Happy Birthday

Tonight is, as you are doubtless aware, the anniversary of the first day of Creation, according to the Ussher chronology. It is also the fifth birthday of an equally misbegotten project, namely the present weblog. I set this thing up in March 2004, and over the next couple of months posted occasional bits of material which had been written years previously. A change of domicile then intervened, but on 22 October I posted the first piece written specifically for the extensive and discreetly appreciative nobody who had registered my web presence at the time. Hence, I consider that this weblog was born on that day, after a seven-month gestation.

Fortunately, one's writings are not like children. If this weblog were a child, besides having undergone premature delivery it would be badly neglected, constantly abused, and either autistic or hyperactive depending on which not-quite-lethal-enough cocktails of junk food I had shovelled down the maw in the name of peace. The fifth birthday would be a time of trauma as I embarked upon the ordeal of picking out a school and brushing up on the religious doctrine necessary to get the little beast into it. A weblog is a much more civilised affair, and considerably less costly. For all the crankery, obnoxiousness and hysteria for which the blogosphere is famed in the mainstream media, if there were more bloggers and fewer parents the world would be a quieter place.

This is also my eighteen hundredth post, which makes it all suspiciously neat. Thank you all for reading; thanks to the commenters for commenting; and if you've linked, reviewed or otherwise engorged my hit-count or my self-esteem, thanks for that too. The mudgeonry will continue.