Off the rails

As I begin my last week of train-based commuting, I thought I should maybe write something about the nice things I’m going to miss. It’ll make a change from the bitching, and the reporting of catastrophes.

When I arrive at Laytown station in the morning, more often than not I am greeted by Jo. He’s a gruff old bugger, but he always says hello. Well, to be fair, he gives a waggle of the head that in most places would mean something like “geez, what the hell are you wearing”, or “bloody hell, women allowed out on their own, next thing you know they’ll be allowed to vote!”. But that actually means “Hello, how are ya?” in old-Irishman. He really is very nice, and has been most helpful on several occasions, which all goes to show you shouldn’t trust first impressions.

From spring to autumn, you can see the sea and beach from the station platform, including the magical floating islands. As the sun rises, the sea reflects its light along the horizon, and the islands look as if they are not even touching the sea. On dark winter mornings, you can see the train coming long before the ding-dong of the automatic announcement, as its headlights light up the rails as they curve in towards the station.

Finding a nice snuggly seat on a cold winter morning is particularly nice. The one good thing about living so far away from Dublin is that there are plenty of empty seats on the train in the morning.
I usually try to get a seat on the Coastal side of the train, because the views are just lovely. The (now repaired) Malahide viaduct, and its counterpart at Donabate, span wide estuaries that lead out into the Irish Sea, and the train is the best wayto see them. The first time I rode this line, I was as excited as a toddler on RedBull when I realised that there was water on both sides of the train! In spring and autumn, the sun is usually rising over the estuaries at the time I’m crossing them, and it is possibly one of the loveliest sights ever. I have of course taken about a billion pictures of this over the years.

On my way home, my favourite bit – apart from the fact that I’m going home – is checking on Jeremy the Station Mouse. At Pearse station, I always stand in the same place, and near that place, there is a mouse who has built his house. Or quite possibly several mouses. Mice. Whatever. Anyway, his name is Jeremy Mouse, and every now and again, he will cross the tracks in the boldest of fashions, to visit his friend Cecil Mouse who lives on the other side, under the Southbound platform. I know all this because he told me so, of course.

I think it’s about time I get more sleep.

History of an epic fail

I know I have been banging on incessantly about the efficiency and elegance of Swedish design lately. So I thought I’d give you all a break and talk about one of the biggest cock-ups in the history of naval design: the Vasa.

The Vasa museum is advertised as one of the great main attractions of the lovely city of Stockholm. It is indeed an impressive building, though its modern forms are hardly as pleasing to the eye as the majestic Renaissance castle next door to it that houses the Nordiska Museet. But the truly impressive thing about the Vasa museum lies hidden in the low-lit aircraft hanger-sized space inside the building.

The Vasa itself is a 17th century galleon, conserved in near perfect condition due to its rather original fate. Its glorious career as a royal warship lasted all of a few minutes, and it travelled the great distance of 2km out into the bay of Stockholm. It was built top-heavy, the wrong shape, and was launched with insufficient ballast. A couple of gusts of wind, some open cannon hatches, and the ship went down in front of the massed crowds and the king and his court who had all turned out to watch the launch. A most royal cock-up. If ships could blush, this one would have been fire-engine red from sheer embarrassment.

The ship sank deep into the mud, in the spot where the salt and fresh waters meet, and these exceptional conditions conserved the ship’s wood and metal structure for over 300 years, until it was raised again in the 1960’s. It is in an absolutely breathtaking state, obviously, not as good as new, but for a 383 year-old wooden structure, it is in great shape. It also has quite a particular smell, of old wood and the chemicals used to preserve it. The ornate decorations and the obvious painstaking care taken by all those who took part in building it make it (some of whom perished when it went down) all the more of a pity that all that hard work ended up being for nothing… or, at least, only for the enjoyment of a bunch of gawping tourists some 300 years later.

The Vasa and its museum are indeed a must-see when visiting Stockholm, if only to witness how a country can not only acknowledge its mistakes, but even celebrate, at great expense, one of the greatest balls-ups in the history of engineering.

There is a Titanic museum next door. They do combo tickets.

Why I hate parties

Well, of course, I don’t actually hate parties, not as such, but sometimes there are things about certain parties that make me feel uncomfortable and cringey. And no, it’s not the agonising choice of which car keys to pick out of the bowl. Honestly, you people have filthy minds!

The first thing, and probably the thing that the most people can identify with, is the mortifying matter of smalltalk. It is a terribly crippling illness: the inability to come up with even the lowest quality of smalltalk. I always end up spurting out something either mind-numbingly boring or wildly inappropriate. Of course, this mainly applies to parties (or worse, the dreaded “Functions”) where there are plenty of people you don’t know.

However, even at parties that are just among friends and/or colleagues, people I know well and like spending time with, I sometimes end up feeling like a complete idiot, out of place and awkward. Why is this, you may be wondering? Well because if there is a bit of background noise, loud music or a lot of people talking, I can’t hear a thing. I was born completely deaf in my right ear, and although most of the time I barely notice it (unless I’m listening to the beatles), in any noisy situation my working ear soon becomes overwhelmed and end up as useless as a bikini model in a gay bar: there’s plenty going on, but it’s not picking anything up and it gets confused.

So a drink and a chat in a quiet pub is fine by me, but as soon as the crowds arrive, and the music gets turned up to eleven, I might as well go home, because otherwise I’ll just be sitting there grinning and nodding like an imbecile on morphine, while for all I know the person talking to me is telling me about how their puppy just died of cancer.

I guess if I still had the energy to dance I could just head for the floor and boogie so I wouldn’t have to face the torture of conversation paintball (it looks like fun, but it’s quite hit and miss and actually rather painful), but usually by the evening, I have the energy of a small, tired mollusc. And I hate it when people try to drag me on to the dancefloor. Because I WANT to go and dance, I love dancing, but if you had to move a metric weight in triple figures and Shake It On Down on a pair of flat and damaged feet, I bet you wouldn’t have much energy left either by the end of the day.

So there we have it, like beer, and haggis, and so many other things, I like the idea of partying, and I completely understand that other people love it, but unfortunately I just can’t seem to stomach it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading home to pop on my tartan slippers and flannel dressing gown and work on my 3,000,000 piece puzzle of an empty bit of sky. I’ve almost finished the edges.

Musical me

If you ever see a mad woman, at a bus stop, on a station platform, or just walking down the street, who’s doing high kicks, jazz hands and all manner of corny dance moves with her earphones rammed firmly in her ears, chances are, it’ll be me. And that, my friends, will mean I have finally cracked and lost the onging battle I have been fighting for many years now. Not the battle against insanity, that one was over long ago, when we decided on a truce that has been precariously kept ever since. No, the battle against musical me.

So here it is, I have decided I can no longer live with this shameful secret, I’m coming out, right here right now: mum, dad, I’m sorry, but I love musicals.

Well, actually, they already know. You see, I have (many) a dark secret in my past. Back when I was pretending to be a Student of English, I somehow ended up taking part in quite an adventure of the musical persuasion. I won’t go into detail, it almost deserves a whole post of its own, but, well, I somehow found myself co-translating, co-producing and co-directing the Rocky Horror Show, on stage, in French, with some insane chappy I had met at school. You know who you are.

In fact, I guess that wasn’t really the origin of my musical-philia, it merely revived the dormant embers lit many years before at primary school, the day I got one of the lead roles in the school production of Oliver! (their exclamation mark, not mine). Of course, my stage resumé being pretty much “can’t sing, can’t dance, can act a little”, I got the only lead role with no singing or dancing. And because all the boys at my school were even less talented (and less enthusiastic) than me, all the leads were played by girls, and my designated role was Bill Sykes. No matter, I still hummed along with the others and waggled my feet in time with the steps.

And that is what I am now condemned to do; wriggle my toes and nod my head along with the music every time my iPod shuffles into a show tune, which it does quite often, given the contents of my current musical library. So damn my restless feet, and a curse on all those who have ever encouraged this obsession: Nick, Reg, Tony, all the others, may you forever take a jump to the right, and then a step to the left. MuahAHahahahahahahaha! (Exit stage left)

Knowing me, knowing you

In the olden days, you used to have to have met someone face to face at least once to say you knew them, several times before you would call them a friend, and probably quite few more before you would claim to be in love with them. Unless you’re a character in a Mills & Boon novel in which case it would only take the blink of a long-lashed eye and by then your corset would be half way to the barn floor. In fact, if you were to go back far enough, you would only be considered to have met someone until you had been formally introduced, even if you had actually spoken to them face to face several times. Different times.

In these days of the Super Information Highway, “knowing” somebody seems to have taken on quite a different meaning. I quite often start off an amusing anecdote (of which I haves stock of many, in order to provide fascinating conversation any time it may be required), with phrases such as “this guy I know once told me…”, or “a friend of mine was saying just the other day…”. Now, you see, these may actually be people I know from, say, an old job, or my friends from university, but these days, as like as not, it could also be someone I have encountered or even known for some time just over the interwebs. I guess I could explain every time exactly how I know them, but it’s simpler and easier just to refer to them thus. What’s more, quite honestly that’s how I think of them.

On twitter, for example, where you seem to meet people much more easily than facebook, I have witnessed people who have only known each other for a few months helping each other out in real life, exchanging Christmas or birthday gifts and even falling in love. In fact I now know more Internet-made couples than I could count on my fingers, and I’m not even counting those who met on dating sites. So, chance encounters on the web have led to many romances, and quite a few lasting relationships, but for love as for friendship, the ease of talking to people from the other side of the planet can become quite a handicap when it comes to actually meeting people. I think the record among the people I know has to be a Dutch guy who fell for an Australian gal, and they finally made a compromise after many exhausting years of travel and skyping and long distance relationship and moved to the US of A.

Internet shrinks the world, but unfortunately this means that the next random person you encounter on the web might be just round the corner or on the other side of the planet. Where am I going with this exactly? Well, just to the fact that I have met many many interesting people over the last few years, and although I have been lucky enough to travel and meet some of them, there are many many more whom I would like to be a lot closer to, geographically speaking.

Hang on. I’ve written this exact same post before haven’t I? Oh well, at least I’m consistent.

Lucky pennies

You all know the rhyme. See a penny, pick it up, and all that day, you’ll have good luck.

When I arrived in Ireland almost 2 whole years ago, I noticed almost immediately how much more common it was to find lucky pennies in the street. I wondered long and hard about the reason for this strange phenomenon. Could it be leprechauns? There are certainly enough rainbows around. Or could it be that the Celtic Tiger just didn’t care about leaving loose change hanging around on the ground?* When I asked a local chappy about it, he answered that it was because most Irish people wander around in such a drunken stupor all day that they don’t notice when they drop stuff.

It’s not stereotyping if one of them says it, right?

Anyhoo, having become accustomed to regularly finding a penny or two per week, sometimes even several per day, I began to ponder the whole thing. All that day you’ll have good luck, eh? So, what if you find your penny at ten minutes to midnight? Do you get ten minutes good luck? And what if you find several in one day? I wondered and pondered, until one day I woke up to find the following note under my pillow.

Global Luck Corporation Inc.
Wan Na Huynn
China

Dear client,

We receive your enquire about of our product Lucky Penny. We thank very much for use of Global Luck product. It bring much happyness to you we hope. Here is list terms and conditions for Lucky Penny.

You enjoy.

—————-

Luck Penny is a product of Global Luck Corporation Inc. (Ltd.) The individual luck fields surrounding the pennies are manufactured locally by subsidiaries of GLC, and although rigourous quality controls are undertaken to ensure customer satisfaction, GLC cannot be held responsible for any product flaws or malfunctions.

The person who finds the Lucky Penny (hereafter “the Finder”) is entitled to a period of 24 (twenty four) hours of relative luck field, surrounding them from the first contact with the Penny, in concordance with the first law of Penny Luck (“See a penny, pick it up, and all that day you’ll have good luck”) on condition that said penny be kept within a range of 25 (twenty five) metres from Finder at all times. Each penny can only be activated once per Finder, and only accidental finding of a penny entitles a person to the status of Finder.

Relative Luck Fields (RLF) are not cumulative, and any following Lucky Pennies found within the 24 hour period will not prolong the RLF, nor augment its capacity. However, if any penny or pennies are then given to a friend within 24 (twenty four) hours of finding it, that friend will in turn benefit from a RLF of diminished force, but for a period equal to, but not exceding, forever, according to the second law of Penny Luck (“Give that penny to a friend, and their luck will never end”), even if original Finder is still within the term of a RLF from a previous find.

GLC can in no way be held responsible for the occurrence or non-occurrence of any given event considered lucky or unlucky by the finder.

Global Luck Corporation and Tooth Fairy Ltd are part of the Ethereal Services Cooperative. Your personal data is not stored or transmitted to any third parties during or after your interaction with any ESC affiliates.

So now you know.

*Obviously, tigers don’t have pockets, so it would be quite understandable for it to have trouble hanging on to its loose change.

White Christmas

After many months of agonizing debate, we decided that we had had just about enough of the usual dose of exhaustion, frustration and heartache (not to mention heartburn) that had been intrinsic with our Christmasses of these last 11 years. So we went West. Our lovely friends Laurence* and Manuel had moved from Toulouse to Montreal around the same time we moved to Ireland, and we hadn’t seen them since, so when we were offered a space on their couch, we jumped on it. Not the couch, the offer. So we saved up, grabbed some cheap plane tickets and packed our bags.

As much as we were looking forward to seeing our friends, there was the equally tantalising lure of the idea of a beautiful, crisp, white, 3 foot deep snowy Christmas. Well, what Canada promises, it delivers. Maybe that should be their new motto.

The pretty sidewalks of Montreal crunch underfoot. Although there is a bit of sludge along the edge of the streets where the roads have been salted, this is not the manky pathetic snow we get over this side of the pond. This is dry, powdery, fine white stuff, so fluffy you can’t even make snowballs out of it! With the snow and the -20C temperatures, we were glad to quickly find a good shoe shop and equip our chilly, slippy, poorly-shod feet with nice warm fleece-lined, waterproof, walking boots.

We spent a good few days discovering Montreal and catching up with other friends and meeting new people, but the star event of the trip was our day of dog-sledding out in the frozen wastes north of the city on the 27th. As we had to be at the meeting place early in the morning, we booked a room in the nearest B&B. We drove our ridiculously silly Nissan Something out of Montreal with the help of our slightly clunky-sounding (but admittedly very efficient) satnav lady, and got there just after sunset. The owner was slightly strange, but nice enough and showed us to our room.

The next morning, we went down to breakfast at the agreed time of 7am, only to find a good 50-70cm of snow had fallen over the night. Our tiny car had all but disappeared under the white stuff, and best of all, no sign of life in the breakfast area. So we figured we might as well get to work and started to shovel the snow using the one and only snow shovel available.

Around 7:30-ish, a dishevelled head poked out of the kitchen window and asked if we were managing on our own. I politely replied that no, not really, and that a helping hand would be welcome. The head disappeared. At around 8am, it appeared again to inform us that it had called the people at the dog-sled place and they would like to speak to me. After a rather confused phone conversation about who was calling who and why, it emerged that the owner of the B&B had pretty much told them we weren’t coming. This got the musher annoyed with me for then saying this wasn’t true and me even more annoyed with the madman running the B&B. So he proceded to “help” by standing outside, shouting “advice”, pushing the car one way when we were trying to move it the other and generally being bloody infuriating and no use at all. In the end, I had to insist to pay him, because basically, the man was trying to stall us as much as possible (well, either that or he was genuinely insane or high on something. Or both.). We both wondered if maybe he was somehow hoping we would stay stuck and he would get an extra night’s custom out of us. Quite honestly, by then, I was ready to leave on foot and build myself an igloo somewhere.

Anyhoo, somehow we managed to escape both the snow and the nutter at the B&B, and made it to the slightly elusive rendezvous point only half an hour late. The musher of course found the whole thing hilarious and gave us our snow gear to put on while he parked our cars in a freshly plowed bit of car park. I was quite surprised and relieved to find that I did fit into the ski combi provided, and that it really was quite cosy in there, in spite of my soggy jeans. We travelled by SkiDoo (and trailer/sled with seats) to their HQ, and were introduced to the dogs before being shown how to harness them to the sled. the dogs were all absolutely adorable, excited and happy to be going out for a “ride”.

So after a mini crash course on how to turn left (say left), right (say right), go forward (say forward) and slow down/stop (say stop, say stop again, louder, jump up and down on the snow brake with all your weight, and in the end give up, fall off the sled, land in the snow on your belly and call for help), we were off.  The weather was quite “warm”, with the temperature being above 0°C, so the snow was sticky and awkward, and when going uphill, we had to help the dogs by “skating”, taking one foot off the sled to push it along with that foot, like you would a skateboard or a scooter. This was quite obviously a mistake, the first time I tried it, after panicking a bit for a few hundred metres, I lost my balance, shouted stop, shouted stop again, louder, jumped up and down on the snow brake with all my weight, and in the end gave up, fell off the sled, landed in the snow on my belly and called for help.

Of course, our merciless musher** took the piss quite copiously, and as soon as I had struggled to my feet and made it to my sled – that he had deftly caught as the dogs tore away – we went on our way. After a while he stopped and asked if I was ok, and gave me a minute to get my breath back. And then off we went again. The last stretch before arriving at the chalet for lunch was a 1km uphill stretch, followed by just over 1km of twisty downhill track. By the time I reached the top, I was panting more than my dogs from all the skating, and as we went off down the bendy downhill part, I took one foot off the sled to brake a little and stop my sled running into the dogs, and of course picked the wrong foot for that bend, lost my balance, fell off the sled again, head first into the snow, again, and ended up looking like a total idiot. Again.

Reg’s sled was just behind mine, and he came to my rescue, my knight in refective thermal armour, I  jumped (read: crawled miserably) into his sled and we were off again, reaching the mid-day stop just after my own team and sled had been caught by Jean Christophe, the merciless musher.

We had a simple but wholesome lunch, hotdogs, soup, pasta and home-made cake. Another couple of clients and another musher were already in the log cabin, where they had spent the night (they were on the 2-day trek), and we all had a pleasant meal and a good chat. After we had all rested and dried off, we prepared for take-off again, and Musherman suggested that I could maybe do the rest of the tour as a passenger in his sled, and combine our 2 teams of dogs. Having tasted the effort of mushing, and the snow, quite enough for one day (and still feeling the effects of my blasted mysterious infection, I have to add, and therefore rather rheumatic all over), I agreed.

Getting the dogs ready to leave was quite an amazing, and tiring experience in itself. Imagine trying to single-handedley prep 30 excited primary school children who dont speak your language, and are all on a complete sugar high and bursting for the toilet and who have been told they are going to personally meet Superman in 5 minutes, and try to get them to sit still, in a line, and stop humping their neighbour. Well, ok, maybe not that last bit. Indeed, one of Reg’s rear pair of dogs, young Inuk, could not stop humping his poor partner, Abbi: every single time the group stopped, he was at it within seconds, not even caring whether he was doing it to her ear, shoulder, hip, front paw, or even if she was there at all, really…

So off we went again, taking a different route back to Doggy HQ, and as a passenger, I must say that it was quite a different experience, I could just relax and chat with Jean-Christophe, instead of panting like a 2 ton huskie lost in the desert and worrying about balance and speed and direction and so-on… Both the morning and the afternoon experiences were quite thrilling and exciting, and the scenery surrounding us was just breathtakingly beautiful, picture postcard after picture postcard. The other 2 people in our small group, and Reg all enjoyed driving  (mushing?) their own sled all day, and although it was tough work for a big lump like me, I enjoyed my bit too, and I’m actually quite proud of managing to do as much as I did given my manky condition. In any case, it was certainly a day to remember, and as we drove the 2 and a half hours drive back to Montreal that evening (after another ride on the SkiDoo), we just couldn’t stop talking about it!

Just in case you’re interested, here is their website, and I heartily recommend the experience, it’s just unforgettable!

www.matawin-aventure.com/

Flickr album of our hols

*Laurence is strictly a girl’s name in French, the male equivalent is Laurent. Now you know.

**I am kidding, he really was a very nice guy and very understanding in the face of such total foolishness.

Thought of the day

Spock says:

.

A treaty of platform protocol

I don’t mind commuting, especially by train. The ride is relatively smooth, I usually get a seat, and I can use my time to read, write, or play Solitaire on my phone. In fact, the only thing spoiling my daily journey is the people.

People are stupid. They may, individually, be of various levels of intelligence, but put any number of people together, especially in public, and the intelligence of the group will drop like Lady Caca’s panties in a nightclub toilet. It’s a well known fact: the intelligence of any group is equal to the intelligence of its least intelligent individual divided by the number of individuals. This is especially true when it comes to public transport. In fact any sitiation where several people are moving around.

Remember those nature documentaries you used to watch as a kid before you realised they weren’t cool, and that you secretly still watch on sick days or when no-one else is around? Ok, now, remember how beautiful and graceful those shoals of fish were, hundreds of thousands of individual fishes moving as if they were part of a single organism, curving smoothly out of the way of that big whale shark and off round the coral reef? Well, humans don’t do that. When it comes to behaving in public, we are all dumber than the common sardine. Who’d have thought!

From a lengthy and most serious scientific observation of group behaviour in public, (involving much sighing, tutting and muttering “Oh for fuck’s sake!”) I think I may just know why this is. We think too much. And it’s no the right kind of thinking. It’s the kind of self-absorbed daydreaming that makes people wandering about, hands in pockets, head down, earphones firmly rammed in auditory canals, oblivious to everything outside their own private bubble of space. We all do it, I’m as guilty as anyone.

How hard can it be to just be aware of your surroundings? To notice that if you stand in a particular place, you’ll be in people’s way? To realise that there are not only people in front of you but all around you, even behind you? Well, here are a few… well, let’s call them guidelines, to behaving in public, and in this case on a station platform. I honestly fail to see why people don’t think of them by themselves, but they obviously don’t, so here goes.

• The platform is only so wide. It’s not expandable. If everyone else is standing to one side to let others pass, it would probably be a good idea if you did too. In fact that’s the main rule: observe the social model in place and conform as much as possible. It’s just common sense.
  Practical example: Let’s assume that the platform is about wide enough for 3 people, against the wall is a row of people waiting, on the outer side is a line of people standing along the yellow line because their train is up next. down the middle is a free passage for people moving along the platform. there is room in both the inner and outer rows. Don’t pick a crowded spot and stand in the middle lane. That’s just breaking Wheaton’s Law.

• Spitting in public is gross. Making a big deal and loud noise as you spit is worse. In fact, any emission of bodily fluids in public is gross. Just don’t.

• Ok, so the station is a fairly open space, that still doesn’t mean you’re allowed to smoke outside of the smoking areas, it still stinks (the same goes for farts, by the way). And if you flick one more butt onto the tracks while standing less than an arm’s length from the nearest bin, I will smack you.

• If you really have to have a phone conversation in an otherwise quiet place, keep your voice down and maybe do a bit of self editing. We don’t all want to hear the results of your colonoscopy, or listen to you brag to your friends about how “big” your lover is and how dumb your husband is for not finding out. True stories.

• Don’t cross the yellow line until the train has stopped. Really. Don’t. You will die. Horribly. Oh, and mind the gap.

• If you’re eating something that makes a lot of crumbs – well, first of all, just think what you look like! – but most importantly, drop the crumbs over the edge of the platform. The station mice aren’t going to feed themselves. Well, ok, maybe they are, but still, they deserve a treat.

Guest blog: Fanman’s soapbox

Hi y’all. Don’t go thinking that this is just out of laziness, I do actually have some proper stuff brewing that I will post as soon as it’s ready, but in the meantime, I was asked – almost politely, he didn’t even mention minge once – by Damo the Fanman if I could post this for him. So I will, even if the conclusion is one that I rather disagree with. Anyhoo. Here it is.

2009 – The Twitter Year

2009 has probably been the most eventful year of my life. And it coincides with me joining Twitter. I was wondering if it was possible to get a print out of my near 19,000 tweets of the year so far. That would probably make interesting reading, and I could count up the number of mentions of minge. I’d guess the numbers would be quite high.

As 2009 is nearly over, I thought all of my troubles were behind me. This year has kicked me in the balls far too much to do it again, right? Wrong. But that’s for later.

I joined Twitter on January 25th 2009 after hearing Chris Moyles (@CHRISDJMOYLES) talk about it (well, slag it off). I thought I’d check it out, anyway, and see what the fuss was. I was a Facebook person, and loyal to it. Nothing could ever change that, I thought.

The first event of the year that Twitter oversaw was my wedding. Without my wedding, I probably wouldn’t still be on Twitter now. I had no followers, apart from my cousin Kirsty for the first couple of weeks. Then I asked Dominic Byrne (@domisatwit) (Chris Moyles’ news reader) a question on my wedding day. He replied via DM, and then followed me so I could reply. Without Dom’s follow, no one would’ve ever followed me! The first non-celebrity I followed was @sarahtonner, who sent me a message saying ‘FOLLOW ME!!!!!’. So I did. And then Twitter kind of kicked off.

Twitter opened doors for me – allowed me to meet new people and make new friends. I know I’ve made a few friends for life (including my new bff – @nik_kee_dee). Twitter got me work, too. And I became almost popular. And all I ever did was moan. So much was happening in Twitter land, that I became seriously addicted. Everything I did was on Twitter. Everyone knew everything. The good and the bad.

I will forever be grateful to Twitter and its population for allowing me to make so many good friends. I was going to mention them, but I’d be here all day and I’d get all emotional and teary. They know who they are, though, and that’s what matters.

When you have a close knit group of Twitter friends, it’s a wonderful thing. You be there for them, as much as you can be, and they’re there for you. It’s a great community, and I’ve liked sharing my insane thoughts with everyone.

My twitter community all wished me happy birthday in April and were always there to make me smile when I was sad. Then something happened that really made me appreciate everyone more.

My wife left me. In real life, my best friends are two brothers called Shane and Andy. I’ve grown up with them. Nowadays, Shane lives and works in Nigeria and Andy lives and works in the Cayman Islands. I needed my friends desperately. In their place, though, I had Twitter. My god, you lot were amazing. From all over the world, all of my little Twitter community were being brilliant. It was unbelievable. I can never thank the people who helped me enough.

I met my oldest Twitter friend on ‘Beatles Day’ – 09.09.09. She was lovely. She still is lovely. But I only got to see her for a few hours. Not long after then, she asked me to walk up Ben Nevis for her charity. I agreed (for whatever reason), and I did it. I still can’t feel any sense of achievement though, cos I’m still pissed off (I should just let go, but I can’t). I raised well over £500, too. Twitter helped with that. Many of you were very generous, and the tight ones were very supportive 

I fell in love with that girl. Properly head over heels and she felt the same about me. Woohoo! There was distance involved, but we’d get over that, we said. And we had seen lots of each other until this month.

And that leads me to what I hope will be the last kick in the balls 2009 serves up. I still love this amazing girl, and I think she still loves me, but circumstance has caused us to part. I’m well and truly gutted and my head’s all a mess and everything. The weird bit is, it hurts more than my marriage breaking up. But life goes on. And 2009 is NEARLY over.

I’ve managed to share all this with you lot over this poxy year. And I think I should stop inflicting you with it all. I think 2009 will be my year of Twitter, and I should not go beyond. It’s probably time to stop.

Perhaps 2010 will be a better year (it can’t really be much worse!), and even without Twitter, the friends I have made here over the year will be my friends forever. Thank you all!!