A reader who is thinking of starting his own blog contacted me recently for advice. ‘Dear Adam,’ began the email. This was already a nice departure from the usual ‘Fuck you cuntface’ which I seem to receive on a regular basis. He then went on to describe in length what he was thinking of doing. I wrote back and said that it sounded very nice, and that he should start it up. Then, if he was progressing nicely and was posting with a regularity that didn’t coincide with each lunar eclipse, I’d give him a good plug for his site. His reply thanked me, and then proceeded to get to the nitty gritty of his problem: he had already written a number of as yet unpublished entries but he didn’t want to publish them yet because they were, in his opinion, too good.

” … If I post these, nobody is going to read them because nobody reads my blog. So I want to get people to read my blog before I post the really good stuff …”

Yes, I said. But in order to get anyone to read your blog you need to post really good stuff in the first place. Either that or pick on the biggest blogger you can find and hope to bait them into starting a blog war with you, (worked for me numerous times). He then offered to post them on my blog under his own name, an offer which I refused as I like to keep my readers focused when issuing me with death threats. Can’t have all the hate being diffused, that really wouldn’t do you know. And then who would moderate his comments? You don’t want me to as I let any old idiot on the site to make a fool of themselves, although I did delete a couple of particularly stupid ones this morning.

It’s tricky this blogging game, getting yourself established and finding a nice group of people to hate you enough to regularly comment on your site. Gevlon is a master at it, but that’s just because he’s a big meanie and we all know he only pretends not to like Christmas. I can just picture him on Christmas morning, sitting under his tree with the lights twinkling, and him rubbing his hands at glee at all the lovely presents which he convinced his readership he’d never open. Ha! Spoilt that one for you, didn’t I, Gevlon!

Anyway, I’m going away for Christmas to a nice little luxury resort that bans children within 500 meters of the place and has assured my wife and I that if any staff member even looks like uttering a dreaded holiday greeting they won’t only be sacked they will be summarily executed. I’m going to pack a cooler full of oysters, salmon, prawns and marinated steaks and take a case of good Italian prosecco down with me. I’ve also promised the good wife that I will leave the computer at home. Little does she realise that this will just mean that I’ll take a dozen books and I’ll ignore her anyway.

But I’d like to take the occasion to thank each and every one of you who have clustered around my blog this year, like fruit fly around a rotting durian. Hopefully next year circumstances will allow me to install a fixed internet line and I can get back to playing and blogging about games that you all seem to give a shit about.