2000^th Post

Wow, two thousand posts. D4D™ has been running now for 25 months – that’s an average of eighty posts per month, nearly three a day, every day. Of course, that’s an average, as there have been small patches of time where nothing’s been written at all. But then there’ve been others where I don’t seem to have stopped adding stuff all day.


I know I’ve said this before, but I still find myself amazed by the success of d4d™. When I got the domain name, it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, a name I liked and was available. It’s still not really relevant to anything I do or write here – it’s just an identifiable title. And that suits me just fine. I started off the idea of d4d nearly three years ago, actually. The domain name existed far before the knowledge of what would go on here – which, for me, isn’t an uncommon state of affairs. Eventually I thought I might try and get back into writing – and make a project of it. Until d4d™, I’d always had a hidtory of starting ideas, getting them started, then getting bored and never completing them. Perhaps d4d™ doesn’t quite fit that definition, because with a writing project like this there’s no defined process, and definitely no defined ending. Perhaps that’s what’s kept me going.

So – two years of writing, and two thousand posts. That’s quite something. And I look at the changes that have happened in that time, at the differences between me when I started, and me now – there’s a lot that’s happened over the timespan. Friendships started, friendships finished – sometimes both within that period; relationships doing the same; forming new and different social networks; seeing a shitload of concerts; starting getting involved in photography again. Moving home; changing lifestyles; and doing lots of thinking, introspection, and writing. Depression and Happiness. It’s all been here, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implied.

And for the next 1,000 or 2,000 posts? Who knows. I need to get that fucking WordPress template sorted, and move everything over to that. I want to go through some of the old stuff, move it around, possibly end up with a very different style to d4d. The rants of old have faded – or at least become concise enough to be blog entries instead of pages of their own. Thoughts may end up being born anew, and the photography section will probably gain some new ideas and perspectives. In fact, I’ve been playing with the idea of having wordy d4d and visual d4d, two different blog-type-concepts, and seeing how that goes.

All I know is that so far I’ve loved d4d™ even on the days when I can’t think of a thing to write. I don’t feel pressure to perform, don’t feel I have to write. But at the same time I do love writing and adding new pieces and ideas. It’s been a fantastic ride so far, and I’ve no intentions of stopping it yet. The next few months, in fact the next year or so are going to be a weird and new journey for me – and a huge percentage of it will be logged here. Enjoy the ride.

Coverage

Many times I hear the speculation that trains will be getting some form of wireless networking and internet access in the UK. I’m sure I’ve commented about this before, but I still completely fail to understand how they expect to get broadband internet access when half the time on a train you can’t even send a bloody text message when you want without a ten-minute wait. O2 used to boast about 95% coverage of the UK- well, I reckon that the other 5% is entirely around bloody rail lines. It’s just taken me twenty minutes to send a text because we were moving through (yet another) zone with absolutely nothing. It’s like the radio version of the effing Marie Celeste sometimes. Why do we bother?

Lulled

Should’ve known better really – the false sense of security that got built up last week by the train journeys to and from Middlesbrough now lies scuffed, bleeding, and broken on the floor. Prime suspect in this vicious crime? You guessed it – Virgin Trains.

What’s even more impressive is that they manage to still find new ways to fuck me off. It is on-time today UPDATED : was on-time, and is now running 45 minutes late, he said in an entirely unshocked fashion, and the air-conditioning is – well, if not working properly, it’s at least on and noticeable. So, dear readers, what have they done this time?

When I checked with trainline.com (yes, that’s probably my first mistake) I looked at a train leaving from Manchester Oxford Road at 14.58, changing at Crewe, then straight down to Reading, getting in at 18.45 or so. Not perfect, but not bad. So that’s what I do – get there way early due to fuck-poor timing on my part, get on the 1458 at Oxford Road, get off at Crewe. Supposedly on-time. And watch my connecting train go sailing past. Cunt-nuggets.

So off to the Travel Centre to face the whey-faced unhelpful motherfuckers lovely Virgin customer services people. Who check their system. And then tell me that the 1458 from Oxford Road doesn’t exist. And therefore it can’t connect to the one I’ve just watched leave. That route from trainline.com supposedly is utterly wrong. Yes, two computer systems, both based around the same fucking database, provided by Network Scumtwadging Bastard Rail and given the exact same data, they come up with two utterly different routings. According to Virgin CS (Customer Service, although I can think of others) I should go from Manchester to Reading via – wait for it – Newport, South Wales. Try looking at that one on a map sometime – and bear in mind that there’s a direct link between Manchester and Reading, and I’ll be getting the bastard thing on Sunday.

“Well, it’s not my problem”, quoth the raven camel, “we can’t take responsibility for the internet site”. “It’s the same chuffing database, though. So who does take responsibility for it?” “Don’t know. But it’s not us.” Ah, the “the Buck stops somewhere, but not with us” gambit – my favourite customer service attitude. Anyway, taking matters into my own hands, I end up getting anothertrain from Crewe to Stafford, then get on one from Stafford direct to Reading. Another plan that, according to Virgin, doesn’t exist. At this point I should point out that both the Crewe to Stafford train, and the one going onward to Reading were – um – Virgin trains. *Sigh*
Of course, because it’s a Friday and travelling during the high-demand rush-hour period, the train is four carriages long instead of the more standard eight, has been at least half pre-booked, and as a result it’s rigid with people. But that’s the Virgin wisdom at work – if in doubt put people off trains by realising that train travel is, in essence, shit, and only for people who can’t afford cars and/or driving lessons.

Well, my nice clean new provisional driving licence arrived this week, and if there’s one thing motivating me to pass the test, it’s Virgin Bloody Trains. Congratulations, you’ll be losing another customer. D4D™s readers will mourn the passing of this era. I, on the other hand, fucking won’t.

DIY

You know, sometimes things become seriously domesticated. A day of assembling desks and bedside furniture. Quite fun, in a “oh you fucking bastard piece of shit, why won’t you go together” way.

Away again

Chuff this, I’m off to Berkshire. Again.

There may be posts over the weekend. There may not. We’ll see.

Milestones

Sometime in the next few days, I’ll be posting d4d™’s 2000^th post. (This one is #1994, if you’re interested) As of Monday, it was on 220,000 page impressions, so there’s probably at least another 5,000 or so since then.

d4d™ keeps on going on, and I’m still deeply pleased with it.

Moving On

Yes, as I alluded to earlier this week, I’m pretty sure that come the start of 2005, I’ll be moving on from Manchester. By that time I’ll have been up here for five and a half years, and really that’s more time than I ever intended to be here.

However, the last three to six months have provided the impetus I needed to start looking at moving. Following the break-ins last year, I got more aware of the scallie element of Manchester, which really isn’t appealing in the slightest. So in some ways the changes have been getting ready for a while, but it’s the more recent things that have been the real impetus. Or impetuosity, whichever.

In the last five years, the city has provided me with lots of what I needed at the time – plenty of concerts, work, social contacts, and in many ways it altered a lot of my perspectives on things, and proved pretty much life-changing, looking back on the differences between then and now. But sometimes a place has a life-expectancy too, and I think that Manchester’s life with me is coming to a close.

Changes galore have happened this year – and I suspect there’ll be more in the near future. I’m still going to be based up here ’til the start of 2005, the contract with the council is going to run ’til then, having been extended yet again. For the most part, that’s a good thing, it gives time to make sure that everything is being done for the right reasons, and there’s also plenty of opportunity for the necessary introspection and assessment of what needs doing. Hell, I might even think about writing a new “to-do” list.

What’s changed? Well, primarily the new relationship in my life, and the changes that are being wrought around that. There’s a lot still to be sorted out and looked at – will we share a place from the start of ’05, or is the move initially going to be “just” to cut down on the 400+mile round-trips? That’s a decision for the future, and we’ll play it by ear. But there’s other reasons too – after five years, I need a change of scene, but I also want to explore more about my creative side, the photos, and writing, and see what I can do with them. Yes, I could do a lot of that up here too, and I will be doing in the meantime (those round trips have to have some use, after all) but there’s also that air of “new start” that’s coming up.

Would I be moving on even if the relationship weren’t there? Yes, I would. Maybe not right from the start of 2005, but yes, it wouldn’t have taken long to get it sorted. Of course, the destination would be probably rather more random than it is now, but well, that’s life. There’s a lot going on, a lot happening, and probably the strangest thing of all is that I feel fairly optimistic about the entire thing.