Monday 8 June 2009

TALES OF THE 1001 POSTS

One Thousand and One Posts!

Like the tales recounted by Sheherazade, the storyteller of The Arabian Nights, the Sibley blog has (I hope) entertained and amused my visitors over 1001 reads.

It has also (most certainly) kept me - or, at least, my writing - alive during a time when hardly anyone wanted to make professional use of my craft.

Of those 1001 posts, many - the majority, probably - have been trivial fripperies, but they have, wonderfully, created a small international community (some have come, some have gone, others have found a life!) with a number of you regularly sending me ideas, links and photos for blog material and many more of you contributing observations and exchanges via the 'comments' facility that have frequently provided more fun than the posts themselves!

Every now and again, for example, Gill would post about the distress caused to her dear friend, the Duchess, by various posts of dubious taste; and it was on the pages of this blog that Boll Weavil came up with the brilliant idea of creating definitions for the words thrown up by the Word Verification codes - a game that many of you are still playing.

To date, those comments total more than 5000 with hits on the blog currently in excess of 142,000.

At various times I've threatened to stop blogging (most recently the other week!) and every time you've managed to egg me on by playing equally on my ego and my easily affected sense of guilt!

On an earlier occasion - in response to anguished pleas from readers (my hyperbole) - I compromised by changing the rate of posting from every day to every other day.

Now I am, once again, having to rethink the future of the blog in order to put more of my energies into attempting to earn a living and focus on what an old actor friend of mine used to refer to as "garnering a few baubles"!

So, whilst it would be a shame to pull the plug on the dear old blog, it's no longer practical - at the moment - to maintain the same regularity of posting. Here, then, is the (sort of) deal...

I'll do my best to blog (at least) once a week and, maybe, offer some intermediary entertainment by selecting and linking to some of the my favourite blogs from the past three years. After all, with 1001 of them in the archive there's bound to be some of them that a few of you won't have read the first time around.

There are also, remember, my other blogs to explore: Window Gazing, a collection of more than 280 photographs of windows from around the world; Ex Libris, a digest of pieces about books and authors; Likely Stories, an anthology of Terrible Tales and Freaky Fables; and, as many of you know, I also host button's blog: a rabbit's ramblings for a good (if somewhat temperamental) friend. And, in addition to all of those (representing over 400 additional posts!) there's my pseudo-website, The Works, which carries whatever constitutes my 'news' and has its own archive of features and photographs.

Hopefully, there will come a time when Normal Service Will Be Resumed, meanwhile, let's not desert one another and - as I've said on several previous occasions - very many thanks to all of you for helping to make the Sibley blog what it is --- whatever that is!

13 comments:

SharonM said...

Looking forward to your next blog, Brian!
I presume by 'a blog a week', you mean Outer Surastrian weeks which, of course, are the equivalent of 3 Earth days?

Brian Sibley said...

I'll have to consult my inter-galactic gazetteer on that one!

scb said...

Brian -- my heart was in my mouth when I read the title of this post -- I thought Oh no, he's pulling the plug on this wonderful blog, just when I'm getting to know him (and everyone else) and having such fun! Imagine my relief when I learned that there was an alternative to all-or-nothing-at-all! I can live with a post a week, although Sharon's suggestion is appealing -- it's not quite practical.

And I wish you well in your hopefully-remunerative writing. **SCB thinks, hmmm, is there a message here for me? Perhaps I should be spending more time on the hopefully-remunerative writing as well? It would likely bear thinking about.**

OINVICS -- I think it's the stuff one's Mum puts on one's chest when one has a wee cold. (reminiscent of when one grazes one's kneeclabbers, and she rubs it on vaselubrious for a quick healy-hup) (I'm guessing that you'll recognize that quote...)

Rob Cox said...

I may not often comment on your blogs, Brian, but I often read them and always enjoy them. But earning a living is a necessary evil in this world so I understand your decision! But the more Sibley-blogs in circulation, the better!

Phil said...

I'd rather you reduce the frequency of posting than switch to Twitter.

Of course, even in the absence of a daily Sibley post, we will all continue to bombard you with comments, so you may not save as much time as you think!

Anonymous said...

Brian,
you know what would have happened to Sheherezade if she stopped telling her tales (or posting her blog as the new translations will no doubt have it...)?

Still once a week, though not as good as once a day is always welcome (at my age). [As Sheila's late dad said to a local baronet who got knighted:" twice a (k)night at your age is ridiculous)
Roger O B...
BRESSOR: a Japanese priest.

Andy Latham said...

Well best of luck in whatever takes the place of this blog Brian. It has been a great read and will be sorely missed!

Hey, why not start up a magazine? Just write what you write here in a magazine and make some money from it!

Brian Sibley said...

SCB - Glad we're in touch with one another's blogs and hope we can both keep blogging and manage to earn a crust...

ROB & PHIL - thanks guys! No risk of the Twitter habit getting a grip on me, Phil. I opened an account and quite enthusiastically tried it for a a few days but then kept forgetting to tweet - partly because telling people that I was eating my Bran Flakes, having an early night or watching The Apprentice seemed so utterly pointless! Nevertheless, there are masses of people 'following' my non-existent twitterings!! Isn't that sweet? Tweet-sweet!!

ROGER - Once a king always a king, once a knight's enough!

ANDY - It's not 'Good-bye' or even 'au revoir'. A magazine would be fun, the trouble is being broke I don't have the wherewithal to finance it! But there's always Wednesday night's lottery!!

Boll Weavil said...

I'm glad it will continue in some form - I have had some problems getting on it every day because of work commitments of late but its always the first page I visit when I log on.It also has a varied readership who provide some great comments. Long may it go on !
TEDESS Gentle ego-massaging to convince someone to carry on doing something for your own benefit whilst pretending it really for theirs.

David Weeks said...

And there are your photos on 'flikr' to be looked at too . . .

SUDIN: a way of persuading someone to continue with an activity which, whilst declaring they can't do in fact, demonstrably can, and do it well.

Brian Sibley said...

BOLL - Nice to hear from you! You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that your contributions to the comments on this blog (both as 'Boll' and in your earlier incarnation, 'Scrooge') total no fewer that an impressive 613 postings!

The next nearest total is SHARONM (formerly LISAH) who has been responsible for 392 comments followed by Suzanne with 342.

Other comment-leavers who have clocked up over 100 contributions are: EUDORA with 149, DAVID WEEKS with 142, ANDREW GLAZEBROOK and GOOD DOG with 135 apiece and QENNY (Where are you now, Quenny?) with 105.


DAVID - Yes! Thank you for mentioning my Flickr albums (accessible via a link in the side-bar to this blog) and for the definition of the word 'SUDIN' -- I think....

Ryan Rasmussen said...

Congratulations! I'm glad to have found, or been found by, your treasure trove of a blog!

Brian Sibley said...

Ditto, Ryan!