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.

Five Years and Counting ...

The Plastic Mancunian blog is now five years old. 

I wrote my first post way back in March 2008 and it seems like only yesterday.

To celebrate this milestone, I thought I would share with you some of my thoughts and feelings about why I started blogging in the first place and how The Plastic Mancunian has evolved over the years, together with some of the ups and downs.

Many years ago, in the early 1990s, I found myself looking for a new hobby. At the time I was reading a truly terrible and extremely geeky book. I won’t tell you what it is for fear of being ridiculed. However, that particular book sowed a seed that has germinated and is still thriving.

The book was truly awful and as I read it, two thoughts raced through my head:

      (a)    Why I am I reading this utter crap?

      (b)   I can write better than this.

As a result of that awful book, I started writing. At first I had no direction; I was a rudderless ship drifting on a vast ocean in search of a literary land mass. There was none to be found.

I thought I wanted to write fiction and began to write short stories and first chapters of novels.

And they were rubbish.

I realised that writing was truly difficult and requires a lot of thought and patience. It was also extremely time consuming, and my inner perfectionist lambasted me for poor writing style, bad plotlines and overly ambitious ideas that would result in huge complicated stories.

My head was full of ideas but capturing them, wrestling them to the ground and turning them into something that people would enjoy proved to be something I simply couldn’t do.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed trying.

I found myself putting pen to paper and writing utter drivel. I locked away the perfectionist and started to write about the thoughts in my head. It was almost like a diary – but not quite.

And I enjoyed it, despite my flaws.

In 1999, Mrs PM and I travelled to China for two weeks and this gave me the impetus to step up a gear. I decided to have a go at writing a travelogue.

I bought a notebook and , as we travelled around that fascinating country, I made copious notes about our experiences and upon our return, I sat down at the computer and turned those notes into a diary of the trip.

It became The China Chronicles.

And while it is really a load of old rubbish, it took me to the next level. Mrs PM particularly enjoyed it because it gave her an insight into the way I felt, my thought processes and my interpretation of events that happened to us.

In 2005, to celebrate Mrs PM’s mother’s 60^th birthday, we travelled to Australia. Mrs PM’s mum had never been to Australia – and neither had we. I thought it would be a good idea to record this once in a lifetime journey in another travelogue, so that I could present it to her as a birthday gift, a record of our trip Down Under.

The China Chronicles was gritty and amateurish; what became The Oz Chronicles was a more personal, light-hearted and amusing diary of our time in Australia.

Mrs PM’s mum accepted the gift with, I thought, a dismissive wave of her hand. She assumed that it was just a record of pictures and captions.

When she read it, she was amazed. It served as a memento of what proved to be one of her favourite holidays, complete with detailed memories from each day and my own weird and wonderful interpretation of events.

She loved it. I might actually post it as a new blog some day.

I found myself writing more but needed an outlet. The only person who read my “work” was me – and occasionally Mrs PM.

“Why don’t you post some of your writing on the web and get other people to tell you what they think?” said Mrs PM.

“I’m too scared,” I said. “What if they think its rubbish?”

“Does it matter?” she replied. “If you enjoy doing it, and you want feedback, just do it.”

I didn’t really know what to write about. I knew that I wasn’t going to write a novel (at least not yet), but if I basically just offered my thoughts about the world around me, some people might – just might – be vaguely interested.

I started The Plastic Mancunian in March 2008 with a post about football.

And since that day I have written 452 posts about a wide range of nonsense. There have been times when I have struggled to think of things to write and others when I have had so much to say that I can barely get the words out quickly enough.

The thought of giving up has occasionally crossed my mind, particularly when I have been inflicted by a particularly bad bout of writers block. When such a thought traverses my mind, I simply sit down, clear my mind and look at my little note book of ideas.

I am delighted to say that the world is such a delightfully strange place that there is always inspiration from somewhere. Besides, life is quite capable of throwing enough weirdness in my direction to keep me entertained enough to scribble down my thoughts about it.

What is most surprising, however, is that people actually read it.

And even better – people offer their thoughts and opinions.

I love that.

Of course, the other thing that I love about blogging is reading the thoughts of other people. I have connected with quite a few people thanks to The Plastic Mancunian over the past five years and that is probably the most rewarding experience of all.

While my ambition is to write a book and get it published, I know in my own heart that while I still have a career that such a task will prove too time consuming to achieve, at least until I retire.

Besides, I’m not a good writer.

I am now quite content to just pour out drivel once or twice a week and post it on this blog, knowing that people may read it. I don’t care whether people hate what I write but I love the thought that some people may smile at the weird gobbledygook I transmit into cyber space.

If I can make one person smile, that makes me happy.

To be honest, I think I would continue to write even if I had no readers whatsoever. I find it therapeutic and, in a small way, it satisfies the creativity within me.

Furthermore, I may claim that I haven’t written a book yet, but in five years I have managed to put together so many posts that I could in fact print off several “books” of posts.

As well as that, it’s been eight years since I wrote a travelogue, and I aim to rectify that by writing another one for our trip to Japan in May. Not sure what I’ll call it yet (maybe The Nihon Chronicles - I'm so imaginative aren't I?).

And perhaps I may even create another blog for it.

Finally, I’d just like to thank those of you who regularly come back to read the nonsense that I write, particularly those who add comments.

I love that.

If you are a lurker who feels too shy to comment on my inane balderdash, please feel free to share your thoughts.

I don’t bite and I have a thick skin.

I certainly plan to continue the blog – The Plastic Mancunian is still going strong.

Here’s to the next five years.

The Meme About Me, Myself and I

Welcome, dear reader, to another meme from Sunday Stealing . As you may have guessed from the title, this meme is called The Meme About Me, Myself and I.

1. What inspires you to blog?

I am a frustrated writer. I love to sit down and get my thoughts down, even though most of the time, they are rather strange reflections on life. I am very opinionated and blogging is a great outlet. If something annoys me I will write about it – it is a form of therapy and it really helps. One of my ambitions is to write a book and the journey to that goal will be quite an arduous one, particularly with work taking up too much of my time. In the meantime, writing short blog posts helps me along that road.

2. What’s the best thing about blogging, for you?

I love writing and I love the fact that other people are interested enough to read the words that I write, despite the fact that they are the product of a warped imagination. I love receiving comments too.

3. What is your favourite book of all time?

That’s a tough one. I am a huge fan or anything weird, so I will plum for “The Stand” by Stephen King. I will probably come up with another one if I think about it a little more.

4. It’s 9pm and for some reason you’ve been hungry all day, despite the three square meals. What do you rustle up?

I would rustle up my favourite quick snack; cheese on toast.

5. Who are three of your style icons?

What’s a style icon? I’m afraid I don’t have one. If you see the way I dress, when unsupervised by Mrs PM, you would probably say Worzel Gummidge.

6. What’s your current favourite song/piece of music?

My current favourite piece of music is the epic 24 minute long track Octavarium by Dream Theater.

It is an absolute masterpiece and brings tears of joy to my eyes. Follow the link and listen to it if you have a spare half an hour. If not, just listen to the first five minutes. It is beautiful.

7. What is the last book you read?

The last book I read was “Patient Zero” by Jonathan Maberry, a cross between 24 and Night of the Living Dead. It was a cracking read (if you like that sort of thing).

8. What is your current favourite recipe?

I can cook but I don’t enjoy it at all. If I must put an answer then I will say that my favourite is a quickly thrown together pasta dish in a mushroom sauce and bacon.

9. Who or what first inspired you to set up your own blog?

As I said above, it was my desire to write plus additional encouragement from Mrs PM who predicted that I would love doing it. She was right.

10. What object could you not live without?

At the moment I would have to say my desktop computer. It enables me to surf the web, write blog posts and listen to music.

11. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

I would like to think, in an ideal world, that I have changed career and become a writer, travelling the world searching for inspiration to write a book. However, looking at it realistically I will still be doing the same job and I will be ten years older. Still, I can dream.

12. Who or what made you into the person you are today?

I would say that it is a combination of Mrs PM, my ex-wife W and my kids. I have been a different beast for the past few years and I am still evolving. I haven’t reached my peak – not by a long way.

13. What have you learned from blogging?

I have learned so much but the best thing is that there are some great people out there in the blogosphere who think just like me.

14. Knowing what you know now, what knowledge would you pass on to your past self?

This is a little bit of déjà vu because I completed an entire meme about this not too long ago. I guess I would get him to start writing sooner while following his instincts.

15. Sunday roasts - lunchtime or evening meal?

I would say lunchtime.

16. What has been your best blogging-related experience so far?

I guess it’s knowing that people all over the world have read and enjoyed my inane and sometimes insane ramblings. There are a lot of people out there who are as weird as I am.

The Blogger

Why do I blog? I’ll tell you.

I occasionally steal memes when I have a particularly nasty attack of writer’s block or am unhappy with ideas for posts. Last week I popped across to Sunday Stealing just to see what was on there and I found the second of a two part meme that would allow me to tell you a little bit about my blog and give you an insight into what goes on in my weird mind.

Since I missed the original meme, I thought I would answer the questions just for fun. The original item was in two parts but I have decided to combine them. In retrospect it would have made a good 200th post (and it may have made a good 300th post). But who cares? It seems like a good idea now.

1. How long have you been blogging?

My first post appeared on Friday 21st March 2008, so that’s almost two years. It was a fairly boring post about Walsall, the football team I support, and received no response whatsoever. But then again why would it? The club only has a few thousand fans and, at the time, nobody was reading the blog (unless they happened to stumble across it by accident).

2. What made you start?

I had been writing for a while and had made several attempts at writing novels and short stories. There are a lot of “Chapter 1” files on my hard drive but only one or two “Chapter 2” files. I had written a couple of travelogues and I found that I really enjoyed writing. Mrs PM suggested that I should get people to read the bilge I write and, if possible, to comment on it. I then discovered that a colleague of mine had been writing a blog for a couple of years about life in South Korea and I thought “I could do that” – write a blog I mean, not write about life in Seoul. The rest is history.

3. Who inspired you?

Mrs PM I guess. If she hadn’t suggested it, I never would have done it.

4. About how many hours a week would you estimate you spend on your blog?

I would say a couple of hours writing, throwing things away, and writing again.

5. What kind of experience or background do you have with writing?

Not an awful lot really. The only writing I have ever done is technical writing and that is absolutely dreary and totally uninteresting. In fact, as much as I like writing, I absolutely hate writing technical documentation. I suppose I get paid for it, so I have to do it – but it’s hardly something that would interest the general public.

6. Talk about how you come up with blog topics. Where do you get your ideas?

When I first started the blog, I was going to use it to make the world a better place using the power of ranting as a tool. However, it soon became clear to me that there is a lot of craziness out there and an awful lot more inside my own mind. So basically, what I do is keep a little notebook handy and, as ideas pop out of the primeval weird pool that is my imagination, I capture them and imprison them in my book. Sometimes I look at that book and think “Do I take drugs?” and most of the ideas never see the light of day. However, quite a few do – as regular readers will have seen. In fact, readers may also think that I take drugs anyway. I can assure you that I don't (apart from a modicum of alcohol now and again).

7. What or who inspires you and your blog?

At the moment, it is everyday life that inspires me and the antics of those around me (both animal and human). I also prowl around cyberspace, searching for other blogs; most of them are so much better than mine. I am a positive person (despite the apparent grumpiness) so I strive to improve. Reading better blogs inspires me to try to write better posts.

8. Where and/or how do your brainstorming for your blog?

I don’t brainstorm unless I am stuck for a topic. And if that’s the case I usually steal a meme or read the blogs of others in an attempt to kick start my creativity.

9. Do you have any blogging rules or guidelines you follow?

Yes. I try not to be too controversial. I have very strong opinions on a variety of topics and I try my best not to pour forth my true feelings in case I upset somebody. If I unleashed my opinions in full, there is every chance I would offend people. So I rein myself in. Mrs PM thinks I should go for it and be controversial. However, my nature is such that I genuinely do not like distressing others. I also like to inject a little humour into my posts and, although sometimes you can mix controversy and humour, I can never do it to my own satisfaction. I prefer people to read my blog and laugh rather than feel angry about it (unless your name is Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan or any of the hundreds of so-called celebrities that annoy the hell out of me).

10. Is there anything you will not blog about?

I’m nervous about subjects like religion because people can easily be offended – so I try to avoid them when I can. Apart from that, I think I could write hogwash on a variety of subjects. The simple answer, therefore, is “no”.

11. Do you have any sort of a publishing schedule in terms of day of week or topic?

Not really. I average a post or two a week but there is no schedule.

12. How many drafts of potential blog posts do you have right now?

Quite a few; some are just ideas in my notebook, others are draft copies on my desktop.

13. In what medium do you draft your posts?

I use MS Word and then cut and paste the finished item into the blog.

14. How often do you completely scratch or delete drafts or blog post ideas?

I am my own worst critic – so quite often really. If you think the posts you get to see are shit, you should see those that end up being deleted!

15. If you had to leave your blog in your will to another blogger, who would you choose?

I certainly wouldn’t leave it to Mrs PM because she hates writing. It’s a shame really because she is so funny that I feel my blog would improve if I allowed her to post a few items. I guess it would come with me to that great blogosphere in the sky – I may have to rename it though (depending where I end up).

16. Are there other blogs that you feel are similar to yours in content, style, or voice?

Oh yes – and most of them are much better. I love reading funny blogs and have actually howled with laughter at quite a few. One particular blog post made me spray tea all over my screen and keyboard, it was so funny. Like I said before, I want people to read my drivel and be entertained, so I search for blogs that achieve that on a regular basis. And believe me, there are some cracking ones out there.

17. Has anything surprised you since you started blogging?

The amazing thing about blogging is that there are people out there who read my drivel and comment on it – and I love it. I am amazed and inspired.

18. What are your goals or plans for your blog going forward?

I don’t know. I would like to make some improvements – possibly even post excerpts from my two travelogues, possibly on a blog of their own. I guess I want to increase my readership but that’s not the most important thing. As long as people are happy and entertained that’s good enough for me. And as long as I am happy writing then I shall continue – so sadly for you, dear reader, there is more claptrap to come.

19. Do you make any money from your blog? (optional) about how much a month?

Bugger all. I responded to Adsense and thought “that might be worth a try” but apart from a few pennies it’s not worth it. I may just get rid of it in the near future. Money is not my main driving factor by any means.

20. What blogging system do you use?

I use Blogger.

21. How did you come up your blog name?

A bloke I used to work with, called Chris, is a Liverpool fan who has never actually lived there. He has lived close enough to the city to have a vague Scouse accent though he is not really a Scouser. We call him “The Plastic Scouser”. I’m originally from Walsall and have lived in Manchester for the past 26 years – but I am not really a Mancunian. “The Plastic Mancunian” seemed an obvious name.

22. How many blogs do you have? What was your peak?

I have two. The other one is called The Plastic Mancunian’s Eye and is a photo blog. I am trying to improve my photography skills so that particular blog is basically a place where I can show off some of my better efforts. It’s fun and I post fairly regularly (though I have neglected it this year a little bit). I don’t intend to start any more blogs, unless I publish my travelogues.


23. Are you having as much fun as when you started?

I’m having much more fun. I love writing blog posts and have discovered some amazing blogs written by some very talented people world wide. I don’t intend to give up at all.

24. Where do you find other bloggers like you?

I search out new and interesting blogs on subjects that I am interested in and stumble across a lot from various places. Also, if people comment and they have a blog, I will always pop across for a quick shufty.

25. What’s your one wish when it comes to blogging?

I would love to become a writer and blogging has made me concentrate on writing more and more. I just want people to enjoy what I write because that is a step in the right direction.

Well I hope that gives you another insight into my world. Thanks for reading.