Dear 16 - The Audit Trail

The Dear 16 year old me has been, it's fair to say, quite a success. Of course success is relative and I mean that it's been a success if one judges it by the volume of posts that have resulted and the general "interest" factor.

If you'll let me be honest with you I'll inform you that I feel quite the proud father about this. I mean to say, I sort of started it. And, while there's a small dose of honesty going around here I should share the fact that I so nearly lied to you in that original post. You see I was so close to pretending that the topic itself was my idea when the truth was that I'd seen it on Jonathan Ross' Twitter. I'm not sure on the apostrophe situation with the name "Ross" either.

My initial post tagged the Gypsy and DD, some wise choices I had thought. If one wants a tag to take off and spread like wildfire (the fires that are wild not the band, who are no longer I think) then these two bloggers appeared perfect. The Gypsy, though prone to strange hand movements, can always be relied upon to come out with an eloquent and elegant bit of wordcraft. We waited for a few days and then she did her stuff. Ever the rebel though, she went and tagged three people, that's a whole fifty per cent more than was allowed in the rules. The cheek of the girl!

DD responded and tagged the Blacker Bros, a risky and dangerous move. These ad people are generally too cool for school and it was always a gamble as to whether the bros Blacker would respond. I played a gig the other night to a room full of ad people and they stood there, arms crossed, with a look on their faces as if we'd just told them that they could do with dressing a bit more trendily when they go to work. Yes, they're a tough crowd.

But TKRP responded pretty quickly with this post and, some days later DB kicked out this beauty. It started a minor spat about the exact period in which DD and DB actually met as well, always a bonus. The bros done well.

About this time I thought I might try and do a chart of sorts, just to see how things had, and would progress. After some deliberation I settled on Word as the software of choice. For a bloke with my knowledge there wasn't a lot of deliberation to be done and Word was the only I have a passing knowledge of that might have done the job. I proceeded and drew lines, arrows and added in links and all sorts of things that I hadn't the slightest clue could be done.

The chart is rapidly becoming an indecipherable scrawl of blue and black ink, but I hope, if you decide to click and enlarge it, that you'll be able to follow the story so far. So far up until Friday morning that is. I'm at home and it's Sunday evening as I write this, you'll most likely be reading the post on Monday and the chart outlines the position as at Friday morning. If your first name is Dr and your surname is Who then you might just understand that last sentence.

My last foray into the Lankanosphere showed that there have been a few more people writing their Dear 16 post. I wonder if it will continue or if it will get too boring soon. Surely there must come a point at which we all get bored of hearing how we were all desperately trying to have sex at 16, how none of us actually had done and how much wiser we are at this age. It's interesting to observe that we all think we've learned loads between 16 and now, whatever now is, yet we talk as if we know it all now.

I wonder if I'll write a letter to the 43 year old me when I'm 70 and think that I knew nothing when I was 43. It's also a damn scary thought that the gap between 16 and now is that same as that between now and being 70, if my maths is correct of course.

Many of the Dear 16s have been poignant, touching and quite revealing. Dinidu's is one such example, though he had the audacity to tag me. If he'd been within striking distance I'd have attempted to give him a cuff round the ear. Instead I sent him a copy of the chart with a note saying that I started it. Sometimes these kids have to be told.

I'm still waiting for Hissyfits' one, pretty much guaranteed to be funnier than a jar full of Stephen Fry's Tweets on acid, and I've discovered a bunch of blogs that I had never read before, always a good thing.

I'll keep on trying to update the chart but I fear it won't be long before I drown in the scrawl, or at least need to go on to a second page, which could be way beyond me. In the meantime if anyone wants an emailed copy of it just ask, leave a comment or whatever and I'll chuck it across.

Happy Monday all.