I know what you’re thinking. What is this, what’s it for, and what in the name of buggery is that thing in the corner of the room?

Well, essentially I’m collecting bits of writing which have appeared in various places over the years: in Smoke: a London Peculiar magazine (or its online successor), on earlier abandoned blogs, or (possibly) as bits of paper associated with one or other of my old record labels – I may need to get drunk before showing you those, though, just like you’ll probably need to be drunk before reading them. Plus some bits I’ve written for other people. I’ve no idea if it will be of any interest to anyone else, but that’s the great thing about the internet: it doesn’t matter.

To be honest though, I’m not sure quite how it will turn out, as I’m writing this before I’ve started putting it together. Some pieces will be long, some will be short. Some will have photos and some won’t. Some might be at ninety degrees to the screen and take your eye out – I’m playing it by ear for now. Where it seems necessary, I’ve added a few words at the start (white text, blue box) to put it all in context.

There might even be some new stuff. Don’t worry, though, there won’t be endless unedited observations on the minutiae of my life or out-of-focus photos of my cat being wretchedly cute – and not just because my cat left home after accusing me of being a trivia-obsessed egotist with no self-control who never listened to what she said or noticed when she had a new hat. Or because she took my camera.

There’s also, you may have noticed, a tab marked TRICITY. Tricity Bendicks, as I’m sure you know, is a romantic novelist of some repute who regularly contributed to Smoke, and I’m currently helping her knock her memoir – I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say Pwllheli – into some sort of shape. At the moment, it’s a slightly lopsided heptagon.

And, finally, the thing in the corner of the room is an elephant. But I don’t like to talk about it.