Travelling and trying to create a buzz by dancing

 

So, I've just come back from a week in Bordeaux in France, and it was lovely.

But hot.

Now, for those who aren't aware, I'm from the UK, and not even the southern bit.  I'm from the north, where twenty degrees Celsius (68 in Fahrenheit) is getting hot.  So me choosing a place where it was regularly in the thirties - and on the day of us leaving, was due to hit 41 - wasn't the best idea.  Nor was it booking a hotel without air conditioning, fortunately I rectified that on arrival and got upgraded, otherwise sleep would have been a faint hope.

But France was great, the people were great, and we saw so much cool stuff, like the Museum of Illusions, which is full of optical illusions, allowing for photos like this:

It's interesting though what things you take for granted which turn out to just not be a thing in different countries.  Getting fresh, not UHT milk from a supermarket or a corner shop was seemingly impossible.  And the amazing french bread that was provided along with meals never came with butter unless you asked for it (which seems like an oversight bearing in mind how much french butter is).

Nevertheless, it was a great experience.

Onto my second subject of the post, which is that I need to rebuild an audience.  Not that I ever had a huge one, but letting my blog and YouTube channel atrophy for several years didn't help.  And you see, I'm writing a book that I want to release by the end of the year.

It's not a clever book, or a sensible book.  It's a bunch of short silly stories that make me laugh, and hopefully if you share my sense of humour, will do the same for you.

But if I'm to make my fortune selling a book, I need several hundred thousand willing fans waiting to buy it.

I thought that I might hop onto social media trends to build my audience - now, if you're not aware, Deadpool & Wolverine is in cinemas at the moment, and one of the dances, to NSync's Bye Bye Bye, is quite popular on TikTok right now.

Oh god no.  I'm not posting that video for people to see.

Anyone want a cheap Deadpool mask? Barely used?

It was suggested to me, that as Ryan Reynolds had a body double do the dance in the film for him, that I perhaps need the same.  Applicants do feel free to reach out.

Do People Still Blog?

Unrelated dog pic

 As part of bringing my blog back to life, I've been going through various settings and things (universal analytics is out, welcome Google Analytics 4!).

One thing I had on my blog was a long list of other blogs that I particularly liked - as a blogger you're encouraged to find other blogs, make connections, network, all that good stuff.  Which I enjoyed, and I found some really good blogs at the time.

Sadly, the vast majority of them have ceased blogging (as I had!) for several years.  A few remain - most notably my friend Tim Clark, who pops up on various places on the internet, including on The Wild Word.

So, do I look and find new blogs?  I always love to read blogs, provided that they've got a bit of personality - far too many blogs are written in purely professional speak (and possibly nowadays AI generated) with no hint of the person that wrote them.

So, if you have any suggestions of good blogs to visit, please do let me know in the comments :)

Where has my website address gone?

 Once upon a time, I had a blog.

I enjoyed blogging, and after a while decided to splash out on a website name.

I won't hyperlink it, but it was www.mikeraven.co.uk

But when I took a break from blogging, I decided to cancel the web name.  I wasn't doing the blog any more, so why keep paying for the domain name?  It wasn't as though any income from the blog was paying for the domain name.

Now, of course, when I try to get the domain back, it's owned by someone else.  Not that they're doing anything with it, there's a few general adverts if you go to that address. But I can't find a way to buy it back.

So - relaunched website calls for a new web domain!

Welcome to thog.uk :)

And welcome to the chocolate digarinut!

The Relaunch of the blog

Hello!

I vaguely remember doing this blogging thing. I used to do it quite a lot, in fact.  Good for stretching the writing muscles.

Why did I stop?  I''m struggling to remember, to be honest.  I think I was finding that I didn't really have anything to write about, and neither did I have the urge.

That is changing!

I'm working on a book.  Now ideally, what I would like is for an agent to contact me out of the blue (via email, no one wants a phone call), tell me how amazing I am, and to set me up with a huge publisher who would give me a six-figure advance for a book of whatever length and quality I decide to churn out.  Unbelievably, this has not happened to date!

I'm working on a collection of short stories.  The stories vary in length and topic, but have one common element.

Immature humour.  Crude, you could call it.  And again, no matter how hard I search on literary agents websites, none of them seem to be looking for this.  Nevertheless, the success of games such as Cards Against Humanity and Joking Hazard (both of which I love) makes me feel that there is an audience out there somewhere.

So, I'm going to try to bring this old blog back to life with the shameless aim of building an audience of bloodythirsty billionaires desperate for a book stuffed full of with stories such as "Charles, the dog that couldn't stop licking" and "Chantelle the Juicy Sausage".

Hopefully it'll become a stocking filler for that relative with questionable taste you have (and if you don't have a relative with questionable taste, it's you)