Dousing The Flame

Plainly I am a miserable bastard.

I am one of those wretched people who take no joy whatsoever in life’s special events but hide away, griping and sneering, and looking down my nose at the hoi polloi.

The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter back in March? I preferred to sleep in.

The Euro football thing? Past me by. Couldn’t care, didn’t care.

Wimbledon? If I wanted to watch women in short skirts grunting at each other I’d... hold on a minute, I might programme my set-top box to record that one.

Yesterday the Olympic Torch (or rather a facsimile of one of many Olympic Torches) passed through my home town of Leamington Spa. The route took it right passed my place of employment. The torch was on my very doorstep. Crowds and thronging masses lining the streets. Local celebs. Local dignitaries. The press. The police. The St John’s Ambulance brigade. The world and his dog all lined up to watch the world’s biggest Cornetto walked along streets which in a year’s time will not recall its passing. Or even care.

Was I there?

Nah. I couldn’t be bothered.

The wife had made cup cakes and they were fresh out of the oven and generously iced. I was on the sofa with a good book. The kids were playing happily together and not requiring adult involvement. The kittens had disappeared to their mysterious bolt-hole the exact location of which is still unknown to us.

This was quite possibly a once in a lifetime event happening in my own home town and I just felt nothing. Not a spark of interest. Not even a snifter of a fart. In years to come when people ask me if I was there and if I saw it I shall say no but my backside was grateful for the good scratching I gave it.

The most I have done is to check out some photos on Facebook posted by a friend who did motivate himself to go.

They are good photos but the spectacle of the event looks underwhelming. When you have seen one crowd you have seen them all. Unless they are armed, of course; crowds like that tend to impinge on the viewer far more personally. And as for the torch... well, I’ve seen it on the telly. I’ve seen it on the telly nearly every night for the last God knows how many weeks. I’m sick of it. It is of no more interest to me than one of those huge phallic pepper mills that Italian waiter’s grind over your lasagne in Bella Italia.

I’d like to put this indifference down to Olympic fatigue but the truth is I just don’t care enough about big “social” “all inclusive” events of any kind. They make me want to down tools and run off in the opposite direction. I even get some kind of secret thrill from spurning them and not being part of them. I don’t even see myself as a lone wolf or one-man-alone or anything cool like that.

I just don’t want everybody else’s bag to be my bag.

I don’t want to be part or included or one of the many.

And for some strange reason I feel bloody proud to have discovered that about myself.

Where was I when they shot Kennedy?

I was doing my own thing, Mac, doing my own thing.

50,000 Votes But No Cigar

So the Brilliance In Blogging awards came and went last Friday and though yours truly was a finalist in the Lit category, I nevertheless went home a runner-up. In fact I didn’t even have to go home on account of never having left being too niggardly and anti-social to even attend the event despite the lovely Katy Hill being the compare and Ruby Wax also being in attendance. And of course, Ruby is undoubtedly lovely too.

I didn’t win.

Not a bean. Not a sausage. Close but no cigar.

I now know what it feels like to be the “also-ran” at an Oscar ceremony or The BAFTAs. The chin-up. The fake smile. The autopilot applause for the lucky individuals who did win.

Actually, I truly didn’t expect to win. And I mean that. I’m not just saying it to make out that I don’t care or to belittle the event (though of course I’ve maintained all along that I don’t do this for the accolades or the money or the loose women, sorry, the loose change; I do it for the art and the love and for you guys). This is no embittered lie to cover up a crushed soul fermenting itself into poison under the grinding weight of being passed over yet again at yet another award ceremony. I honestly didn’t expect to win.

My blog is too eclectic. Too unfocused. Too nonspecific and too wide ranging in its scope to pigeonhole neatly into any category. And yes I am trying to make a virtue out of a vice.

Of course, some might argue that this blog just wasn’t good enough and that is simply the hard, cold end of it.

And indeed that could be the case but for the fact that, to become a finalist, this blog had to receive over 50,000 votes.

50,000.

That’s a phenomenal number for a snipey little blog that doesn’t particularly sell anything or offer a worthwhile service.

I was gobsmacked when I discovered that 50,000 was the numerical threshold.

Who are these people? Do they read every day? Why don’t they comment? If I sold 50,000 copies of my novel, The Great Escapes of Danny Houdini (plug plug), I’d be laughing.

*sigh*

So 50,000 people like this blog.

But it is the diet coke of success.

Just not quite successful enough.

Come on, people. Give me some sugar!

How Much Do You Love Me?

See, I would have said most of you would gladly take a passing bullet for me. The rest of you, I’m sure, would hiss appropriately at the gun man and then mourn my passing forevermore. Undying, slightly unrequited love.

But no.

It seems I’ve been fooling myself. The stats are out and (unless you are a politician) you can’t lie with the stats.

945,249th.

I’ll say that again: 945,249th.

According to domaintrakker.com that is where my blog ranks in the list of most visited web sites on the internet. I’m at the fag end of the ‘top’ 1,000,000. Not even the top 100,000. Thanks a bunch. (And thanks for the correction, Nota Bene.)

And to make it worse (worse as in more demeaning) the site estimates that I earn about $3.47 daily. In pounds that works out as about £2.15. I’m hardly going to get onto the next series of The Apprentice with that now, am I?

Most telling of all though is the top incoming anchor link to my blog (yeah, like I even know what that shit means). Sex With Nigella.

Yeah. That’s right. You might not love me but you love the thought of sex with Nigella. You love it so much you keep coming back to my blog just to get yourself off on it. I’m just a marital aid. Not even that. Nigella is the marital aid; I’m just the... what? The pimp? The guy who cleans the sheets afterwards? It just doesn’t bear thinking about.

Well, fine. Have it your way. I know my place. Just don’t expect me to come round to your place anytime soon and leave a nice cheerful comment, OK?

945,249th.

Harrumph.

Vajazzle

I did something last week.

Something unexpected and amazing. Possibly even a little daring but in all honesty I can't recall what it was.

I just know I did something.

Something so hot and entertaining that half the world came round for a look.

My blog stats went (for me) through the roof. No more a mere 150 visits a day. We were talking 500+. And it went on all week. 7 days of mass(ish) interest. I felt like a porn site (but the wife was looking over my shoulder).

My God, I thought, I've bloody made it. I'm piloting my madcap moon rocket to the blogging moon. My blog has got vajazzled and everybody wants to come and get a slice of the action.

Man, I was shaking my blogging booty!

They'll all be coming to me now, I thought. Megabucks advertizing deals. Publishers. Film producers. The pizza boy from Domino's (I'd ordered a pepperoni special).

But then it all died away.

Just like that.

Zip. Nadda.

I have no idea why. It was like I was popular for about 7 days and then the halo of coolness floated away and found someone else's head to crown.

My vajazzle plainly wasn't good enough, wasn't long lasting enough. The slice of my pie wasn't tasty enough for a second sitting.

I'm back to a mere 100+ visits per day again.

Back to obscurity.

Back to my unadorned, unenhanced self.

Back to the way nature intended.

*Sigh*

Oh piss-flaps!