Sixty six and counting

When I started this blog six months ago I had no way of knowing whether people visited it or not so slowly fell into the comforting delusion that it was as visible as the Great Wall of China from space or the front page of a newspaper on a newsvendor’s stand in Piccadilly, and that my observations were being discussed all over the world.

I worried (in a grandiose Mount Rushmore sort of way) about the impact of my words on the people out there, especially the autobiographical bits. how would the families of people I’d mentioned directly or alluded to or whose identities I’d left series of obscure clues to (who could easily be unmasked by a tenacious investigator with a solid grounding in classical and contemporary western culture especially as understood in the post-war period and… very little else to do) – how would they feel? An overwhelming sense of betrayal and exposure? Or perhaps not; perhaps a sense of vicarious fame, reflected glory if you will – perhaps a little gratified; flattered to be included in the pale of my glittering world (like that Noel Wilde or Evelyn Warhol).

I imagined them blushing like schoolgirls to find themselves so chosen – coyly re-reading their names again and again for the first time in proper print (other than summonses, court cases or unpaid bills) rather than scrawled on walls alongside ill-spelt oaths like “fuck of” and the like. I blushed like a schoolgirl. My head spun. Much, I imagined, as Caligula’s must have done before his sanity gave up the battle and he declared himself a god.

I surrendered myself to the delicious sense of intoxication, like that first few seconds in the life of an intravenous injection of 120mg of pharmaceutical cocaine hydrochloride leavened with 60mg of diamorphine hydrochloride… Ah, those where the days, all fields and bombsites then, no bananas and a humane education system that gave grant after grant without any invasive or unseemly expectation of essays or indeed evidence of learning of anything at all (or crosschecks with the dole to see if you were still signing on) – a lost world based on trust, but I digress.

So, I surrendered myself to the all corrupting electricity of absolute power... for a moment. Then my Apollonian good side came sweeping in and in a flash I regained my emotional sobriety. What profound psychological impact was I having on these and others? How many lives would be altered irrevocably, families rent asunder? How many would suffer through my ill-considered opinions? How much damage had I done already? I realised immediately that in all conscience I could not continue. I decided to erase all trace of the blog and commit to good works for the rest of my life in order to undo at least a part of what I had done. Move house too, just to be on the safe side in case of repercussions from the deranged (from the evidence - a significant minority of those blessed with the mechanical aptitude necessary to use a mouse and draw curtains in daytime).

Then, at one minute to midnight on the big clock, I saw an advert for a free counter whereby I could record the number of hits on my site. Despite the enormity of the emotional shock of seeing firsthand the true Macluhan extent of my parish I realised it had to be done to ensure the exorcism of any last vestige of denial I may try to use to cloak my activities and continue them. I installed the counter. Three days later it read 0001. a week later 0004. Two weeks later 0006.

At this point I realised I had nothing whatsoever to worry about and decided to continue in the same familiar obscurity in which I’d conducted the rest of my life. I realised with a mixture of sadness and liberation the obvious truth that I could talk about anything - the size of my knob in relation to weather conditions - atmospheric pressure and so forth, for example - for the rest of eternity and it wouldn’t matter‘cause nobody's listening. They're all too busy talking too. Like me.

My only remaining disquiet… resentment if you will, is this. At last count I’ve had 66 hits but I’ve sent 70 e-mails ordering friends, family members, casual acquaintances, people I have incriminating evidence on etc… to hit the site. So which four miserable bastards can’t even get it together, are so ungenerous, so selfish, so locked in their own narcissistic hell that they can’t even get it together to hit the link on the e mail I sent them? Can’t even humour me? I was quite specific in my requirements. They didn’t have to read it (I doubt if I’d read it if I hadn’t written it) just hit the link. The only consolation? You can’t see the great wall from space either.