Up v late. I’m going to bed immediately after this. I just re-read my last entry and thought ‘Hmm, I’m saying that one’s private life should be kept private, unless one offers up their life to public scrutiny to the highest bidder.’. Now, it crossed my mind as I was reading it- and may have crossed yours- that I am saying this on a blog, which is ‘offering up my private life’, which I am freely doing and is, in theory, available to far more people than some crappy ‘red top’. #1 I’m not being paid #2 *I* am totally in control of how much of my life you know about #3 have been/can be ‘economic with the truth’ or even just spin reality enough to keep it safe or simply downright lie about my life if I want to…

Brian says he loves reading my blog cos I write about things he doesn’t ever hear about…is it cos they are so inconsequential that I don’t even feel it’s worth it to waste the time telling him about them? Maybe. Is it cos I only really write about things that I don’t want to talk about with others? Maybe. Is it cos it’s all a lie and in reality I’m some 45 year old housewife in Ipswich with a vivid imagination and a native’s knowledge of the web? Probably not.

The fact of the matter is this: from the age of 12 I always kept a diary. i wrote absolutely every thought, dream, wish, desire down, filling one of many,many blank books. Documented my life. When I was 22 someone I thought I trusted read my diary- read stuff they didn’t want to find- used it against me… Immediately my desire for writing in a diary faded… the documentary of my life finshed 10 years after it started…. With blogging I can write a ‘diary’ with the intention of others reading it which a) satisfies my love and need to write b) in some way documents a bit of my life c) helps me reach a lot of people d) is a bit of fun.

What it doesn’t do: give anyone the right to invade my nor my family’s privacy….that would be insane wouldn’t it? If someone said ‘Because you blog, I can hide in the hedges across the road and take pictures of you through your window and earn my living by selling them to the papers.’ or ‘Because you blog, I can go through your rubbish and sell what I find to the papers.’ or ‘Because you blog, I have the right to follow you, harrass you, bother you anytime you step one foot outside your own front door. And then sell what I get out of it to the papers.’ ‘Because you blog, I can build you up to knock you down and I don’t even give a shit about the damage I cause to you or your loved ones. Your kids? I only give a shit about them if I can sell a story about some paedo who’s after them.’

In a blog someone offers up far more about their lives than most people in the public eye. Why is someone famous any different than a blogger? Take Angus Deayton or Jonathon Ross or any of the other people whose lives have been so nastily intruded upon recently? I don’t give a shit *what* Angus does in his private life? I think I’m the only one in television who has never done cocaine (honestly!). And shagging a stripper or whatever it was? That’s the new ‘golf’ in the British media as far as I can tell. Can anyone tell me why it’s right that some jackass journo can earn loads of money by screwing up or trying to screw up someone else’s life? What has Angus done other than be very good at reading autocue and quick with the one liners? Has he murdered anyone? Robbed pensioners of their retirement funds? Fooled millions of poor hopeless people into believing that God personally told him that they needed to send him millions of pounds to build a theme park? Imbezzled public money? Beat up an old lady? No. He’s just sat under some bright lights a few hundred times, read some words that scroll by in front of him, made some erudite witticisms, got paid and went home… And it’s the same with everyone else from Madonna to Dale Winton. They do their job, they get paid, they go home, occasionally they go out again to a party or a preview, but then go home again and go to bed. Maybe they have more money than you, maybe they go to bed with someone who’s better looking than your partner, maybe their car is better, their drugs are better, they have more holidays, they go to better parties, their teeth are nicer and their plastic surgeon did a better job on their breasts than yours did on yours…They aren’t ‘perfect’, they aren’t ‘gods’, they are just like you and me, they make mistakes, are in bad moods, feel bored, get angry, cry… At the end of the day, literally at the end of the day, they eat, go to the toilet, brush their teeth and go to bed, just like you… and if all they’ve done during that day is sing some songs, do a dance, recite some lines, ask some questions, kick a football, be good-looking, then do they have to suffer for it?

You are insane if you say ‘yes’.

NOTE: I have kept most of my earliest blog posts private. They are mainly crap. I have, however, tried to make live at least one from each month.