Season's Greetings......and Sayonara

So here we are, in this Christmas Season 2019, after a fairly momentous years of terrorism, political turmoil everywhere (not least in Brexit Britain and Trumpian USA), sporting achievements (well played the England cricket team and Lewis Hamilton), surprise Nobel Laureates (well done Olga, bad luck Greta - but your day will surely come) and much else besides.  Farewell to the wonderful Clive James and Jonathon Miller, who were not only very clever individuals but very funny as well.  And Ginger Baker, horrible man but wonderful drummer.  And Martin Peters, 1966 and all that.

Climate change continues to bite and politicians continue to wring their hands about it and do fuck all, or deny it exists and do fuck all, while huge swathes of Brazil and Australia and Siberia burn out of control, global average temperatures continue to rise, glaciers and polar ice caps continue to melt and sea levels to rise.  The clock is ticking toward irreversible climate change in a little under 11 years and as ever the UN seems powerless to do anything about it.  Schoolkids and their elders and alleged betters take to the streets to protest the situation and are widely praised or roundly condemned depending on which side of the argument you're on.  For my part - long may they continue to make their voices heard, and next time there is a demo here in Warsaw I will be there marching too.

As well as a crook in the White House, we have one in 10 Downing Street now, elected despite lying throughout the election campaign, being an unapologetic known racist bigot and serial philanderer, and mocked by the electorate every time he incompetently participated in serious debate.  But his posturing and sloganeering and love of a photo op with Joe Public went down a storm, and with the help of pitiful Opposition from Labour and LibDem, managed a landslide victory that will deliver a No Deal Brexit this time next year.  Britain deserved better but didn't seem to want it after all.  Such is life.

But enough of this malarkey.  Let me wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and may your dreams for 2020 all come true, for what will probably the last time - at least on this particular vehicle.  It's time for another re-think.

I started blogging in 2010, under the title Around the World in 80 Expense Claims.  The title reflected the facts that most of the content was, in one way or another, travel related, and was funded out of my working life (both in providing new destinations to write about and the means, via expenses, to enjoy them).  When I retired earlier this year, I re-jigged it a bit to cater for a wider range of content and re-named it The World According to Travellin' Bob.  The results have been to say the least underwhelming.  The stats show that in over 9 years of sometimes irregular productivity, much of that being down to sheer pressure from my day job, I have published in total 164 pieces, that have garnered a grand total of 17,891 page views.  The re-branding has been even less successful than the original project, in that post-change the 19 published essays have collected just 390 page views.  Indeed, the last 4 posts have collected less than 40 views between them.  In terms of Comments (and each blog entry has a Comment facility for feedback, criticism, argument or whatever) there have been only 19, the last in July 2013.  Followers: just 4.

It all seems pretty poor, really, and I can't put my finger on why the reactions have been getting steadily worse, throughout this year, at least.  Maybe the posting irregularity has been the problem, especially last year (2018) when there was frankly a lot going on in my life that I eventually got around to writing about and that stopped me from doing much writing at all.  Perhaps the change in content, adding political stuff to the travel pieces, trying a bit of free-form poetry and a short story as well, hasn't worked well.  Perhaps the format of the blog, essentially unchanged apart from the title throughout that time, has become stale.  Or maybe, no matter what my opinion may be, my writing just isn't very good.  Perhaps a combination of all of that.....but in the complete absence of feedback from anyone I don't have any way of knowing.  Not a clue.

So I think it's time for a rest.  As things stand now, I think this will be the last piece I publish on this platform.  As my mum used to say, a change is as good as a rest, so I expect sometime in the New Year the blog will re-surface, under a new name (I'm toying with "This World, This Life" ) and on a new platform (research is pointing me in the direction of Wix).  I'm still thinking it through.  But I will keep writing - it's something I enjoy doing, even if no-one wants to read it.  My long finished novel The Match is in its final preparation stages and I plan to publish via Amazon - Kindle Direct in January or February next year, and I'm working on a couple of other projects to follow it up.  It all keeps me occupied in this happy retirement.  Perhaps the new, hopefully improved, blog will hit the web to coincide with the book launch - maybe even precede it.  We'll see.

But in the meantime, as well as offering the Season's Greetings, I thank you all for reading these personal thoughts and stories all these years, wish you every success and happiness in your lives, and as Dave Allen used to say, may your god go with you.