Seven Years and Not Counting

It’s with sadness that I announce that this blog post, the one which you have just started reading, is the final addition to The Blog of Stuart.

D'you want to know a secret?

A few weeks into this website’s life, I was already regretting the name and URL I had gifted it. But I was already too invested in it to give up. Plus, it formed part of my BTEC in IT, so I had to keep it going. It’s safe to say, I’m the only one in my class who even kept it up this long. Most barely made it past their first short upload.

I’ve looked after it for 7 years now, and, as a result, has formed a massive part of my life. I would honestly not be where I am now without it. I’m not even sure I would have noted how much I like to write without it.

Courtesy of Chris Parsons
(Click to enlarge)

I’ve documented a large portion of my life on here. Everything from the years I spent as a desperate single to a learner driver, university student and an unemployed graduate. I’ve covered it all, and you’ve shared it all with me; whether you liked it or not.

I’ve received all different types of feedback too. It’s included my head teacher discussing it at a presentation evening in front of my cohort. And everything else from lovely and sincere comments to people who have taken the time to email so I know how much they hate me. It’s all pretty incredible really.

And although my blog hasn’t gone viral, I still think it’s been quite successful. Much more so than it probably ever deserved. I've been averaging about 1,000 hits a month, for years. A lot of which are from irrelevant Google searches from a huge array of countries across the world, which amount to zero engagement… But still.

So I should have probably worked on the marketing of it slightly better, and actually offered them something other than throwing my extraneous opinion at them. There’s enough of them on the Internet after all.

I worked out what my voice should be in my second year of University. What I should have to make me different to all the other bleating on the Internet. That sparked the creation of the blog, and dissertation project, The Misanthrope’s Guide to London. Even though it had little success on the Internet, I got brilliant feedback from people who took the time to read it. People were enjoying it.

So it is that vein where my next project will go.

I’m not a fan of change, so that’s why it has taken me this long to bring The Blog of Stuart to a close.

I’ve been saying for a few years that I wanted to shake off the shackles of Blogspot and begin my own website and start afresh.

However, over the past few months, I’ve begun formulating what my next move will be. I’ve just been too scared to buy the webspace. This has meant I’ve been stuck in a circle I’m finally attempting to break. I didn’t want to produce more content for a website I would soon be closing but didn’t want to move from its comforting embrace.

That’s why I have written this. It’s my resignation letter, so to speak. I’ve informed you of my intention, and now I can’t go back for fear of embarrassment.

I now own a plot web space, and I've begun constructing the site. This is how it's coming along...

My new website is called The Misanthrope. It should feel like a news website, in terms of its look and content. However, don’t expect it be serious. The Misanthrope voice will prevail.

I will be venturing into multi-media blogging as well. I have some video editing software, and I have a number of ideas, so we shall see. I may not even make it past the first video for fear of hating myself just a little bit more.

Although I am excited to be starting my new project soon, I am very sad that I am finally saying goodbye. This blog has been a good friend to me and helped me out a lot.

I gave this website as an example of writing when I applied to Universities. I got multiple offers, so it can’t have put them off that much. It’s interesting to read blogs I’ve written before and after University to see my progression.

Anyway, I then used this blog as an example of writing when applying for jobs. Numerous times I’ve sat and watched a prospective boss reading my website on the other side of a desk and seen a wry smirk appear, and it's flattering. It was particularly interesting when one, from London, read my Misanthrope’s Guide to London blog. And okay, it did take me a while to get a job…

But I had two jobs for a period of time. One was working in a shop, where I had to interact with people. I didn't really like it because you’re not allowed to argue back with them, you have to be nice and smile. I can feel my throat tightening every time. Regardless, I very recently left this job thanks to getting more hours at my other, better, job...

The other job involves writing. And I’m allowed to be funny, so long as I also engage the reader in such a way, they want to stay on the website, and hopefully spend their money.

I’m getting paid to write blogs; how awesome is that? And I can’t see how else that would have happened without this blog.

But as I start a new chapter in my life, which involves the increase of my bank balance, it seems right to move to pastures new. After all, I can call myself a professional writer now, so I need to put this aside and start producing content one might expect from a professional…

Yeah, the thought of that is pretty funny.

But I can try, right?

So that’s it. These are my final words.

I don’t want to draw this out any longer.

Courtesy of Chris Parsons
(Click to enlarge)

Consider this blog closed. Out of service. Bereft of life. An ex-blog. Gone off to meet the big server in the sky and pushing up the virtual daisies.

Toodles m’deary’s.

And On That Bombshell...

Some say, that Insurance is so expensive that people are starting to park their cars in their front rooms, and saying it's parked in a garage; others say that if you added the Stig to your policy, you'd get free breakdown cover - All I know, is that Insurance is bloody expensive, especially for the first time driver.

As I'm typing this, Churchill are preparing to drain my account of nearly £1,800 for my car insurance, on a 1 litre Nissan Mirca, just because I'm a male teen. If you've ever watched 'Police, Camera, Action' or 'Traffic Cops', the voice over person will always says about reckless male teen drivers, which stereotypes every teenage boy with a car as someone who's going to drive over fields to avoid the police, race around a car park, or go 31 MPH in a 30MPH zone. I'm not one of these kind of teenagers who testosterone is so high I punch my best friend in the face because he touched my hair or want to prove myself as a man so much that I've slept with every girl I've ever looked at (mainly that's more to do with the fact I'm not as 'aesthetically pleasing' as most, but that's not the point I was trying to make). I'm not exactly a stereotypical teenage boy.

I am now 17 in 9 days, which also is the day I have my first driving lesson booked, so as you can tell, I'm quite eager to start driving considering I've got a car and insured it already. But my car only cost me £800, so the insurance is nearly a thousand pound more, which is quite ridiculous. After a year’s driving, assuming you haven't crashed your car or been convicted, the insurance is suppose to drop dramatically, so you're only paying this ridiculous price once. But bloody hell, that's nearly enough to make me catch the bus every day, so I leaved a 'greener' footprint behind me.

There are lots of blogs on the Internet, written by people who are also 17/18 and have brought car insurance, but the one thing I've noticed, is that no two people are the same. Just because Bob in Swansea got cheap car insurance with 'Auto Direct', doesn't mean I will in Canterbury, because your postcode is the most important bit. Me personally, I found both Churchill and Direct Line to be the cheapest, but Churchill was the best value for money. The only way you can find cheap car insurance isn't to ask people who was the cheapest insurer for them, you have to spend hours, maybe even days going through every insurance company and getting quotes on the Internet and on the phone. Also, I've found it's a great way to learn your registration number, as I now know mine off by heart because of the amount of times I've typed it.

I have some pieces of advice to anyone considering buying a car, learning to drive and insuring the car. The first one is to make sure you don't buy your favourite car. Chances are your favourite car is too big. For example, my favourite cars would be the Ford Focus or Fiat Punto, but the engine size on both is too big for someone who is learning to drive/just passed their test, because there is no way (unless you were born of a women who has slept with Richard Branson to Max Mosley) that you would be able to afford the car or the insurance. I own an orange Nissan Micra for God sake - as you can probably guess, it wasn't exactly my first choice. But no-one’s forcing me to keep forever, in fact in two years time it will be 10 years old, so the government will tell me that I could trade it in and get £2,000 off a brand new car. There are lots of problems with that new Government scheme, but that's a blog for another day.

Another piece of advice is to make sure you put someone else on your insurance policy. You Father or Mother favourably, because it will just make learning to drive a lot more simple and give more flexibility to when you can learn to drive. I would strongly advise though that you learn to drive with an instructor and not your Father, because going on how well my friends have done, the ones who have gone with an instructor have passed quicker, and haven't fallen out with their Father.

I suppose you could call this my advice blog to anyone who is about to start driving and in the process of buying a car. My advice would be to make sure you check every insurance company - including Churchill - OO YESH!
Just think that if I can dispense this amount of information before I'm 17, I'm either well informed - or wrong...

So, on that bombshell, it's time to end.Toodles m'dearys
xXXx

And by the way, normal service with cynical blogs will return shortly.