Blogging For Bicester

I wish more people would blog. By that I mean people I know, and also people who live locally who I don't know but who interact within the same community.

Perhaps I am a little parochial, but I am far more interested in what is going on within my local community than in the wider world. Yes obviously I read the paper every day to keep up on what is happening in the wider world, but it's the world I directly live in that interests and affects me.

For example the headlines today are all about a new EU plan to stop the banks failing. Now whilst I don't deny that all of this has some long term affect on my personal prosperity it does not affect how I live my life on a daily basis - and it won't have any influence on whether I decide to go to the shops or to the park today.

I am interested in people - and by that I mean real people. Sadly it seems that we as a culture are generally obsessed only with the celebrity. I never read the red top tabloids because they hold no interest for me - but clearly for millions of you they do. The constant barrage of messages on facebook and twitter are testimony to that. Clearly I am in the minority, because I have absolutely no interest in what Rihanna, Kat Moon, Danny from the Voice (whatever that is), Cheryl Cole, Jay-Z, David Beckham, and Jorgie Porter (who???) are doing on a daily basis. And by the way, I did not pick those names at random, I just clicked on to the Sun's website (shudder) and those were the names that screamed out of the page at me.

But the Sun sells millions of copies a day so I can only conclude that lots of you are interested. But I still can't work out why. Why are we interested in people that are not in the slightest bit interested in us, have probably never even heard of Bicester and don't know anyone we know, or do anything we do. I can't work it out.

Now if there was a Bicester edition of the Sun wouldn't that be juicy! Who's having an affair with who? Who was seen dining with who? Not at some restaurant in London, but having a sneaky Costa together! Real people now that would be something.

Seriously I am not advocating anything like that, but I am fascinated by our town and its people and I would love to know and read more about how others here live their lives. What I'd really love is to be able to find say, another 10 blogs like mine. OK, not exactly like mine, I don't know anyone who writes quite like me. In fact I don't know anyone who is like me full stop - perhaps I am some sort of weirdo, who knows! But I enjoy being me, in my own sweet way.

But blogs from local people, that's what I want. Can I find any? Well not many - and those people that do blog from Bicester often blog on specific hobbies and topics that are not of massive interest to me.

Now various friends of mine have blogged entertainingly from time to time, but really there is only bestie Lynda that keeps it up, the others are sporadic at best. I do miss the Queen of the Superficial's blog - hers was simply awesome, and I keep gently hinting to resurrect it, here's hoping.

In the meantime here's my plea people - start a blog - tell us about your lives. I have inspired one to start recently, and that's Stacey who's writes an amusing blog about her work experiences but I want more!

What does blogging do for me? Well it's therapeutic for the brain and the soul - it gives me a forum to let out all those random thoughts and ideas that bounce around in my head on a daily basis. It gives me a place where I can freely give my views on the world, and be judged, rightly or wrongly upon them.

Quite simply - it gives me a place where I can be me.

I've been looking at some of the stats for my blog, and how many people read them. It has been increasing gradually over time, but some get more than others. There is a core readership of at least 30 who will look at any old drivel I churn out, but there can be anything between 30 and 100+ dependent on the topic. I imagine some choose to read when they see the facebook link depending on what the topic is, but other entries attract readers from elsewhere, being picked up by search engines, and one of the entries went ballistic with hits. Here's the Top 5 posts, how many hits they got and why I think they were popular.

1) Maba [1237 hits] - (April 2012) by far the most popular post I have written with nearly 10x the hits of any other entry. This provides a useful lesson into how to get hits if you want them. I wrote this review of this superb restaurant on the first week it opened, and with a lack of other information on the net at that time, anyone curious enough about the new restaurant to type "Maba Bicester" into google was presented with my review right at the top of the page. In fact, they still are. So as I said - useful lesson - to get lots of hits, write a topic on something people want to hear about before anyone else does.

2) The DJ's Guide to the Ultimate Jubilee Playlist [126 hits] - (May 2012) only written last week so has done well to reach #2 already. Again tapping into a need - judging by the number of anonymous comments this one received, I've clearly picked up on people thinking "I'm having a party for the Jubilee - what shall I play" and whatever they searched for on google brought up my blog.

3) Nightmare on Chapel Street [115 hits] - (May 2012) I wanted to get this one into the wider community so posted a link to it on the "Save Bicester Town Centre" facebook page (which I also created). It got the desired response as you'll see, I actually had the police comment on the entry to clarify some issues.

4) Advent-ageous [103 hits] - (December 2011) An odd one to make the top 5 this as it does not deal with any public issues at all, but it was written at a time of emotions running very high and when my best friend was going through a major crisis in her life and living with me. I also am very open in this entry about my feeling and opinions on relationships and marriage. I think the high number of hits in this instance have come from our friends who through my blog perhaps were able to get more of an insight into what was going on - that's not being nosey I don't think - my blog clarified the situation at that time and probably helped to quell some of the misinformed speculation that was going around at the time.

5) St George's Day [88 hits] - [April 2011] Another entry to tap into the public interest which clearly picked up hits from google.

You will notice that 4 of the Top 5 are from the last two months, despite the blog stretching back on various sites and in various forms to 2007. This is largely because the following is growing all the time, and more people are reading it now than were six months ago.

So - if I purely want hits I should write more entries such as Maba - but quite honestly unlike TV companies who are pursuing ratings by broadcasting shite, I am not motivated by such targets. I am quite happy to write a lot of shite even if nobody reads it! It's all a bit random really, I never know what I'm going to put out next, but clearly lots of you read it, so I must be doing something "write".

If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.

Jason xx

PS: Go on - start a blog - you know it makes sense.