It will surprise nobody that the most Googled word of all time (excluding brands like facebook, ebay, youtube, hotmail etc) is “sex”. So, as I type this, my 50th blog post, I’ve chucked the word in to grab some attention. Of my 49 previous posts (in 11 months of blogging – hey, that’s more than one a week!), the item that has received by far the most hits is Spoonerisms, a throwaway piece written last May in which I indulged my penchant for crude, lavatorial, schoolboy humour. It was hugely assisted by James Naughtie’s infamous half-spoonerism on Radio 4 last December, involving the words “hunt” and “culture” (I say half-spoonerism because there’s no such word as “hulture”). Following this naughty slip of the tongue, spoonerisms went viral on the internet and my effort was a beneficiary. Here then is the most important lesson in the art of generating web traffic: get lucky. If you can somehow stumble on zeitgeisty fads just before they take hold, my child, you will garner a readership.

There: that’s 50 blogs done! 50 free gifts to no-one in particular, crafted to amuse, annoy, challenge, inform, surprise and outrage. Don’t think this will be one of the estimated 95% of blogs that peter out before a year is up; there’s plenty more to come. My sole purpose in starting it was to get the online presence obligatory for a soon-to-be published writer – so finally I have some news to report on the progress of my book about Cardiff. The publisher informs me his edit is nearly done; it looks like the book really will happen this year. Eeek!