It really is months since I’ve blogged. Actually, the last blog was last year.

And now, possibly my last year. Ahead, probably my last summer.

I have been scrolling my way through the almost ten years of this website – so many words! Some of them relevant. Many of them written by others.

I suppose it’s about teaching. I’ve always loved being a teacher: centre of attention, a platform for showing off, an opportunity to open minds and eyes. How Narcissistic! As if I actually know anything useful.

Nostalgia. The wonderful Megasaga competitions, which allowed me to reach out and shout – ‘here’s how you write!’ They enabled me to really think about the Craft and come to my own conclusions about what makes good writing great – and to reward fellow seekers with a few paltry pounds, a pat on the back.

The Writing Tips: the content is good, the tone makes me squirm now. I wonder if anyone used them to improve their writing?

My satirical stuff – the Trump-as Alien, the BJ etc – all Dad jokes, painful but they still make me laugh. They really are absolute crap but I don’t care – I wrote them for me and Rob, whose sense of humour is as bad as mine.

I will now, finally, make some confessions since my time is short and my sleep long.

1. I am Grigor. Every blog I wrote, mine was the first comment under that name – an opportunity for a spot of metacognition, looking at my words as if I were another person and reacting accordingly. Have you ever done that? Walked into your house with an estate agent, or a new lover, and seen your home with new eyes? What a mess.
2. Many of the stories in the Megasaga competition, therefore, were by me. I never awarded myself the prize I swear! Unlike when I edited the School newspaper at the King Edward VII School in Johannesburg. There, I awarded myself every prize for every competition, largely because no-one ever entered. In the Megasaga competition I just wanted to set a standard, arrogantly, because there were so many entries, some of which were pretty awful. The winners all deserved their prizes – their stories had heart, soul and love in them. Making mine look dull and pedestrian.
3. I am pretty proud of my books, I admit it. Except for the poems – some are bearable, some are tosh. I grew up thinking I was becoming the greatest writer ever, that my future would inevitably result in everybody realising this truth and I would be lionised every lunchtime. It took me quite a while to understand that every writer thinks this. And my goodness, there are some awful wordsmiths – or wordshits – out there! Amazon has opened the floodgates and even if my stuff was any good, it would be drowned.
4. My best book is probably Laszlo’s Millions. While Ragazzo was a huge self-indulgence, lush and luscious, Laszlo’s Millions is the best crafted of the lot.
5. I have spent my life acting. If I have any talents at all, acting is the main one. Folks, I am the ultimate chameleon – or rather I was. I stopped bothering too actively years ago. But I am still able to walk into a room and immediately assume the colours and flavours of the dominant tribe there. And the accent and even the opinions, though I do hold certain inalienable convictions – which I have become a great expert at hiding. If you want to attach a label to them, maybe Semi-Woke Leftie with some holes and tatters. This is a confessional piece so I will also admit to having mildly intolerant attitudes to organised religion. Which I am able to hide when in one of their Income-generation machines. As to sexuality, tried both. It’s overrated. I am too old for you to be the slightest bit interested in what I do with my bits. Suffice it to say, very little and none that concerns you.
6. I have come to the conclusion that we are indeed doomed as a specie, although there is still a small chance that after a major cataclysm a small tribe or two will survive for few thousand years, long enough to fuck up all over again.

I’m going to sleep on this blog (not literally, the Mac has sharp edges). I wonder if anyone will read it…there were loads of people who read my ramblings a couple of years ago. Most will have moved on.

Except Grigor. He will always be with me.

I love you all.