10 Years

I’m interrupting my End of the World series of posts to highlight a little milestone in my life.

Wednesday 21st March is the 10th Anniversary of “The Plastic Mancunian”.

Yes, that’s right – I have been posting inane drivel on this blog for ten years.

Can you believe that?

On Friday March 21st, 2008, I wrote and posted my first tiny little missive about the trauma involved in supporting a third rate football team called Walsall.

Although it wasn’t a particularly auspicious subject, sadly the same sentiment rings true today. I still support Walsall Football Club, my home town team, and they are still shit, threatening to ruin Saturday afternoons for me in the football season with their sometimes totally inept performances. Sometime, however, they do me proud and actually win games.

Enough of that nonsense – I don’t want to depress myself.

So what has happened to the blog since that first post?

Basically, I‘ve written 720 posts (including this one), mainly involving small essays. I have ranted mercilessly about things I don’t like, tried my best to introduce my wonderful musical taste to the world, talked about my travel exploits and skirted around the things that have popped in and out of my life.

Some of it has been funny, some of it has been controversial and some of it has been rubbish.

I’ve steered away from certain subjects such as my job. One day, when I finally quit or retire, I will let rip about my career – there is a lot of material there – but for now that subject is taboo – lest I get into trouble. I think that deserves a blog in its own right to be honest.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand; I have enjoyed writing these mini articles – even the bad ones.

The truth is that in the last few months I have been debating whether or not to call it a day – and the bad news is that I have decided, for now at least, to carry on for a while.

I’ve enjoyed the interactions with people from across the globe; UK, America, Australia, Europe and even places like Russia – it’s a truly global thing.

I’m also happy to have stamped a little of my inner thoughts on the vast universe of the internet – even though future generations might put me down as being a bit of a goon.

I don’t care really.

So what’s changed in 10 years?

I have become older, wiser, fatter and more grumpy but, ironically more happy with life. My work still irks me but now I can see the light at the end of a long and frustrating tunnel.

My hair is still mad and I now have grey streaks at the side. My eyesight is worse – I now wear varifocals and am even more frustrated about wearing spectacles than I was as a child.

I’ve learned a lot of stuff from reading other blogs – some amazing stuff in fact, written by some very funny and very interesting people with the same desires to put a little bit of themselves out there into cyberspace. You know who you are.

I’ve written about 75% of a rather terrible novel that needs a lot of work but may one day see the light of day (after approximately a thousand rewrites).

I’ve done a fair amount of travelling too, including weird and wonderful places like Brazil, Japan, Canada, USA, Iceland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Oman as well as a lot of European countries.

Mrs PM and I are celebrating 20 years together this year – and I am still a slave to two very old but very demanding moggies. All of them have been with me for the past ten years.

My two boys are now adults – one of whom is travelling to Australia on Friday for what I suspect might be the beginnings of a life-long love of travel. I'm proud of them both.

However, they do make me feel quite old – but I also feel quite young too in a bizarre way. People tell me that I don’t look my age. Judge for yourself.

Here I am in 2008 when the Plastic Mancunian first arrived.

Mrs PM and I in Hong Kong in 2008

And here I am now.

A selfie in Abu Dhabi taken last Friday

Regular readers (if there are any) will probably cringe at this next sentence – here’s a beautifully mellow song by one of my favourite bands to finish off (I love to end on a song). It's by a band called Riverside and is called "Towards the Blue Horizon" and is in many ways quite apt.

I’ll see you soon for the next post which will discuss the next instalment of the End of the World.

Perhaps I should have reconsidered that topic if I'm trying to be positive.