"And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth..."

Friends, I must enter the confessional booth of the interweb and confess a sin so heinous it would knock out a nun at twenty paces. I am a plagiarist. There, I have said it. Forgive me father. I'll do 20 Hail Margarets, count some rosemary or something along those lines.

But it's true; anything witty I have to say has most likely come from somewhere else. The very name of this blog, for instance, is a reference to Black Adder the Third; a word invented by Edmund to confuse the famous Dr Johnson. It means something along the lines of "trouble" or "bother" but more than anything it is a beautifully amusing word. Try saying it aloud. It makes me chuckle every time.

Then take the titles of these first two blogs. The first is a quotation from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' that seemed somewhat appropriate for a first post (if a tad pretentious, but when you know this shit you've got to show it off). The second is a reference either to Rowan Atkinson's stand-up or the Holy Bible. Which one I leave you to decide, I still haven't worked out which is the best for moral guidance, but it paints a rather terrifying portrait of my fate as a despicable plagiarist.

We were warned of the dangers of such a wanton practice on our arrival at Univeristy. Like a vicar from the pulpit, the head of Spanish preached fire, brimstone and a severe telling off for those who transcended the laws of plagiarism. "Woe to those who use wikipedia, for their sources will be questionable and their essays apalling!" (You'll find it in Leviticus somewhere, I think, near the rules on intercourse with animals.)

Truly terrifying stuff, but it made me think: what is so bad about plagiarism? Forgive my heathen ways (Don't worry priest, I'll kiss a saint's kneecap or something...) but it's an interesting thought. Stealing someone else's work is definitely wrong, I'm not disputing that, but where do we draw the line on what is plagiarism and what is influnce? Where do we mark the boundaries between downright theft and unoriginality?

Because when you think about it, very little these days is truly original. When a magazine applauds an album as "an original sound for Summer 2010" what they really mean is "we haven't heard something this wierd since the sixites". A novel, praised as "a truly original and creative work of fiction", was written by someone with a favourite author themselves (we only hope for the love of all things sacred that it's not Jeffrey Archer). Even to claim something as original is an unoriginal claim, because someone (a cynical, lonely man from Newark I expect) once decided that things should have originality. Spooky.

Take this all one step further and we realise that the very fabric of our existence is unoriginal. Our personalities are a result of our relationships over time (which would explain why so many people are as mad as a duck that can't swim); the way we dress is dependent on what there is to buy and whether Gok Wan has deemed it the latest thing. The very words that we speak were taken from somewhere (unless of course you're into gibberish); be it a book, a parent or the only child in school that knew the meaning of the 'F-word', the fact that we string these components in a new order doesn't change the fact that we've taken them from somewhere. This is all hypothetical, farfetched and possibly ridiculous but the point stands.

So where has this rambling, bizarre and somewhat pear-shaped train of though led us to? Cheltenham, no; but a conclusion, I think likely. Perhaps what I am trying to say is that plagiarism as an understanding of influence is a good thing (forgive me Father...). All of life should be a distillation of the many things that impact, change and enrich our lives, where we take the best bits and weave them into something new. My writing will contain references to 'A bit of Fry and Laurie', echo the styles of Rowan Atkinson (long may his manner be eccentric and wierd) and most certainly borrow from the wisdom of other such famous men and women (excepting of course Bruce Forsyth and Rolf Harris, both of whom should have been retired and lovingly put down many years ago). Let us leave behind this obsession with originality that must drive so many creative people to the brink of a breakdown and instead applaud the ways in which we can regenerate what has been before. Maybe, just maybe, not being entirely original isn't such a mortal sin after all.

Even so, I think I'll keep praying. Just in case.

"To dive into the fire"

So. We commence. How exciting.

I'll be honest with you ladies and gentlemen. I haven't the faintest clue what I'm doing, where I'm going, why I'm going there and whether there will be ice cream when I arrive. I desperately hope there will be, but nothing is certain. All that is certain right now is that I am as confused and slightly nervous as I suspect you are.

Perhaps a short exploration of what a 'blog' is would make things clearer for myself and, if you've maintained interest for this long, for you as well. Having given it much thought (two minutes and thirty-eight seconds to be precise) I believe a 'blog' to be the modern update of the much loved and loathed diary. A simple conclusion perhaps, but then a long-winded one would have been dull and too taxing for my brain, which as we speak is still recovering from the near fatal experience of "waking up".

Diaries for centuries have carried in their well-used pages the private thoughts and feelings that we thought we could not express to anyone in the world but a humble page. They are treated as human beings and are sometimes given names such as Kitty, Deborah, Johann, Keith and, more commonly, Diary. They have suffered the whining teenage angst that, of course, no-one understands (especially those adults who have already been through this period of love, hatred and strange bodily growth). They have been the companion of revolutionary politicians not quite sure if the world is ready for them yet; of writers who need to be doing something vaguely literary to persuade their wives to leave them alone a little longer and stop pestering them for children and the like; they have even carried the confused, terrifying yet surprisingly eloquent and poetic ramblings of the odd mass murderer. In short, the diary has been for time immemorial the vessel of thoughts and feelings on everything from the mundane to the truly sensational. All the 'blog' has done is take the privacy out of this process and turned these thoughts into something of a spectacle.

Given this conclusion I can say with absolute surety that I do not want to write a 'blog'. I have never liked diaries, particularly those of paranoid teenagers, for they seem only to store up the hatred, anger and fear that should be left in the past. I kept one once for about 3 weeks, poured thoughts and feelings into it and ended up terrified of it and its monstrous potential to swagger smugly from its hiding place and shame me to the rest of the world. I eventually summoned up the courage to burn it when no-one was around. Ludicrous, I know, but I was 14 and one is allowed to be ludicrous at that age. I even believed in communism back then... Mad.

Perhaps the 'blog' has made this even more of a shameful process. Before the teenager would write in a diary that came with a convenient lock. Why these locks were always so easy to pick is anyone's guess. Perhaps the genius who invented them also found it amusing to peruse other people's diaries. But the point was the illusion of privacy, the feeling that no-one would read it, and on this point I suppose the diary was a commendable friend; lightening one's emotional burden and guarding secrets from the world where our best friend Jenny might spread them around the form room of a Tuesday morning. But the 'blog', the hateful spawn of the diary, has mutated into a form of showmanship. Thoughts we would never have told anyone are now online for the world to see and admire. Of course, no-one will understand them, but someone might fawn over us, pity us and possibly even tell us what an amazing person we are as a result. Such attention seeking is criminal. I am convinced that it is in part responsible for the rise in teen pregnancy, I just haven't worked out why yet.

Instead I wish to write this 'blog', not solely for myself, but for those who might find it interesting, whimsical and possibly even chuckle-under-your-breath-whilst-drinking-tea-worthy (a man can dream). Yes, it will convey thoughts and feelings; yes, it will contain angst and frustration; but I hope to put these across in an amusing and entertaining way and on topics far more interesting and relevant than the latest girl who doesn't love me back. As someone who loves to write but lacks the impetus, I hope this will give me a chance to hone my skills, expand my horizons and possibly even keep something up for once. Bear with me; I may at some point say something funny.

So, welcome to the 'blog' that isn't a 'blog'.

And at some point I will drop the inverted commas.