to our goal.You have my word on it.

Martin Luther King, the famous and revered American civil rights activist once said, “…there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that, “an unjust law is no law at all.””

It fucking sucked. Really, it did. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

Besides iPods, name one good thing about the noughties? Even its nickname is pathetically lame.

The decade started with the Millennium, which was supposed to be the biggest celebration of all time. I spent the night in central London, on the River Thames, broadcasting live to all over the world. Maybe you saw me there, I was in charge of a broadcast tent near Lambeth Bridge, blocking people’s views of the fireworks and River of Fire.

Ha, the River of Fire was the first major disappointment of many in the noughties, a damp squib rather than spectacular and a giant let down for those who braved the cold to witness it. I’ve never heard such a loud, collective, “is that really it?” in my life.

London crowds can be drunken and angry and the night of the Millennium was no exception. As the clock struck midnight and I was transmitting live on behalf of four different foreign broadcasters, someone unplugged our generator cable and everything went dark.  

Don’t worry, one of the technicians managed to get it reconnected and it all worked, though the cables were covered with human urine, which wasn’t so pleasant for the engineer. On top of that, the crowd attacked us and tried to steal our expensive TV gear. I can remember smacking peoples’ arms and hands away from tripods and lights as the fireworks began.

We were all ready for the Y2K bug, a peculiar glitch in some older computers that prevented it for handling 4-digit years, meaning some unpatched computers would think it was 1900, not the year 2000. We expected the telephone network to collapse, the power grid to crash, along with all the jumbo jets flying overhead.

It didn’t happen, nothing happened, crisis averted.

But that didn’t mean the noughties were crisis free, because less than a year later, George W. (for What the fuck?) Bush stole the election and became the most powerful sub-normally intelligent person in history. His presidency dominated the decade and his policies made the world a much shittier place.

Think for a second, if Al Gore had claimed the presidency instead. He should have won it, he did win it, but the Supreme Court had other ideas.

Do you think we’d be in Iraq if Gore had two terms in the White House? Probably not, but then we most likely wouldn’t have Barack Obama now.

Who’s to say?

The Bush presidency was built on the foundation of the Neo-Conservative moment and the Project for a New American Century. How’d all that turn out?

Let’s see, the entire economy melted down to near collapse and we seem to be engaged in George Orwell’s never-ending war while his Big Brother keeps track of our every thought and action.

Cool.

Bush was stupid, his advisors no smarter. They dug one stupid hole after another, each a little deeper than the last.

When the attacks of 11th September 2001 took place, you couldn’t imagine a worse commander and chief to have at the helm, unless you enjoy children’s books about pet goats, in which case he would be your number one choice.

9/11 changed everything, but the real shock and awe was how we felt as we watched the twin towers come crashing to the ground.

I’m old enough to remember when the World Trade Centre was built. I’d been lucky enough to visit the observation deck more than once, its a view you wouldn’t be able to duplicate again today without a helicopter.

We were devastated by those attacks, fiendishly simple, yet executed to maximum effect. I remember thinking that this was the beginning of the end of western civilisation and soon we would all be crawling through nothing but rubble, drinking brackish water from puddles in the streets.

How wrong I was!

9/11 was a blip, a lucky shot, a once in a lifetime terror strike from a group whose success exceeded even their own expectations. I’m sure they didn’t think the entire world would change so radically as a result of their actions, but change it did.

Keeping us secure became the number one priority, the cost being a dramatic reduction in our liberty and personal freedoms. Any extreme, radical action taken by a government could and would be justified by tagging it with an anti-terror bent.

Do you want to monitor all telephone calls and email messages? No problem.

Do you need my banking and credit history before I get on a plane? Sure thing!

How about my shoes, should I take them off too? Gosh, hope I don’t have holes in my socks!

Think how quickly we all simply adapted to these new realities, we made hardly a peep as our civil liberties were systematically stripped away.

Its become such a farce now, here in London you practically can’t even take a photograph in a public place without the police swooping down on you like you’re Mohammed Atta, scoping out another attack.

Think that’s good for business and tourism? Think again?

Terror is not the only thing that’s been scaring us in the last ten years, as the environment’s been on our minds too. You won’t see any government declaring war on climate change, even though its probably more of a threat to more people than terrorism could ever be.

The effects of climate change are apparent to anyone who can be bothered to look, yet there are people out there in the world who try to deny this inevitability. If you tried to deny the threat of terror, you would be labelled a traitor, but being a climate-change doubter will not earn you the same label.

Its probably too late to slow down climate change because we pissed away the last decade arguing about it. It would be funny, if it weren’t so damn tragic as the recent Copenhagen Climate Summit heartily illustrated.

The wars in the last ten years have been quite tragic too, especially the two major conflicts instigated by the West, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The war in Iraq was justified with false pretences and blatant, pre-meditated lies. I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I had no access to any of the intelligence available to our leaders. They knew it too, but made up a bunch of nonsense any way.

I can remember being the only idiot in the world who thought that America and Britain wouldn’t go to war in Iraq. I genuinely believed they had no grounds to initiate a conflict and that they would back down at the last minute. I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong, but not as wrong as launching that illegal and pointless war.

George W (for War Criminal) Bush and Tony Blair should both be sitting in prison cells in The Hague, awaiting their trials for crimes against humanity, but no one has the fucking balls to send them both there. The International Court should have charged them already, even if extradition would never happen. They both should pay for their crimes and sins.

But they won’t.

How many innocent lives have been lost in that pointless war? Iraq was far from perfect before the “allies” invaded, but the electricity flowed, the streets were safe and Iraq still had an educated, functional middle class.

I’m not a Saddam Hussein apologist, the guy was a nasty piece of work, repressive, iron fisted, unpleasant and vicious. But so what? Lots of countries are lead by shitbags, we don’t invade them and impose regime change just because we feel like it.

Regime change on its own is not a valid reason for war. In the case of Iraq, it turns out it was the only reason.

Saddam Hussein got strung up in a hastily organised hanging. There’s mobile phone video of it on the internet, that I’m sure you’ve seen by now. It was a very undignified end for an odious, horrible man. Though back in the 1970s, Saddam was friendly with America and funded by them, because he opposed Iran.

Things change, shit happens.

Afghanistan is a different shade of grey.

After 9/11, there was some sense in going into Afghanistan since that’s where the terror bases and training camps were. That’s also where the leader of the bad guys lived, oh what’s his name again?

Osama something or other.

They had the chance to capture or kill him in Tora Bora and blew it. He’s still allegedly alive and on the run in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The problem with Afghanistan is after they chased Al Qaeda out, they were left fighting the Taliban. Big countries like America are crappy at fighting insurgencies and guerrilla wars, see Vietnam for proof. They’ve been dragged deeper into a civil conflict than they need to be.

Today, Afghanistan is a lawless basket-case of a nation, with a corrupt, ineffectual government at its centre and powerful war lords scattered throughout the country.

President Obama seems to think more troops will help and the decade is ending with him announcing further deployments.

When will they ever learn?

How’s never sound?

And speaking of America’s first black president, Barack Obama is one of the good things to come out of the noughties, but he wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for George W. (Where’d he go?) Bush. Bush paved the way for Obama, with his stupidity, mistakes and far right ideals.

Whether you agree with Obama’s policies or not, having a mixed race president in America is good for the entire world. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime, and like most people I was moved deeply by his election.

Do I think he’s doing a good job? Its way too early to tell. He hasn’t even been in office for an entire year yet. We should give the guy a chance. Ask me again in 3–7 years, when he’s finished and I’ll have enough information to form an opinion. Clearly, I wasn’t a voting member of the Nobel panel, because I never would have given the prize to Barack, at least not yet, anyway.

Personally, it wasn’t such a hot decade for me either. Both of my parents passed away, my father in 2004 and my mother in 2008. I miss them both every day.

This was the decade I well and truly entered middle age. I’m going to be forty-fucking-seven next month. The last decade saw me diagnosed with a stupid illness and I had a sustained period of unemployment while I was between jobs.

The illness, Hashimoto’s Disease, is allegedly under control and I did manage to secure gainful employment, for which I am very thankful, but neither period was particularly pleasant for me.

The progress of technology is one good thing to come from the last decade, I’ve got the some of the coolest toys I’ve ever owned currently in my possession.

I’m on my 3rd iMac, the latest a 27” beast with a quad-core processor that is lightening fast, its like having a stylish supercomputer parked on my desk.

By far, the most amazing thing I own is my iPhone 3GS, it is a gadget of unrivalled beauty, power and usefulness. If I had to choose one piece of kit that’s revolutionised my life, its my iPhone. It does more than I could have ever imagined and its abilities just keep growing with every app I install.

Citizen journalism came of age in the noughties, with websites similar to this one springing up at a rapid rate. The word “blog” didn’t even exist ten years ago and now there are millions of them.

Blogging came along when I needed it most, I started this one nearly 6 years ago during my dark and depressing period of unemployment.

Blogging gave me something to do, something to focus on, something to make me feel like I was still a functioning member of society. I had a way to contribute, a way to participate. Somehow, I still mattered, even if I felt like I didn’t.

Blogging may have saved my life. I would have continued to sink deeper had I not discovered Blogspot back in 2004. 

And that’s where you all come in.

Without an audience, blogging is a bit pointless and while I am still not and will probably never be mainstream, I’ve had a level of support and interest that still astounds me. I’m thankful for every visitor I’ve ever had who has dropped by and hung out with me virtually.

Without all of you, I’d just be some guy writing longwinded essays for my own amusement. Ok, even with you all around, that statement is true, but its still better for having you all here.

Thanks very much for stopping by, you’ll always find a warm welcome here and I always put out on the first date.

I wish each and every one of you the very best of the holiday season. I hope the next decade sees all your hopes and dreams come true.

PS
I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I left out of my review of the decade, but this short video review from Newsweek Magazine should fill in many of the gaps. Its quite US-centric, but its only 7 minutes long, so enjoy!