I have the fondest memories of starting this website. It was in a completely different form, on a completely different platform, in a completely different city (if that even matters). I remember coming across the idea of a blog in a printed tech magazine. The magazine used to come with CDs, sometimes two or three of them, and eventually switched to DVDs. Just the idea fascinated me: I could log on, write, and my words would appear as if printed on a piece of paper, instantly, for the world to read. Of course, nobody read it back then. My ‘readership’ was around three a day, which meant my entire readership was within a margin of error. It did not matter that nobody read it. And that never changed. What changed is how I think of writing on this website now. It remains just as fun, yet very different in many ways. I no longer associate it with a cosy evening, sitting by the tall windows we had at home, looking out at the street, typing away. I no longer associate it with a sense of disclosure. It is a lot more serious now, and not just in terms of what I write but how I think of it. It is also a lot more about restricted disclosure – although I am nowhere near others who, for example, exclusively use a pseudonym. By my own yardstick, things are different. Not worse, just different. Except I have now come to wonder if such a time ever existed. Those things did happen – I did come across blogging in a printed tech magazine, I did follow its instructions to set up my blog, I did sit by a window as I wrote – but only factually. I think the day was no different then than it is now. If someone discovered blogging today and sat down by their living room window, similarly excited, they would have similarly rosy memories of this autumn a quarter-century from now. It is human to distort our memories, both in good ways and bad. I think it says something that my memories of blogging have been distorted in good ways, to turn up the intensity of fondness. That state of being might never have existed, but nothing will stop me from trying to recreate it anyway. Don’t want my frequent notes in your RSS reader? Subscribe to the essays-only feed. Subscribe to my newsletter • Reply by e-mail • Support with just £1 • Sign my guestbook • Send a webmention