Friends

I was reading Mr London Street’s excellent blog yesterday, and I’ve been thinking about the perilous social journey he has embarked upon.

He’s started internet dating for the purpose of friendship. He has recently been out for dinner with three fellow bloggers (all ladies, I notice) and written about what they were like. Each dinner constituted Mr LS’s first meeting with the lady in question. He has provided an eloquent portrait of the three ladies in question, which you can read here.

Out of respect for their brains, as I noted yesterday, he has neglected to let us know whether or not they were fit, like the three big-haired babes pictured on this post. But that’s the genius of the man’s craft, because now all I can think about is whether or not they were fit. I would speculate that Mr LS understands literary suspense so well that he could probably get a job writing the last ninety seconds of every episode of Neighbours.

I have to say, readers, I have very mixed feelings about all of this. I thought internet dating was supposed to be about sex, not friendship. I’ll be honest with you, I did go through a spell of the old internet dating some years back and it had its moments. Gill and I were having a trial separation and, well, I had a few cans of cobra one night and fired up the old laptop and, before I could say GSOH, I was present on a dozen different sites. And whenever I was looking through the other ads and I saw the words “looking for friendship and maybe more” I wrote them off. Likewise “Bubbly f, young 45, 4’10”, likes cats and cuddles”.

I didn’t take it seriously all the time. I put one ad in the Guardian Soulmates that just said: “Sick Sikh seeks sick Sikh for sick sex”. You may or may not be surprised to know that this ad received more than 170 responses. I was taken aback, but then I realised I’d put it in the ‘Women seeking men’ section by mistake. Lol!!

Anyway, the top line results of this research (that’s a phrase I learned at work, recently) were that there are plenty of women out there who are dying for a bit of the old rumpo, just like us chaps. Who’d have thunk it? Well, it was rich pickings for a time and, once you’ve accepted that they’re lying about themselves as much as you’re lying about yourself, you realise there’s only one important question when you settle down on the squeaky vinyl of a booth seat at Jimmi’s Wine Bar with a glass of off dry Chateau Desperateau: “Shall we cut to the chase?”

That was a period in my life during which I spent a lot of time on night buses (I’m a rolling stone, and don’t sleep well in strange beds), asking myself some really tough questions about man’s needs, both emotional and physical, and how to reconcile the two. Are we a beast burdened with intellect, or an intellect burdened with a bestial legacy? A night bus is a sobering place for these kind of exploratory sessions, especially when you’re panicking about going bareback with a rather grubby looking lass you only met a few hours ago! (Just to let you know, ladies, I got the all-clear and have been belt and braces careful ever since!)

I did hit something of a low at one point, when I thought I’d found a lady that might be just right for me. For a start she was from Lincoln, and at the time I was feeling a little bit homesick. Second, she said in her ad she liked cooking and long walks and third, and most importantly, the last line of her ad ran: “I’m an open minded woman of the world and I’m looking for a man to treat me right – and a little bit wrong!”

As you can imagine I was pretty excited. I let her have my number – which was a prepay mobile I’d purchased specifically for the negotiations of these trysts and when it rang at the appointed time my heart was beating pretty fast. I answered in my deepest voice and when she said hello I felt a thousand kinds of disgusting. It was Mum!

I put the phone down and spent 45 seconds waiting to see if I was going to be sick. I wasn’t sick in the end but I nearly was and, happily, this proved to me that I was no Oedipus. Oedipus had the hots for his mum, and decided to fly away with homemade wings, which melted, and he died. Very Freudian; the sun was his Mum, basically, and he died because of his messed up desires.

I shoved it all to the back of my mind and I didn’t speak to Mum for a month. Thinking about that ad now, and thinking about Roger, well… I just try not to.

I suppose in the spirit of laying it all bare under the harsh fluorescent glare of this blog, which in the being-honest-with-yourself sense is something of a virtual night bus, I should own that part of my hesitance in endorsing Mr London Street’s attempts to widen his face to face social circle stems from envy.

I’ve always thought of myself as quite a popular guy but, lately, I’ve been forced to reassess this view. Technically Dave the Roofer is my best mate. But he’s married to my ex and they’re starting a family. I’ve got a flatmate, but he’s my boss and everyone knows you can never be friends with your boss. Steve and I, well we don’t see a lot of each other since he got me barred from the Harvester, and there’s not too many more. There's Peter Andre, of course, but our schedules always seem to clash.

I would dearly love to meet some fellow residents of the blogosphere. It would be grand to go out on the tiles with Mr London Street, and drink some Cobra, or perhaps a lager of his choice. I’d love to meet Mr Coleman, and Mess, Tennyson ee Hemmingway and all the rest of you. The idea of a blogger party sounds wonderful to me; like I’m finally a part of something – or I would be if I was going to the party.

The problem is that I need my anonymity. I’m not like Belle Du Jour, in the sense that I can’t out myself (it won’t surprise you to learn that Newsdesk is not my actual surname), and also in the sense that I’m not a £300 an hour tart and because I’m not good at science. (In another life, perhaps, I'd be both those things!).

No, it’s just not possible. But I do have an idea. If anyone’s interested, I could name a pub in town and tell you what time I was planning to be there. Then you could come and have a drink in that pub at the same time and in a way it would be like we were there together. If anyone’s interested, let me know and I’ll give you the details. Hell, you can choose the pub yourself if you like, I don’t mind.

Yours in friendship

BN

Follow me and tell your friends to follow me too, I am desperate for adulation

This is just going to be a short post readers, soz. Not everything I write turns into epic flowing prose. I know that's probably difficult for a lot of you to imagine. But I am only just barely human after all.

Really, I just wanted to say a big Newsdesk "HELLO" to all the new followers and commenters. I also wanted to say a big Newsdesk "THANK YOU" to Mr London Street.

He gave me a well deservered plug on his excellent regular blogosphere spotlight The Was The Week That Blogged.

As a result of this plug my followership jumped up by four people and rests at the big three-oh. 30 followers!!!! It's brilliant. Not as brilliant as Mr London Street though, he's currently got 215 followers. Still, I cannot begrudge him his fame, he's a top writer and seems like a genuinely nice bloke. His most recent post provides details of three dates with some bloggerettes, he's such a gent that he didn't even mention whether they were lookers.

I reckon MLS must be one of the most followed people on Blogger.

Since I'm the inquisative type I did a quite check on Technorati - and this blog has an authority of 417 out of 1000. I don't know whether that's good or not. It's less than 50 per cent authoratative.

For all you new to Newsdesk, I also have a group on Facebook called The Friends of Barry Newsdesk. Like a lot of groups on Facebook, it is almost 100 per cent pointless. That hasn't stopped 34 people (inc me) joining though.

OK - so, I guess that's me signing off, like I said this post was really to just say "hello" and "thanks".

Love

Barry

Look South

Good evening and welcome to Look South. On tonight's show, I'll be taking a look into the curious issue of Dan Bantam's sexuality, the form and function of my office sweepstake X-Factor pick, Miss Frank, as well as looking ahead to tonight's big Pro Evolution Soccer matches and tomorrow's weather.

But before I do that, I'd just like to have a quick recap on the status of a certain Facebook group. I'm talking about The Friends of Barry Newsdesk of course. Just five days ago, I took the online law of friendship into my own hands.

I had become frustrated at my inability to drive up the blog's followership and having tried emotionally blackmailing a small group of Facebook friends, using nothing more than a six sided die and a threat of de-friending my quest for greater uptake had come to naught. Enraged I decided to widen my threat, I set up a group called the Friends of Barry Newsdesk, then invited every single on of my Facebook friends to join. A failure to join up would mean you'd be put on the hit list and, like Beatriz Carvahlo, be de-friended.

To be honest, I didn't think anyone would bother joining really. However, I was wrong, my main French pal Mess joined up. Then my fav Californian babe also joined up, Jennifer Walker Shannen, saying: "Sorry I was late to the party. You know you're my favorite, though, right?"

How cool is that? But it gets even better, ace blogger Mr London Street also signed up, using his real name, which I will not reveal here, in case he prefers to blog in cognito. He said: "Barry = legend."

LEGEND! Like Bob Marley.

Then, globe trotting around the world, my fav kiwi follower Megan Rose signed up saying: "Ooo, I love this. I get to be both a rogue stalker and a legitimate fan all at the same time. Good work Barry Newsdesk."

Well, I was bowled over with joy. At the time of writing, the Friends of Barry Newsdesk has 24 members (but that includes me....so 23 really).

The really great news though, is my blog followershipness has bounced back from 24 to 26 again!

That, my friends, is the POWER of social media.

Anyway, the rampant success of the Friends of Barry Newsdesk has caused me to have a serious long look at the blog, and I've decided to get back to some Citizen Journalism. Which is why I started writing today's post in the style of a regional news show. I know this re-focus will certainly please Tennyson ee Hemingway, as he commented not so long ago: "Well Baz, hopefully this will get you back to doing the Citizen Journalism we love. I've missed that part of your blog lately."

Have you noticed what I've been doing readers? I've been using quotes. That's something proper journalists do to pad out their stories.

I'm also hoping that my re-focus will bring back Mr C, whose comments I have missed. Maybe he's sulking because I haven't thrown the welcome back party? Don't worry Mr C, I will, I really will. I just want to make sure things are back on the straight and narrow first.

BACK TO THE NEWS

I'm starting to think that Dan Bantam might be on the verge of telling me that he prefers boys to girls. As older readers of the blog will know, Mr Bantam (my boss) became Dan (my flatmate) when not so long ago he split up with his wife Clare. I had always thought he was a big hit with the ladies, he certainly takes care of his appearance, professes to be a wizard in the kitchen and almost all his friends are girls.

The thing is readers, I'm not stupid, I'm a man of the world. And, when the other night at an office karaoke party, Dan did a cracking Lola, I realised the score. It's a mixed up muddled up world readers. Each to his own and all that. But I have to admit, I do feel a little bit uncomfortable walking around the flat in my pants these days. Dan has made several disparaging remarks. More than Gill ever used to make.

Then, after his customary night out in Clapham at the weekend I heard more than one voice in his room. It was clear that he and A.N.Other were a bit merry, pretty soon I heard his stereo fire up Lady Gaga's insufferable new album and there was the unmistakable noise of the beast with two backs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not a homophobic, but under my roof?! I think I'm going to have to ask Dan to respect my wishes and not bring fellers back to the flat readers. I think it's only fair, particularly as I've not had much luck lately in that department. Not the fellers department readers, I don't bat for that side.

Sometimes though, when I see how happy Dan is these days I wish I was a bit gay. Maybe a bisexual or something. The best of both worlds. It would up my potential target market by 50 per cent. Although, I wouldn't want anyone too big. I think it would be intimidating. I've heard that Indian men have got small willies, so it might be an ego boost to get one.

Anyway, since I'm exploring fresh new avenues of sexuality, I decided to take part in the office X-Factor sweepstake. I've got Miss Frank. They're a band, so Louis Walsh has got em, and they're unusual in that they all got to Boot Camp as solo artists, but weren't good enough to make it on their own so were clumped together by the judges.

Listen to me readers, I sound like a natural. But I got all this info by listing to Suzi and Dan chatting about last night's show, during which the judges chose the Final 12. I won't bore you shitless with a description of the rest of the show's entrants. Although, I have to confess the red blooded male part of me would have rather had Kandy Rain - another band composed entirely of ex-strippers. They're a bit more pleasing on the eye than Miss Frank. If you don't believe me, check out the everyone's fav newspaper, the Current Bun.

Actually, The Sun isn't everyone's fav rag, really, it's read by illiterate morons. But it is full of tits and as Dave the roofer says, you can't put a price on tits. I'm going to go off-piste here readers, but the Sun recently came out in favour of David Cameron. A famously right-wing rag in the 80s, the Sun switched its political allegiances and, if it's own PR is to be believed, almost single handedly convinced the British public to give New Labour's Tony Blair a chance.

They're not driving the political agenda of this country readers, they're bandwagon jumping mercenaries who prey on the 'minds' senseless tit-lovers. I know that David Cameron will get in readers, but I'm a socialist at heart, always have been and it'll be a dark day indeed.

The Sun's sudden switch back to the Tories seems a tad desperate. It would be like me pretending to me a Man Utd fan last season and then deciding that I'd follow Chelsea this year.

Speaking of football (and seamlessly getting the show back on track), tonight will see Newsdesk Utd, my Pro Evolution Football team take to the field for the first time in ages. I have to confess, I've been looking at adverts for Fifa 10 by EA Sport. I've been a Konami Pro Evo man ever since I flogged my Megadrive and bought a Playstation. But I suppose if I can consider a life of homosexuality, and if the Sun can switch political party, then I can try out the Pro Evo rival.

It looks absolutely mint I must say. Until now I've resisted the urge to buy a Playstation 3 and have soldiered on with the PS2. But it's getting to the stage now where the difference in quality is like comparing the EA Sports Fifa 95 on the Megadrive with the PES5 I play. Things have moved on, and maybe it's time for me to move on. But not before I finish just one more championship winning campaign with the old boys Newsdesk Utd.

I've got some Cobra chilling in the fridge and I've been looking forward to this all day. Dan's out at pilates so I've got the place to myself.

Before I go though. I thought I would have a crack at forecasting the weather. They always do the weather last on the news. The thing is, I'm not convinced that they really know much about forecasting weather at the met office any more than someone simply guessing tomorrow's weather based on the what it was like today.

So, today it was a little bit chilly, quite grey and overcast, with fairly persistent drizzle. I think tomorrow, will be slightly drier, and maybe a little bit windier.

And that's THE NEWS.

Baz

The Friends of Barry Newsdesk

I just took the Facebook law into my own hands readers.

I've started my own Facebook group and it's called the Friends of Barry Newsdesk. I'm extremely pleased to announce that the one and only Mess dude became my first fan!!!

THANKS MESS, YOU ROCK.

I also just had a good Facebook chat with Mohamed Mamdoh who is a Facebook friend of mine all the way from Egypt. He was on a mobile, but promised to visit the blog another time.

Ooops, for some reasons everything I write is coming out underlined! I can't turn it off....oh well.

So, anywho, I've started the group on Facebook and I have invited every single one of my 'friends' to become a member and to start following my blog.

I guess only time will tell. But for those who do not become a follower, I will defriend. It's truly make or break time.

Peace out.

Baz
x

ps. guess what?!?? I submitted my blog to that Blog Distributor company, they have vetted my blog and I am good to go, a genuine Blog Distributor Contributor - could it be, I finally see some financial reward for all this hard work?

pps. Here's what Blog Distributor said to me:

Hi Barry Newsdesk,

We have tested your blog (http://barrynewsdesk.blogspot.com) and have found that it matches our criteria for a blog that we feel comfortable sending jobs to. Congratulations, your blog has been Certified!

Please view the table below to see which Topic/Sub-Topics your blog has been certified for, if any. As soon as we receive orders for blog postings that match your blog's certified Topic/Sub-Topics below, if any, we will send you an email notification.

Your Blog’s Topics/Sub-Topics:
Selected By	Certified?	Topic	Sub-Topic	# of Postings per Sub-Topic
You	Yes	Arts	Journalism	5
You	No	History	Religion	4
Categorizer	No	News	Current Events	1
Categorizer	No	News	Hot Topics	2
You	Yes	News	Investigative Journalism	5
You	Yes	News	Journalism	5
You	Yes	Recreation	Humor	5
Categorizer	No	Society	Behavior	2
Categorizer	No	Sports	Cycling	1

• By reading through your blog, our "categorizers" (the staff people who analyze your blog) have found additional Topic/Sub-Topics that your postings focus on. These additional Topic/Sub-Topics enable you to make more money with Blog Distributor.
• In order to be certified for a Topic/Sub-Topic, your blog must contain a minimum of at least five blog postings that focus on that particular Topic/Sub-Topic. If you have less than five postings for a particular Topic/Sub-Topic, you may add more postings to your blog and then resubmit it to us. (Follow the "Re-Submission Instructions" below.)
• Your blog can only be certified for a maximum of five Topic/Sub-Topics per blog. If you have been certified for less than five Topic/Sub-Topics, you can get certified for more Topic/Sub-Topics by creating enough new blog postings to bring the number of postings that focus on each Topic/Sub-Topic up to five. Then, re-submit your blog to us again by following the "Re-Submission Instructions" below.

Re-Submission Instructions: (You can only re-submit your blog a maximum of three times in any 12-month period.)
1. Go to www.blogdistributor.com
2. Login with your username and password.
3. Go to the "My blog(s)" page on our website.
4. Click on the Resubmit blog checkbox in the row of the blog that you wish to re-submit.
5. Our staff/system will re-test your blog. If it follows our guidelines, and there are no further problems with your blog, then it will be Certified to receive New Jobs from Blog Distributor!

If you have other blogs, we suggest that you submit them for Certification too!
We look forward to working with you.

Blog Distributor

The Dice of Doom

I am not a man to be meddled with, I think that much is clear. Well, it will be to my loyal readers. Not so, perhaps, to the six so-called Facebook friends that I have been holding virtual hostage here on the pages of my blog.

At the time of writing there are still just 24 followers. That means my ultimatum was roundly ignored. That's to say, none of the six Facebook 'friends' I selected, decided that they would follow the blog.

SO, true to my word, I will roll the Dice of Doom.

First though, I will allocate each 'friend' a number.

Firdos Anjani = 1
Elena Firstova = 2
David Doze = 3
Caroline Anne = 4
Beatriz Carvalho = 5
Alan Stevens = 6

Here goes.....drum roll please......

FIVE.

There we are, I'm terribly sorry Beatriz Carvalho, my 20 year old Brazilian chum, you're for the high jump. Consider youself de-friended.

OY-flippin-G readers....I've just scanned down my list of Facebook friends and guess what?

David Doze has taken the law into his own bloomin' hands and ALREADY defriended me!!! The friggin cheek of it. Doze by name, dozy by nature I say.

Seems my hardline tactics have now cost me two Facebook friends. Still, I guess it's for the best really, they weren't really my friends were they?

I have to say I feel a little deflated though. I kinda thought that at least one of my Facebook friends would join the fold. A small part of me thought that maybe one of them would start a group up on Facebook, maybe called something like 'Friends of Barry Newsdesk' and then loads of people would join up. People love joining groups on Facebook. I once joined a group called 'I'm joining this group to have one more group on Facebook'. It was hilarious.

I was planning to repeat the Dice of Doom recruitment tactic, but I think I might have to get a little bit more hardline.

I might have to up the ante readers, and become like the Taleban of the blogosphere, Osam bin Newsdesk they'll call me. Hang on though, before the FBI send down a can of whoop-ass on yours truly, I'm not going to hijack a 747 and fly it into Canary Warf. For starters, I'm not an Islam and I don't buy all that nonsense about going to Heaven and having 26 virgins, or whatever it is.

No, for my hardline follower recruitment drive I think I'm going to have to reach out to ALL my Facebook friends and issue a new ultimatum.

I will send a Facebook email to each and every one of them (excluding Mess and Jennifer Walker Shannon - that makes 167 'friends') saying that unless they join me I will defriend them, one per day (working my way through the alphabet) until they're either a follower or gone.

There are to be no more dice, it will be a war of attrition....it's my way on the virtual highway.

Yours, not in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a two bed flat somewhere in deepest South London.

Peace be with you.

Barry

Friend or foe?

Firdos Anjani
Elena Firstova
David Doze
Caroline Anne
Beatriz Carvalho
Alan Stevens

Yesterday I announced my new plan to gain followers to my blog. The last act of a desperate man? Maybe, but who cares?

I selected six Facebook friends (from A-F) their pictures are shown above to each of them I sent the following Facebook email:

Dear Facebook friend

We have been friends on Facebook now for quite some time. I'm not sure how long, because we've never actually met and the only reason I approached you to become a friend is that I thought you looked quite nice - I don't mean that in a sleazy wierd way either, I just thought you looked like you might be a good friend.

Anyway, we haven't really been hanging out or doing the things friends do, which is a shame, still I'd like to ask of you a favour, it's quite simple and will not take any kind of financial transaction (unless you're that Nigerian Prince who keeps emailing me!! lol). All this year I've been writing a blog (http://barrynewsdesk.blogspot.com) and managed to attract a following of 26 lovely people - well, 24 lovely people really because TWO people left me quite recently.

The thing is, I've tried everything to get my number of followers up. Twenty four might be a nice number of hours in the day, but it's a laughably low number of blog followers.

I announced on yesterday's blog posting that I would choose six Facebook friends and place their pictures on the blog (you were one of the chosen few) and I would invite them all to become a follower of the blog. In the event that not one of the six become a blog follower, I will roll the Dice of Doom and de-friend you from my Facebook friend list.

Please come and follow the blog, I do not want to defriend you, but if no one joins the fold, I will roll the Dice of Doom and let fate decide.

Your friend

Barry

Another one bites the dust

I've lost yet another follower. How did it come to this? Mr London Street reckons I lost some people when I started posting Fur Wars, he also suggested that I need to start commenting on other blogs. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to blogging, at the time of writing he's got 174 followers. One hundred and seventy four! This guys knows a thing or two about blogging.

Mind, the most popular blog in the world according to Technorati is The Huffington Post, with a an auithority of 17,236. Just to put that into perspective, yours truly has an authority of one, ranked 1,603,173 in the world - I've been mentioned on three other blogs (Mr London Street's (authority 12) Frou Frou Frippery (authority seven) and From Little Acorns (authority five)).

I do comment on the occassional blog, but I haven't really got time to enagage with other bloggers, I'm too busy concentrating on myself. Back in May I came up with Barry's Theory of Followization, I didn't comment on blogs, I simply started following them, and people started following me back - I dreamt up this paradigm shift as a direct result of a similar tactic I had employed on Twitter. At the time on Twitter I had 1600 followers (I've currently got 1983) and I'd discovered that by simply following people they would follower me back. I've stopped following people on Twitter these days, people still follow me, but I think other former followers are unfollowing, so my total number isn't really increasing much over the number I follow.

When I first started using Twitter, people did hit links that brought them to the blog, but they don't bother any more. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that using Twitter as a blog marketing tool is pretty pointless, unless you're Stephan Fry.

Of course, I dare say Mr London Street would suggest that I 'engage' with my Twitter followers, that it is, after all, a social media!!

Now, I have to confess, I had tried something similar to this before on Facebook. I simply started befriending people in a cynical attempt to get people to become my friend. I know, amazing isn't it, that people would stoop so low. That they would have such a low opion of themselves and others that they would attempt to drive up their online popularity in such a way. It's almost as though Iwas unable to make friends in the real world. Laughable stuff!

I currently have 171 friends on Facebook. Which is only just shy of the number of followers Mr London Street has. If only I could persuade those friends that they should come and follow my blog! Well, then I'd be more popular than MLS for starters.

The thing is, I've tried persuading my Facebook friends to come and follow me on the blog by posting the occassional status update alerting people to the blog's existance. It kinda works a bit, every so often someone drops by that saw the staus update, but it's not 'driving traffic' as much as I would like. It's for this reason that I have decided to kept RUTHLESS!!!!!!!

Yes indeedy, I'm going to take six Facebook friends - one from the As, one from the Bs, one from the Cs, one from the Ds, one from the Es and one from the Fs - then I'm going to post their Facebook pictures on the blog, then I'll send them all an email (via Facebook) suggesting that since they are my Facebook friend, they should come and become a Barry Newsdesk follower.

In the event that none of the six sign up and become a follower, I will roll the DICE OF DOOM!

Then, according to the number that shows up on the DICE OF DOOM! I will de-friend one of the six.

I know it sounds ruthless readers, but it has gotten to that stage, where I am quite prepared to start blognapping my Facebook friends, holding them to ransom and virtually executing every mutha feffing last one of them until my blog followership starts to look respectable.

OK dude - keep em peeled, I'll start the hostage campaign of cyber terror tomorrow...I'd best nip off now, that Fray Bentos is gonna get burned baby.

Barry

NOTE - Mess and Jennifer Walker Shannon are immune from the DICE OF DOOM, since they're my Facebook friends and they already follower the blog.

Good times, bad times

I'm going to deliver today's posting as a shit sandwich readers. Sounds horrid doesn't it? But it's actually a bone fide business technique used by middle managers carrying out appraisals. Anyone who is anyone that's worked in a busy office will be familiar with the shit sandwich.

Imagine you're a middle manager and one of your staff hasn't been performing as well as they should (or as well as you'd hope (or as well as your boss would hope)), it's appraisal time and you haven't really got the balls to tell them to buck their ideas up. You give them a shit sandwich. Sometimes literally.

It's a method of delivering something deeply unpalatable by sugar coating it between two pieces of relatively good news.

First up, some good news. I'd like to extend a warm and friendly Newsdesk welcome to my two latest followers. First up is Tennyson ee Hemingway. It's a funny name, steeped in literary reference, for a funny fella. His blog, Andy Warhol Goes Shopping, has nine followers at the time of writing. I'm sure that figure will sky-rocket if he keeps going around following other blogs and writing nice things about them (mine certainly did ;-)

Tennyson left a lovely comment on my last post: "Over here from Mr London Street and he's absolutely right. How you only have 18 follower is beyond me. Well, now you have 19."

I did when you left the comment Tennyson , but before I could post an anti-war piece heavily influenced by the musings of Paul Hardcastle, up popped my first Kiwi follower, Megan Rose, whose excellent blog, Frou Frou Frippery, has NNNNNNNN ,NNNNNN 19 followers (now that I've joined). Maybe Megan can post something about all the things war is good for!

Absolutely nothin', say it again. Absolutely nothin.

Yeah.

I'm riffing now readers, riffin like a mo fo. But it's time to bring things back down to earth. It's time for the SHIT brother.

I got a text this morning from my best friend Dave, the roofer, asking me to meet up for the England game. Now, Dave's a big man, but he's out of shape, that said I didn't fancy meeting after the last text exchange we'd had. I'm a pacifist and sometimes with Dave, especially when England are playing, he likes a drink and a bit of ruck. So I texted him back and said I was feeling a bit fluey, was it something important?

Now, I assumed that he had confronted Gill about the pregnancy and she's told him about her plans for a "ternimation" [sic]. I expected Dave, the roofer, wanted to drown his sorrows and, quite possibly, create some sorrows for yours truly.

I was wrong. Dave texted back and said he wanted to "wet the babies head".

Jesus, the man's grammar is abysmal and here he is about to bring a child into the world. A child with my ex! Seems Gill has had a change of heart. She's no spring chicken and when they reach a certain age, they sometimes loose all concept of reality, don't they? Anyway, she is now (rather selfishly in my opinion, having the kid). It really got me down, there I was expecting us to get back on the straight and narrow, I was even thinking of getting her to move in, I mean it would have really helped with the mortgage, and that was that, my plans are out of the window thanks to her lack of control and bloody hormones.

Women.

Right, well I knew it would get be down writing about it, so I thought I'd bring the mood back up with some good news - and in truth it's a really double whammy. I got a letter on the doorstep today from that publishing house that has the interview with, they've already decided that they want to bring me in for a second interview. Brilliant eh? I guess I've still got what it takes for sales. In a way it's a bit of a shame, becasue I've really started to get somewhere with Citizen Journalism, with all my cool new followers, but now Gill's not moving back in, I suppose I've got to face up to reality and start bringing home the bacon.

The really cool part, though, is that on my way to the paper shop this morning, I noticed that Blockbusters on the High Street has been shut down! Ha, so this is for you Richard, Leigh and Amber! UP YOURS, I didn't need your stupid job anyway!

'KK, think I might crack open a Cobra and get myself ready for the big England game.

I'm a little wary of making ppublic predictions, especially after my Champions League debacle, but I sense a 3-0 win for Capello's Lions.

18+ Porn Star

Looks like my blooger outreach programme has paid dividends readers. Barry's Theory of Followization has rattled up the Newsdesk follower number to 18.

It was Just 17 yesterday, I was going to post about it, but then I was overcome by a tsunami of news. Tide and time, and news tsunamis, wait for no man. It's almost a pity that I've got 18 followers, I was going to post the headline Just 17 - which almost certainly would have brought in a few extra readers thanks to something called Search Engine Optimization.

The Internet is crawled by huge virtual spiders, apparently. When someone types something into Google a huge spider crawls the Web (geddit?!) and finds Web pages featuring the searched term. I wrote about this when I mentioned that loads of people have been coming to the site becasue of Mess's warning about Wu Travel.

Anyway, by posting a headline Just 17. I was almost certainly guaranteed to pick up what Web afficianados called 'traffic'. That's hit to you and me!

Another way of driving traffic is to include links to other sites and hope that your site gets mentioned as much as possible on other sites. So, if you're reading this, how about doing Barry a small favour and posting about it on your site?

When I had 17 followers, I was going to pontificate about the Beatles song, I Saw Her Standing There. Which opens with the immortal lines "well she was just 17, you know what I mean?" which if Garry Glitter covered it (the song) he'd probably get locked up. Again.

So, on reflection, maybe I would have gotten some undesirable types stopping by, rather than fans of the Fab Four. I guess it's just just as well that Bambi joined the Newsdesk fold pushing me up to the far more innocuous number 18.

Bambi is not a cartoon deer or a porn star*, but with a name like that, you could be confused for thinking she is. She's not though. She's a perfectly respectable American mum, whose blog A Day in the Life is coidcidentally a Beatles song!!

What are the chances of two Beatles songs appearing on the blog?

*porn star is a perfect example of the right type of phrase to use if you want your blog to be picked up by perverts Googling about.

At the time of blogging, Bambi has 39 followers, one of whom is called 18+.

Again, what are the chances?!

It's like that telly programme Lost isn't it. Where the plane crashes in mid-air and disappears. Not unlike that plane that recently crashed in mid-air and disappeared.

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?

Well, famously it's more likely that you'll be kicked to death by a donkey than die in a plane crash. Which will be little comfort to the families of 228 people who sadly perished on flight Air France 447. That's news, readers, right there.

Getting in just before Bambi (as it were) was Apple4Tammy whose blog Tammy's Tale: A weight loss journey chronicles her battle with the bulge. I don't know whether her blogger name is a reference to her profession (teacher) or her possible dietary regime. What I do know is that like Pamela Anderson, Tammy is from Canada.

Listen to me Tammy, YOU LOOK GREAT and you know that if Pammy didn't have her curves she wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as she is. So I'm pleading with you here on the Internet, don't do anything stupid and lose too much weight.

Men like a bit of meat on the bone. It's a fact - you've only got to read the excellent blog of another one of my recent followers and commenter Mr London Street. He's a prolific blogger and has 55 followers (at the time of writing) even though he's from Reading. He's keen on smut apparently, so would probably be the sort of person driven to blogs that included regular mentions of PORN STAR.

(You see readers, by writing porn star over and over again, I'm bound to ramp up traffic. Although, not the blind. I wonder what the blind do for porn? Do they have porn braille?...I might well have hit upon an amazing invention there - I might see if Dragon's Den are interested.)

As well as Mr London Street (whose best friend is also called Dave....this posting is bit like the Twilight Zone), I'm now also being followed by Da Kat's Blog. She's only got two followers (including me), news which I'm sure will brighten the day of young Mess! (Her other follower is called Aniram Selwonk - which sounds like one of Mr Coleman's anagrams!)

Last, but my no means least, is Mo Snakeskin, his most recent post is titled I Could be a Porn Star. Which is clearly nothing more than a cunning ruse to drive traffic to his site. Still, at the time of writing he has 100 followers. So he must know a thing or two about Search Engine Optimization.

Porn star.

Right, think the old Fray Bentos should be done, I found one of Dave the roofer's Ron Jeremy videos earlier, think I'll pop it on.

Following encourages following

It sounds like something the King of the Sheep would say doesn’t it? But following really does encourage following. I’d like to welcome Lolren Lollipop on board the good ship Newsdesk as my latest excellent follower.

As regular readers will know, or readers who read the last post anyway, I decided that I would use a highly disingenuous method of attracting more followers. Until now, I have grown additional followers purely organically, that’s to say I didn’t really seek out followers, they found me. However, as a lot of farmers have discovered, going organic is not necessarily that healthy for the old profit margins. It might sound nice, but in truth maybe Mother Nature really does sometimes need a helping hand. Ipso facto, so does this blog.

I’ve noticed, along with Mr Coleman, that on Twitter, I have a massively high number of followers compared with here on the blog. I also noticed that when people follow me on Twitter, I will follow them right back and as I get more followers so more join and so on and so forth, it’s a self-perpetuating upward helter-skelter of followization. Though, my Twitter Tweets are effectively just small bite size chunks of the blog posts, so you’d think the blog would be more popular, right?

So by applying the same Twitter-based growth strategy logic to this blog, I should be able to cause an upward helter-skelter of followization. I call this new social media theory – Barry’s Theory of Following, or Sheep Syndrome. I haven’t quite decided what to call it as it goes. BTF (Barry’s Theory of Followization) is a catchy abbreviation by is possibly too self-explanatory while Sheep Syndrome is not only clever piece of anthropomorphic observation but also a nice piece of alliteration. However, it suffers as an abbreviation.

Anyhoo, I followed a whole bunch of cool looking blogs and guess what?! Yep, one of those cool bloggers followed me right back pushing me back up to 12 followers!

Can I can a woop-woop?

Cool beans. Lolren’s blog, C'Est La Vie, Mon Cheri, has 15 followers (including yours truly) and is all about make-up. I can’t say I’ve ever worn the stuff, It’s funny isn’t it readers, if I put make-up on I’d probably look like some sort of freaky transvestite, but when Gill puts her face on, she actually looks more feminine than without.

Anyway, I guess I’ll sit tight and see if any of the other cool bloggers come on board. If they don’t, I guess I’ll ditch-em and follow a few others for a while. Does that make me a shallow man, transparently trying impress upon the world that I’m important virtually to make up for inadequacies in the real world or does it make me, like so many of my Twitter followers claim to be, a master of social media, able to engage with the web-based influencers, using subtle viral guerrilla marketing techniques?

It’s something to chew over for a while eh?

Champions league final tomorrow, so I doubt I’ll post.

Newsdesk prediction: Man Utd 3-2 Barcelona.

Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine…

Not just a feature of the worst Beatles song ever (the White Album? Come on Paul, Ringo George and John, you could have done better than that. After all, you wrote Love Me Do) but now the number of my newest follower. Welcome Cathy!

'Booze, shoes and tattoos' sounds like the blog of a hell’s angel with a foot fetish. But it isn’t, readers, it’s the blog of ‘Cathy’ my latest follower. Six foot three and 16 stone, bald, with bushy whiskers and a huge beer belly, that’s what your average Hell’s Angel looks like. Cathy, on the other hand, well it’s difficult to tell exactly what she looks like. But she’s flicking the V at the camera in her profile picture so we can assume that she’s a bit feisty.

We can also assume that she has tattoos and shoes and that she likes booze. The final assumption is more than borne out by her blog. She appears to drink a lot. Stella, in particular. Now you know me, readers, I’m pretty up to the minute with my views about things like womens’ lib. Like on the tube, I never give up my seat to a woman, because it’s condescending. If they ask, then that’s fine. They can have it. Especially if they’re pregnant, for example. Or crying.

Speaking of which, the other day I saw an advert on the tube for something called a Mooncup. This, it turns out, is an alternative to tampons or sanitary towels. At school these were called ‘mice’ and ‘crash-mats’ by the girls. Anyway, the mooncup is a flexible rubber cone that the woman pops up her unmentionable when she’s a maiden of the moon. It works on the same principle as when you have a leak in the roof and you put a bucket underneath it.

Anyway apparently it’s more ecological than the alternatives because it’s re-usable and I understand that it’s more comfortable too. As with the bucket, though, you just have to remember to empty it.

Sticking on the tube for a minute, I saw a woman with a badge on the tube the other day. The badge said “I’m pregnant, not fat”. I don’t know about you, readers, but I thought this woman was being harsh to people who are overweight. That’s prejudice all on its own. Who does she think she is? Some fat people might need a seat. It might be their glands, for example. Like my cat, Matthew. So I didn’t give her my seat. She could have dropped her kid right in front of me for all I cared, and I wouldn’t have moved. You SHOULDN’T be fat-ist. I felt like saying to her: “You’re ugly, too.” She had a hell of a hooter on her, I’ll tell you that much.

Anyway, like I was saying, I’m right up there with womens’ lib but I do believe in traditional things here and there. Like girls drinking pints of Stella? Do you have to? Couldn’t you just have a bottle, or a half? Or a glass of medium white wine? It’s just more ladylike, that’s all. I’m not saying you can’t play football, or be one of the police that’s allowed to carry a gun, or even be prime minister if you really want to. But do you really have to drink pints?

Anyway, I was supposed to be welcoming Cathy, who works in PR. That’s Press Relations. I have my first professional press relations lady following my citizen journalism blog. Tiny steps, readers, tiny steps.

Nine lives

Apologies for the lack of recent posts readers. I've had a stinking cold. I'm pretty sure I caught it off Gill. It doesn't matter though, I'm as fit as a fiddle with an iron constitution to match. Now I know just how my cats Matthew and Steven must feel, becasue like them, I've nine lives!!!

Actually, I've got nine followers really. It's not as though they sold me their souls ;-)....or did they??

My new follower Marek Lenarcik, is yet another inhabitant of the Emerald Isle and also a fellow journalist. He doesn't post much, but what he does post is of high calibre. His CV makes for impressive reading. I'd say I have much to learn from Marek.

Marek Lenarcik? I hear you enquire. That doesn't sounds very Irish.

Well, readers, that's becasue Marek appears to be of Polish extract. Like Mr Sheen. Only kidding. Bit of furniture cleansing humour for you there.

Marek has got real pedigree in the world of journalism and covers some massively weighty subjects. His blog seems to be one big long 'what I did on my holidays' ramble though. However, there are some excellent photos from around the world.

I'm so glad that Marek has tied his colours to the Newsdesk mast, I was thinking of getting some building work done and with his heritage, I bet he's got a fair few decent contacts.

KK guyz, I think I need a Lemsip, I'm missing shifts at Blockbusters. Mind, being ill did mean I got to take my PES team Notts Forest to consecutive league titles so it's not been a complete waste of time.

Super Eight

I am literally over the moon readers. Isn’t life amazing? Just when was at my lowest ebb, Citizen Journalism pays me back in rewards that money simply cannot buy. As Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones figured when she listened to Jamie O’Neil doing the classic Eric Carmen, number, I thought I was “all by myself”. But no.

I’ve got another follower. It’s been six days since my last new additions (Mark, Karen and Vince). Six whole days! If legends are to be believed, that’s how long it took God to create the world. That’s nearly a week!!

Incidentally, I was AMAZED when I find out that Renee Zellweger is American. Her English accent is absolutely spot on. Just goes to show you readers, you should never judge a book by its covers. When I told Gill that Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones reminded me of her, she got offended. Can you believe it? Women.

Speaking of women, my new follower, Molly, is also a woman. I’ve been Mollycuddled (virtually ;-)). And like my other follower Mark, she is from Ireland. I’d love to go to Ireland one day, I hear it’s lovely. Mind, I cannot stand Guinness and so the locals might be offended. Maybe if I get enough followers from Ireland I’ll be able to go and visit them one day?

From her picture you might think that Molly looks a little young for blogging, but she's actually 34. On her profile page Molly lists her occupation as “girlfriend”. Jeesh readers, I wonder how it pays?

Only kidding ;-) Judging from her fabulous blog, The Molly Blog, I doubt that Molly really is a prostitute. Although, if she were, there would be nothing wrong with that. It’s the oldest profession in the world. I think Gordon Brown should probably legalise brothels. Maybe I should write a piece about it and send it to the Metro?

On Molly’s blog she claims to have been “chasing rainbows since 1974”. Perhaps she hopes to find a leprechaun with a pot of gold?

She’s got ten followers. Nice work.

Gaining followers makes me really happy. It is better than sex and way better than money. It’s like crack, or craic as Molly and Mark might say. I’ve been thinking of various strategies for gaining new followers readers. Unlike crack (or sex), you can’t just nip off to Coldharbour Lane and buy followers from bloke in a hoody. I’ve been watching Fuck You, Penguin to see if I can pick up some tips, he’s nearly broken through the 4000 followers mark. It’s mental, all he does is pick a picture of a cute looking animal and then say nasty things about it.

I wonder what PETA would have to say about it? Maybe I’ll drop them a line.

KK readers, gotta go. I hear the Shreddies calling and I quite fancy a few games of Pro Evo before Gill gets here. She wants to “talk”.

Women.

The magnificent seven

Seven is a magical number. The Japanese believe it to be lucky, there were seven samurai, after all.

Manchester United, arguably the most famous football team on the planet, bestow the 7 shirt upon their star performer: George Best, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo all made their mark in the 7 shirt.

There are seven deadly sins.

It’s a prime number, which means it is only divisible by one and itself. So it seems highly appropriate that yours truly has now got seven followers.

SEVEN.

It seems like only yesterday that my good friend from California, Jennifer Walker-Shannon, became my first follower. Swiftly followed (excuse the pun) by Donnac1968 and Steve.

However, it really was only yesterday that the number of followers swelled to over twice its size.

Mark Stanley from the Emerald Isle has joined the fold. He’s the marketing manager for a very worthy not-for-profit organisation called Citywise which was set up to run education, sporting and personal development programmes. I can really empathise with Mark, sometimes it feels as though my career in journalism is a not-for-profit venture! Gerry Adams recently visited Citywise. As a journalist I’d love to pose a few questions to him. I’d have to tread carefully though, you get the impression he could be a bit touchy.

Karen Snyder became by second female Stateside follower. Her excellent blog, Tales From The Social Media Front line, is very high brow. Karen describes herself as a "Social Media Ninja". I’m sure she could show me a few social media moves. Her favourite music is UB40. She seems to have painted herself into an unusual corner there readers! Red, Red Wine. A classic.

Karen also follows a blog called Fuck You, Penguin which has over 3700 followers. WOW. I’ve decided to follow that one to see how it’s done. All of a sudden my magnificent seven is starting to look a trifle under-whelming. No offence followers – as Donnac1968 says, from small acorns do mighty oaks grow, hopefully!

Next up is Vince another American. I think it’s fair to say he’s a serial follower. Vince currently follows over 170 different blogs. You’ve got to admire the Americans’ work ethic. When he’s not following blogs Vince is a copywriter. So, hopefully he’s be able to pick me up on my typos. I should also add that Vince has 69 followers of his own.

Last, but by no means least, is Jack Nork. Jack is yet another American. He’s got three blogs on the go. Like I say, you’ve got to admire the Americans’ work ethic. I don’t know if Jack is aware, but his surname might well raise a few smiles back in my hometown Lincoln, as another word for tits is norks. No offence.

I’ve got to go now readers. I’ve got an interview for a new evening job at Blockbusters, just to make ends meet before my journalism starts covering costs.

See ya :-)

Another follower!!!!

It seems the old Newsdesk charm has reeled in yet another follower. Donnac1968* is a fellow blogger. And, if I may say so myself, is nothing short of prolific.

*Apologies Donnac1968 - this pic of you has come out highly pixelated, which gives the impression that I've made the image blurry in order to project your identity, much like they do on TV shows featuring criminals.

Donnac1968 has also been dabbling in Twitterland and Tweets under the name 'electrogirl68'.

Her blog, ‘From Little Acorns’, covers a wide range of topics. Knitting seems to feature prominently, as do photographs of Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding. She has won a couple of awards and, like Jesus, has 12 followers (at the time of writing).

Do you ever wonder how many followers Jesus would have if he was around today….?

Wonder no more according to Twitter he has 510 followers. This figure comes in well under the number of followers He is estimated to have that follow using the more conventional methods.

Clearly, both Donnac1968 and myself have a long way to go before we can hope to achieve the sort of popularity possible when you’re the Son of God.

A follower!!!!

Who says journalism is a lonely career. I logged on this morning and was greeted by the news that I have a follower!

Jennifer Walker-Shannon has tied her colours to the Barry Newsdesk mast, so to speak, and agreed to follow me.

A Californian writer. She looks every bit as glamorous as she sounds too! Though I should also point out that she is married to a gentleman called Brett. Hopefully, this will assure Gill that our virtual friendship is purely platonic.

I wonder what Jennifer makes of the great public transport vs atheism debate? I know our American cousins can be quite religious, however, I also know that public transport leaves a lot to be desired in the Land of the Free!

Perhaps this is something President Obama will be looking to change during his tenure. He's probably got a lot on his plate, but he seems like the sort of man who will leave no stone unturned. Even if it means upsetting a few people.

I have yet to receive any feedback from the various editors whom I furnished with my piece on sexual harassment. It's early days, of course, and I'm not too downhearted. Particularly in light of the news that Jennifer (a published writer!!!!) is now following yours truly.

Perhaps I will go out into the virtual world and follow some other notable bloggers - in journalism, it is a case of who you know AND what you know!