This blog has been going for… wow, probably 6 or 7 years. My first blog post on the then Windows Live Spaces about my boring science lesson sparked the creative flow of content right up until this very day. While I stupidly forgot to archive it before Windows Live Spaces died off, we’ve still got a bunch of content here for you to enjoy.

It’s going on WordPress.com simply because I don’t want to pay for a domain and hosting for something I’m not going to be able to update as often as I’d like. Not going to lie. I’m a student, what can you say?

But fear not! If you’re worrying about getting daily insights into my life, Twitter is the way to go. I’m @stupler over there (and Raconteur is still going to be @raconteurblog if you want to get updates that way)

Just a few stats for you now:

It would take just under a day for the average user to read all the posts currently available on Raconteur. From the first post to this one, it’s about 23 hours and 5 minutes according to this little tool I’m looking at.

All the words written added together bring a total of just under 280,000 words – the equivalent of about 28 dissertations, three and a half Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stones, or just over a third of the entire Bible. Man, God has his work cut out there, didn’t he. Certainly wouldn’t want to be proof reader…

The biggest post was all about the memes of the naughties, which was just shy of 3000 words long. Ooh-ey. Sorry about that. The average is bang on 350 words, though, so I don’t take too much of your time.

Since records began, the most searched for term on Google that people have come here for is “Mini Sick” with almost 1000 people doing that. Following that, we’ve got a few people looking for interview advice, those looking for the Sickipedia stuff and even people searching for “bellend”. Cheers, guys.

Funnily enough the most visited page is the homepage, but after that it’s again all about the interview and the mini-sick, with those two pages alone combining to make 10% of all the page views for the entire blog. Oh, Internet.

And there’s a brief history of Raconteur. Now. Go join in over at raconteurblog.wordpress.com. It’s not as nice a URL, but it’s free. So quit your whining!

Well hardly. But here’s what actually did happen…

David and Victoria Beckham had their first daughter and decided to call it, of call things, Harper Seven Beckham. While I’m sure it’s beautiful for them, the world was quite shocked. So I took you on a journey of people with better names. Nowadays, people are still trumping their naming convention, changing their names to things like Pink Sparkly And All Things Nice – I’m not even joking.

Burt the Sign Language Dog went missing. I’m not quite sure who has a heart that’s dead enough to steal a dog that communicates with deaf children (probably Dr. Evil after smoking 40 a day for half his life), but as far as I know this dog’s still nowhere to be found. Poor Burt Reynolds. Sadface.

I also had my first ECG in July. That’s always scary. Although I turned myself into the bionic man for all of 10 minutes in my mind. They had to shave patches of hair off on my legs and chest to get the pads in the right place, and you can still see the gap now, a good 4 months on. Damn you, NHS!

The UK decided it was a good idea to riot. Funnily enough, not everyone thought it was a great idea and decided to mock those who were, like myself. Hah, look at this pillock with a parasol. Suppose it’s one up from photographing yourself and posting it on Twitter or something…

The Internet wanted Sartalics – italics that lean the other way to denote sarcastic messages – to become standard in word processing software and the like. Still no nearer that goal, we venture forward undeterred. Because it totally would be a pain to implement…

ITV thought the gameshow Red or Black was a good idea. Without even clicking that link you know I didn’t think the same, don’t you. But go on, click it. Clicked it? Yeah, you were right. It was dire. But at least we know that Simon Cowell can do something the whole nation despises, not just the educated folk.

Cone-ing became a thing. Not planking, nor owling, nor batmanning. Cone-ing. The act of grabbing a takeaway ice cream cone by the dessert end. Not only was it a waste of perfectly good ice-cream, it was totally ruined by Justin Bieber cone-ing. I don’t mind Bieber killing that one off though…

I went to go and see my first football game in Bournemouth with them against Yeovil in a cup match. Ash was the only one with any sort of affiliation at that game out of us guys who went, but I kind of enjoyed shouting obscenities at people I have no idea whether they’re usually that crap or not. Entertaining nonetheless.

We went to Bristol to watch a game of Deal or No Deal Live which, as I’m sure you’re well aware, was a really odd experience. I found myself caring about stuff I wouldn’t really care about at all. Oh no, that woman opened a box that had a large amount of money written on the inside of it! Woe is me!

Snoop Dogg invited a random bloke who grew a massive swede backstage at one of his concerts. While Charlie Sheen took the celeb “what the hell is he smoking?” award for 2011, Snoop Dogg comes a close second. Kudos for inviting the world’s most honest farmer for an interview though, Sky News. You get what you ask for.

2011 was also a year for some really odd dreams. Cold Fountain Eliminated was one of those weird dreams which I dramatized. Still to this day I have absolutely no idea what that means, but hey, the mind is a weird thing. The other night I had a dream about canoes. Don’t ask.

Of course Halloween happened, but this year I dressed up as the grim reaper and did a pub quiz. I ended up winning £70 for my friends. Obviously, that was all down to me as I won the final dice-throw. That and our team name was awesome – “To Neigh Or Not To Neigh, That Is Equestrian”.

2011 was a great year for viral video. In November alone we saw two ends of the British social spectrum. Fenton was released into the wilds of Richmond Park and into our hearts as his owner editorian consultant Max Findlay comes screaming after him.

Shortly after, things got a bit more racist as My Tram Experience went viral, catching the love of the working class Londoner in full flow. Thankfully, she was found and arrested later on. Good old public justice, eh love. I hope the arresting officer was black. Oh man I would love that so much.

The residents of Winton decided they were sick of us students livening up their streets around the university. The backlash of this is still on-going, but really now they’re like “Oh, that? Pfft. We over-reacted. Honestly. We love you guys!” just because they realised that it’s the students that have the power to turn the music up louder…

Finally, and perhaps most notably, I did Movember. Looking dashing with a moustache, of course. I raised about £115 for charity for growing a bit of extra facial hair, which is great of course. Although I didn’t really do the moustache thing until right at the very end, where any guy in his right mind would shave a ‘tache if he could. Would I do it again? Probably not. But those are always famous last words…

And there we have it. 2011 wrapped up with a nice pretty bow on it. How adorable.

This is probably the last proper blog post you’ll be seeing over at raconteurblog.net, as it’s popping to wordpress.com in 2012, but don’t be too sad. There’ll be a post explaining it all coming in the near future. Don’t drink too much this evening, will you now!

So, I here absolutely none of you shout, what happened in the first half of 2011 that’s so special? Well…

Well the first thing posted this year doesn’t really count. It was a recap of the year just gone in 5 Other Things posts. Not exactly the most entertaining start ever, was it…

But it doesn’t get much better, the second post was all about how morbid the end to Theme Park was on the old systems. Nowadays you’ve got Theme Park on iOS, which lacks any sort of character at all. I’m not sure whether a lack of suicide in a game is a good or bad thing. Hmm.

Not long after that, we came across Ted Williams – the homeless man with the golden voice. Since then he’s gone on to bigger and better things. Now he’s on New England Cable News doing their voiceovers after doing work for some major companies. Good to see a success story nowadays, right?

Later on we discovered the wonderful Ruth Flowers, the 70 year old DJ. The powerful granny who really puts everyone in their place. We featured her on The Matt and Ellie Show, along with the cat who was drafted in to keep rats at bay in Downing Street. Who failed at it.

Northampton was put on the international map once more thanks to the superb courage of the lady we’ve all come to know as Supergran. Her courageous actions landed everyone involved in a lengthy jail sentence, a spot in this year’s Big Fat Quiz Of The Year, and a place in the hearts of millions around the world.

It’s also not every year you get to meet Prince Philip, either. It was a bit of a surreal day, I must admit, but totally worth it to see the man of the hour. There was a bit of a scare that he might not be around much longer but that’s seems to have passed. We’ve got more years with the bloke, yet!

2011 was also the year we were all pretty certain Charlie Sheen was going to die. But apparently drink, drugs and prostitutes isn’t enough to stop you. I think had 2 And A Half Men kept him on, he might have just killed himself, but he’s passed that buck to someone else. Winning.

But, the Internet being the Internet it didn’t hang around before picking another victim to peck at. This victim goes by the name of Rebecca Black. and I know you’re singing Friday in your head right now. Don’t pretend you’re not. Where is she now? She’s soon releasing a song called Person of Interest. Yeah, I don’t know either.

The UK had this decade’s census sent round to every house in the UK. Although everyone in England had a mysterious Question 17 that was left blank and nobody knew why. Really, it was about the Welsh and their language. Sorry about that. Little April Fools, there…

I had a quick look for the Matt Crouch’s around the world and was surprised to find that we all have some sort of connection to the media. It’s my calling! Okay, so the TV executive I believe is no longer making Christian films, but hey ho, every cloud and all that…

A guy in a wheelchair did a solitary pitch invasion at Sixfields Stadium, much to the amazement of everyone watching. Nothing ever came of it, it was just a really surreal moment watching a bloke invade a pitch. Dedication to the cause, right there.

The world also lost Bin Laden which, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is great. But what’s even greater is the wonderous way it was documented in the media and, notably, the jokes coming from Sickipedia. It just so happened to coincide with the hacking of the PlayStation Network. Let comedy ensue.

Harold Camping made a fool of himself by trying to convince us all that the rapture was coming. Obviously it didn’t as you’re reading this now, but we all welcome a trier, don’t we? Better luck next time. Just remember the Mayan’s have the end of 2012 booked. Choose another date. Any one will do.

Eurovision knocked around again and everyone’s favourite boy band Blue took the bullet for us this year. As per usual, my predictions were massively incorrect with Azerbaijan winning this year. Blue came 14th, but would  have come 5th had it been purely televoting, which is irksome. But I’m not going to loose sleep over it…

The UK voted on AV, too. The only think Nick Clegg was determined to not turn 180 degrees on. Despite everyone in their right minds wanting AV, the sheer idea of it was laughed off when only one constituency actually voted for it after about half the total votes were counted. Yeah. Not great, that one.

I went to my first summer ball which, being Bournemouth University, is a little bit out of the ordinary. We all went as survivor baywatch. Even though it was the middle of summer, 2am in the middle of a random field is rather cold. Not making that mistake again. Next year I’m going as a quilt.

Finally I coined the National Swimming Initiative, which continued last year’s National Walking Initiative. People need to behave in swimming pools. Designated lanes are the future people.

And that’s it. All that happened in the first half of this year. Come back tomorrow for more of the usual drole humour, but this time over stuff that happened later on that you might actually remember. Tah tah!

Here’s some dubstep thanks to Santa. I know you asked for it and, well, at least he thought you were good this year.

By the time this is posted you’re either cracking open presents, arguing with the family, or just getting up (you lazy student, you), but make sure you do have a good Christmas, won’t you? It’s the one day you can get away with doing absolutely nothing and not feel bad about it. Unless you’re making Christmas dinner, which you should be getting started now.

I’ll see you on the flipside, even if this blog is destined for it’s last days in a week or so, but more on that later. Right now you just sit back, relax, and recite all those lines you’ve memorised from The Great Escape.

If you’re not a fan of words, I’ve got a three-word visual review for you here:

But I’m guessing you’re here for a bit more of an in-depth review. Fair enough. Just bear in mind they’ve not paid me to say any of this stuff specifically, but I might have a bit of a bias into liking it purely because I didn’t have to fork out £400. Win some, lose some.

I had never touched a Windows Phone before getting this last week. This is an entirely new experience for me. I’ve got an iOS device and (up until last week of course) an Android device. So really, discounting webOS, Symbian and BlackBerry (lol) I’ve now got some experience with all three major mobile operating systems.

Is Windows Phone the best? From a usability perspective, it’s debateable. Now when I use iOS the icons feel pretty prehistoric, but at the same time iOS has simplicity nailed down. There’s not a lot graphically on Windows Phone, but it’s still more flair than there is on iOS.

But that’s stuff’s boring for people who aren’t nerds, so I’ll get right to the meaty part – the stuff it actually does. It’s got Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and whatnot already baked into the OS so there’s no real reason to download any other apps for those purposes other than maybe a more familiar layout. Of course, Windows Live and Xbox Live are both in there, too, but I don’t really use Windows Live or actually played any mobile games for Xbox Live yet so I can’t really comment. Although I can poke my avatar now, which is a great use of technology.

There’s not a lot of great stuff on the Marketplace, but that’s really up to us developers to sort that out for you. That’s also half the reason they gave us the phones, but I’d like to think the majority was out of love.

Build quality is wonderful, even if it does feel like a Nokia branded brick sometimes. I’m just used to my X10 midget phone, most likely, so that opinion doesn’t really mean much.

Overall it’s awesome and you should totally get one. Then pin me to your Start screen, because then you’ll see all my witticisms every time you use your phone (and who wouldn’t want that?)

This, my friends, is apparently what the Mayan Calendar looks like. Just showing my naive, British youth there. I’m a bit lazy with my research, but from what I can gather it’s officially a year until this thing runs out. Bummer.

I’m sure you’ve realised by now that the world was supposed to end quite a few times – most notably Harold Camping’s efforts on May 21st, then again on October 21st – whether you believe what you see on the news, hear on the street or get thrusted into your hands as you walk through the centre of town by a crazy man.

This is the last December 22nd you’ll be seeing… ever. This will be the last Christmas, the last new year celebration you have, the last birthday, the last anniversary, the last… oh no… the last Eurovision!

Oh, pfft. Of course not. If it is true, I’m hoping for this sort of style of apocalypse:

or even this:

Or, even, both. Maybe a flood of liquid dinosaurs. Oh, man. Get Michael Bay on the line.

Dinosaurs aside, December 21st 2012 has got a cornucopia of mythological events supposedly happening on it. Mayan gods shall be uprising, solar shift, violent earthquakes and Kiefer Sutherland’s birthday. All on that one day. Man, that’s one hell of a birthday party.

Alas, I wouldn’t worry. It’s all just the end of an era quite literally. That’s all the Mayan calendar points to. It’s basically their time to go into Clinton’s and get a nice new one. Maybe one of those A3 Justin Bieber ones. I hear they’ve got plenty of stock.

I think I might make my own doomsday prediction – December 20th, 2012. So when you’re all doing everything you would do on your last night on Earth, it’s too late and you’re already dead. Either that, or someone else can predict an apocalypse on December 19th, and so we can all love each other for every single day like it’s our last. D’aww. What a lovely thought…

This was December. In fact, the pictures from that slideshow (lovingly put to Katy Perry, I might add) were from the first batch of snow of December. That cleared up and then it did it again, but worse. That’s proper Winter. None of this “Ooh, I might have to put a hoody on underneath my coat” rubbish.

Only today did I hear Slade for the first time this season. Slade, of course, referring to their only notable song Merry Christmas Everybody which has always signified in my little noggin that Christmas is on it’s way. But no, this year not even the 19 windows open on my advent calendar have prepared me for this.

Previous years have always had some sort of build up to something amazing happening on the big day. Everyone’s having a good time, it’s great. This year has been swamped with nothing but work and I’ve had no time whatsoever to do anything remotely festive. It’s like a giant fun hoover (which, sidenote, you can’t get as gifts for girls. They don’t like it.)

Alas, it’s what six days away now? Surely I can put some time aside for festivities, right? It’s Christmas, after all…