My Sincerest Apologies

"I have, however, made it my mission to never overestimate my own importance.

Herein lies my dilemma. Pretention, self-indulgence, pomposity - blogging absolutely ticks every one of these boxes" (26th May 2011)

The above quote is from my first blog post - "disclaimer" which I wrote just less than a year ago.

Today, I'm feeling a bit fragile after the traditional May bank holiday weekend so I decided to have a read through my old entries.

All I have to say is that I am sorry - I've become everything I hate - an obnoxious and pretentious know-it-all using stupid flowery language and bringing in obscure references to economics and 90s TV shows that serve no purpose other than to make me sound like a complete tool.

...and that's before I even go on to the content of what I've written about! Topics such as drinking, dieting, failed house moves, more dieting and AV equipment could hardly be more dull and the 'opinions' I've shared on topics such as charity collectors, capitalism and ex-colleagues make me sound like my hobbies should include moonlight strolls and kitten strangling.

Then I realised that I'd actually achieved what I set out to do - remind me of some of the things that are just ridiculous in this world and point them out in a way that makes it quite clear to me how wrong they can be. Of course I don't actually have anything against charity workers, East London Trendies or the (often very hard working and competent) conveyancing solicitors. For me, it's rarely about what I'm actually typing about, more just a reminder of the bizarre thoughts that cross my mind from time to time.

As I said almost a year ago - this blog is by me, for me and I reckon it does that job fairly well. I've actually quite enjoyed flicking back over the events of the last year today. I'll never forget how good it felt to finish the half marathon in a half decent time - but it was also good to have a quick re-read of the doubts I had in my head back in September. Similarly, looking back and seeing how genuinely angry I was about the house move at the time, but now thinking about how much better life is given that the move DIDN'T happen puts a nice perspective on things. Finally, I still think FYB.com will make me millions. Mark my words.

So I'm going to keep doing it - flowery language, crappy metaphors and all - because it's something that amuses me, because it reminds me of what I was thinking at that moment in time, because it gives me something to do in the office on a Friday when I really don't feel like doing any real work and because it's led to some great arguments with my bestest buddies (I'm still waiting for your "book better than film reposte", you know who you are and you've raised expectations sky high. No pressure).

I'm pretty sure that I'm not (quite) as much as an a-hole as this site makes me sound and I hope that at least some of friends would agree.

Well, this certainly wasn't what I was planning when I opened up the laptop - flip flopping all over the place and almost doing a mini "year in review". In fact, I wanted to write about Barca, but I think I'll wait to do that until I've had a chance to recover...

So instead, let me summarise the post:

I'd like to say "Sorry for being a dick" and "Sorry for my mediocre (at best) chat" but I'm not going to. 'Cause I'm not sorry. Not in the slightest. The last year has been an excellent one and it's good fun to look back on things, and then get back to looking forward to what comes next...

Cheesetastic eh?