Every now and then this Blog becomes almost inactive. It still receives tens of thousands of views per month. I still use it as my Exobrain, but I go through weeks or months without posting anything new. The last three months have been like that, since this piece shortly after Tony Slattery died in mid-January.

I thought of using Lent as a time to catch up, but Easter Sunday has come and gone and it is nearly 100 days since anything new appeared here. I have explained my approach to this Blog in a few earlier pieces, like this one in 2016. Back then a similar amount of time passed without me posting anything, and I “back-filled” over the course of a few months to ensure that the longest gap between items is five days. A piece from Christmas day in 2022 compares this site to how I use my handwritten diary: to keep a record of things that happened on specific days, even if it takes me several weeks to go back and fill it in.

There are additional reasons for my silence this time round. What I most want to write about would take me away from my usual practice of keeping things generalized and semi-anonymous. Friends and family can identify me through much of the content here, but there is no straightforward way to link it to our day-to-day lives. That, for now, is still my aim. But if I write in detail about a few of our recent activities we would be more traceable. Here are a few examples.

Since January I have been taking part in competitive quizzes, in rooms with people you would recognize from TV if you watch the most popular quiz shows. I have quizzed with and chatted to dozens of people with track records going back decades on all the big shows: finalists and series champions from “Mastermind”, “Only Connect”, “University Challenge”, even “Fifteen to One”. I now know the pubs where they hang out, and have felt pretty much at home there. After my first encounter with this world, back in January, I described it to my wife and children as follows: “I have found my people”.

Also, my son has been involved with a TV show and been featured on what we used to call terrestrial TV. If I even hint at the nature of the show he would be a lot easier to identify. When I took him to one of the competitive quizzes back in February, and then the late-night bar where people congregate afterwards for the “post-match” discussions, I was one of the few people in the room who was not recognizable from TV.

And through an unexpected set of circumstances I have found myself sharing a performing space, and singing songs, with someone who has writer and producer credits on multiple #1 hits. You’ll know the songs, even if you’ve never heard of him. Until this year I had no idea of the closeness of the connections between some of the people I know and other people who making a decent living from the music business. It’s been quite an eye-opener, but I’m not ready to name names, and maybe I never will, on these pages. Face-to-face, in the room, yes. But not here.

If I had been Blogging regularly in recent months I would have no doubt covered the progress of Leeds United FC since my last piece about the team, in May 2024. Tens of thousands of words have already been published here about that subject, in the 120+ pieces that deal with sport, but I didn’t bother to post anything about the play-off final defeat that kept Leeds in the Championship for another season. Since then, I have watched every minute of over 35 of the team’s games, thanks to the unprecedented amount of Championship coverage available this season. That included yesterday’s 3pm kick-off, a 6-0 victory over Stoke City which almost confirmed the club’s return to the Premier League for next season. The 5.30pm kick-off (Burnley 2 Sheffield United 1) guaranteed that Leeds and Burnley will go up, with two games still left to play.

I hope to go back and fill in the blanks stretching back over the last three months and more. I have done so after previous lean spells on this site. A favourite cousin died last December. I drafted several pieces about her, and about my flying visit to Dublin to see her in her last days. I have drafted thousands of words about Tony Slattery too, to follow on from my piece in January. All being well, various pieces about the two of them, and a few other things that have been on my mind, will start to fill in the blank spaces, especially for February and March. If not, there are still over a million words elsewhere on this Blog for you to browse. You could start here: “Live my days, instead of counting my years”.