Unnoticed and unannounced, I hit 4500 blog posts today.
I thought that I would trumpet this, or celebrate or shout about it, and then I thought I wouldn't even note it, and we would just move on to 4,501, day after day, as we do and as we have done.
I went to see James last night, one of my favourite bands of all time from when I was young, a band that I first saw 37 years ago.
As I was washing the dishes before going to the gig last night, I put James on Apple Music just to listen to some songs of old that I love and that I've loved, only to realise quite how enormous their back catalogue is. It's true that some of the music of James was the anthems and soundtrack for my life, but I've lost touch and lost track of what they've done recently. This is often the way when you get older and busier, and other things come into your life.
That said, Tim Booth (crazy mental head) and the guys in James have created quite a body of work over 40 years, and they managed to rock the ice stadium in Nottingham for 8000 people last night in a pretty big way.
And so, I knew this blog was coming up today, and I was standing in the gig thinking about bodies of work and legacy and what you do things for and why, I decided we would note it and say well done to us for 4500 posts.
So, I searched perplexity (one of the capital LLM’s that I use) to ask how many words I'd written in my 4500 posts, and it gave me a pretty credible estimate of around 3 million.
Imagine what I could have done with that time (that would be my wife's view of that), imagine the things I could have achieved in those 3 million words if I'd directed them somewhere else.
When I started this, though it was for me, and it still is. A journal to myself for when I'm sitting in the chair in the conservatory of the nursing home, not able to do anything else or go anywhere else if I get to that stage.
I have to say thanks at these notes—first to Maisie, who types the blog for me on a daily basis and prompts and reminds me; she had to do one on her day off recently because I’ve been so bad at getting it to her. Thanks, Maisie.
Secondly, to Marie, who drops in, if ever it is necessary, but who was the original blog editor all the way back at the start, almost 15 years ago, and she's still with me in another capacity, but will do the blog at any point.
Hayley Fox and Millie were both blog editors over time, so now there have been four.
When you hit a milestone like this, if you're me, you always think, " Should I stop?” or "Why do I bother?”, or "Have I got enough and am I ever gonna be able to read it?”
The other options I have now (as perplexity was telling me) is to export the files for this, put it into a different AI (I subscribe to Eleven Labs) get it to copy my voice and turn it into an audiobook, or voice versions of the blog or PDF's or an actual book, or an AI search engine to ask it questions.
All of those things might be cool and fun, and might gain a ‘better reach’, but actually in the end, it was a stream of consciousness, I dyed it to myself, a place where I could see where I was, what I was doing, what I thought of that, and if anyone else was interested in reading, they were most welcome.
I have no idea how many people read this (if any), but for the moment, I'm looking forward to the next 4500 posts.
See you down the road.
Blog Post Number - 4500