You know the way some people don't learn from one mistake and make the same mistake again?

Well it appears I might be making this mistake for the third time. The difference is, this time I hope to have no regrets.

The problem was last time, not to do with the blog, but its content or rather, its writer.

Back when I was in sixth form, I was lacking severely in the social skills department. Hell, I didn't even kiss a girl until I was seventeen. Now, that my friends is slow development.

I'd like to think I've matured a little since then, but apart from having some (apparent) social skills, being somewhat less frustrated with the world (alright, it's been a while since I've got any but I'm trying to rely on luck, a ridiculously over-the-top Norn Irish accent and uhhh.. "good looks"), I'm still about as dozy and in my own little dream as I always was. This time though, I have a plan.

As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures and well.. I'm counting on loans coming through for me and being in Copenhagen (the expensive but beautiful city that it is), am running out of money fast. If there's a problem with the loans (there always is whenever I fill forms in), I'm pretty screwed. Sure, I can probably yelp at the parents and demand stipends to keep me going, but I resent having to do that. As I showed in Christmas, I'll work 56 hour weeks just so I don't have to borrow any money from them to keep me going.

Now some people might wonder why I'm so fiercely committed to being financially independent from the old folks and so I'll explain why.

Whenever you're an only child, you can't do any wrong. Further more, with the adapting personality I have (despite never not being "myself", I've a different personality for every event and group of people I'm with.. being with me in a group is different to being one on one with me - call me "fake" if you want to, but I can't help it) I try and do my best for my parents when I'm at home, even act like the charming golden boy they believe I am. In reality, I'm chonging almost every day, drink way more than they believe I should (let me ask who doesn't in this day and age?) and partial to trying the odd "other" substance. If you really want, I'll recount some of my experiences someday in the very peculiar style of storytelling you're so used to reading from me.

To those of you who aren't used to reading my blog and are wondering what this is all about, I'll explain;
Back when I was 16-17 (lower sixth), I decided to write a blog - an internet diary if you will. Not only was this a dumb idea, but I decided telling a lot of people was a good idea.

Now, if I had been one of the "popular" kids at school, I might just have gotten away with it. However, having the athletic ability of a lame sea otter, I could barely swim, run or row. I was picked last for everything, with good reason. My competitive streak was based mostly on Magic the Gathering, or computer games. I'd always try and start talking about computer games right in the middle of somebody else's conversation - despite the fact they'd be discussing the pros and cons of 4-4-2 formation or the location of the G-spot, two things the "jocks" knew about and which I didn't have a clue, the former for lack of wanting to have a clue.

The other problem was that I could never take being made fun of. Which being as dozy as I am meant that I was going to have a lot of things being made fun of. Not least because I have an inherent belief I can be friends with everybody and try to at all times, which backfires more than it needs to. So, I'd get really angsty and you could see that in my blogs, I'd lash out at other people when often they were doing what any normal human being would do - have fun, occasionally at someone else's expense.

It was like reading the diary of a modern day Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye) without the wit, charm and influence on serial killers that J.D. Salinger was able to write with. The blog was perhaps like Catcher, emo before emo was "cool". It didn't have as much fear of being buggered by old school teachers, but it was still written by somebody who felt they were different. Maybe I wasn't as big an outcast as I sometimes believe, I know I had a fair few friends, but my attempts at being class clown resulted more in being village idiot. Clueless was probably the best word you could have used to describe me.

Funnily enough though, the blog picked up attention by pretty much half of the school. It came to a point that print outs of the site were being littered around the actual buildings and every other computer in a computer suite had at least one IE window open with charlto.blogspot in the URL bar. This was partly on the basis that I said a lot about my classmates (the goings on of the entire year really) and partly on the account of my writing style, which arguably shows more intelligence than the near incomprehensible bullshit I spout to people on a day-to-day basis.

In an odd light the blog was revolutionary - nobody else really had the balls to use the internet for something like that in our school back in the day. Or at least, everybody else had the smarts to avoid social ridicule.

Unfortunately, some of this attention was negative. Being unable to take the teasing and joking, I deleted it. Six months later, made the same mistake again, probably what should have been for the last time. However, I submitted a nicely composed three page article for the yearbook, which due to space constraints got tidily edited down to one and was left as a nice reminder of the years that were. My resolve though was that I was probably never going to write anything on the internet again, whether it be horrendous lyrics on project rockstar, the blog or even anything larger than a private e-mail.

Now I'm a lot more mellow. Still prone to flying off the handle if I'm feeling bullied, but it takes a long while for things to get that stage. I still like a good rant sometimes, though I like them for comic value. So if I get abuse or being teased for my blog, I might still turn red faced in either embarrassment or rage and yell incoherent strings of swearwords at my agitator. Chances are though, I'll shrug and hope that the adsense is bringing me in enough loot to keep me in beer and smoke for the next half a week. If the certain "ginger haired devil" finds the site and points it out to everyone, I won't mind. Last time I spoke to him, I had a fair amount of respect for him. He was able to stand up for his faith, whilst admitting he wasn't the prime example of what a Christian should be (though I still stand entirely agnostic). If I had any problem with him in school it was perhaps in part to the failure to understand his social intelligence he had with certain people, or perhaps a jealousy in a feeling I couldn't compete with his wit. From our interaction, I like to think that the new found respect was mutual. If not, c'est la vie. Life is too short for letting things that bothered you as a teenager to go on affecting the rest of your duration on earth. Especially when you meet your old school friends about once or twice a year at the most.

And that brings me to the next point - why I'm doing this. Like I say, I have a plan and I've explained my desperate times. What I haven't explained is why blogging.

The thing is, I'm good at a few things. Anyone that knows me, will recall my previously mentioned lack of athletic ability, my occasionally embarrassing social presence and a distorted coordination. That being said, I can handle my long list of flaws on the grounds that I can walk away for a couple of pints after having the shit beaten out of me for about three minutes by three different spides. can get people to alike me, have the ability to pull good marks out of my proverbial I can even make a fucking awesome spaghetti bolognase (spelling?), but in the long run there isn't too much I can make a living out of. That's why I'm thinking, I might just write.

Maybe in the style of Bill Bryson, or even the man himself Hunter Shit-me-I'm-awesome Thompson, I might just achieve some kind of career out of it. Likelihood is I'll fail old-school. Be dead like F. Scott Fitzgerald due to drink and drug abuse in my fourtys yet without even haven written as something as influential as "The Great Gatsby". But this blog stands as a testing ground for how much money and success I might be capable of achieving.

I've added adsense in hope that somebody bored who has found the blog decides to click on one of the links. Now, I can't by the rules encourage you click on them. Posting requests to "CLICK MY ADDS" is retarded, so what I can do is occasionally offer product reviews amongst regular blog entries. Talk about Danish beer, or hydroponics kits once I know more about them. En temps en temps we'll see magical adverts appear which might catch the eye of a stray googler. In addition, you'll learn a little more about things that you might actually find useful. I might even post essays I've written just so history students can skaff a bit out of, or critique to decide whether Lancaster University is a good one to go to if you want a good degree.

Lastly, feel free to add comments. I'd quite like to know who the readership is.

I'm away to read up on how to make more money from blogs and possibly "skin up a cheeky one", because Madeline isn't here to do it for me.

Ciao Bella.

Conor