"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.