There comes a time in every blogger’s life when they look at their collection of half-written, half-baked, and wholly incoherent blogs and wonder—why the hell did I start seven of these things?

Let me be clear: I didn’t mean to start multiple blogs. It just sort of happened. Like gout, or Brexit. One minute I was merrily typing away on a delightful little blog about street photography, full of moody shadows and lampposts that look like they’re auditioning for a noir film. The next, I’d birthed a second blog dedicated to “Thinking.” Just thinking. About anything. Absolutely no one asked me to do this.

Then came the blog about web development—because obviously, the world was gasping for yet another middle-aged man explaining how to centre a div. Then a life blog, which is really just the other blogs without any CSS. Then the grumpy-old-man blog, for when the government does something I don’t understand, which is daily. And finally, a secret blog that I won’t name here, because even I’m not sure what it’s for. Possibly tax evasion.

Now, every time I log in to post something, I face a Kafkaesque decision tree that would make a Google product manager weep:

  • Is this thought philosophical or just me whining again?
  • Does this photo go on the photography blog, or the life blog, or the “I saw a pigeon” blog?
  • If I rant about JavaScript and society crumbling in the same post, do I cross-post? Is that allowed? Do I need councelling?

Naturally, this has led to the entirely rational decision to consolidate all the blogs into one. A bold move. A brave move. A move I have attempted no fewer than eleven times, each one ending in total existential collapse.

Because you see, each blog has its own voice. The street photography blog is quiet and observational. The web development blog is technical and slightly smug. The grumpy blog is written entirely in capital letters and smells faintly of pipe smoke. Trying to merge them is like trying to host a dinner party with Alan Turing, Alan Bennett, and Alan Sugar. It’s just Alans shouting over each other.

And then there’s the matter of the audience. The photography folks don’t want to read about JavaScript closures. The coders don’t want moody reflections in puddles. And the people who came for the gentle musings about life really didn’t sign up for a 2,000-word rant about the new Tesco self-checkout machines and why they’re probably sentient.

Yet I persist. I tell myself, “It’s all me, isn’t it? Surely one blog can contain multitudes.” And then I publish a post called “How to Fix a CSS Grid Issue While Crying at a Bus Stop” and watch my readership vanish faster than my will to live after a visit to HMRC.

So what’s the solution? Well, after months of painful introspection and several consultations with an imaginary brand consultant called Nigel, I’ve decided on this:

Just write whatever the hell I want and pretend it’s intentional.

Yes, it’ll be chaotic. Yes, it’ll be incoherent. But so is life. And if you can’t stick a photograph of a lonely bollard next to a screed about government stupidity, followed by a tutorial on how to style your blog footer using Flexbox, then what’s the point of the internet at all?

In short: I have too many blogs. I’m trying to glue them together. It’s going terribly. But at least it’s mine.

And I’ve made a new blog to write about it. Naturally.