Many years ago I saved this tiny press snippet, in the hope that it might come in useful one day: “Mrs Linette Crawley of Weston Leigh missed being crushed on Monday when a bulldozer demolished her home by mistake.” Just popped out for a packet of Woodbines and missed being crushed. Tough luck, Mrs Crawley, maybe you’ll be home next time. Meanwhile I have been fortunate enough to reach the age of fifty, well sort of, in a virtual way without either being crushed, lynched, flogged or burned at the stake (although there have been some close shaves). Today I was informed by my editor that I've now been doing this for a full fifty episodes. Not bad for something that started as a test balloon.

Yes, today’s posting is really the 50th edition of Edwin Drood's Column on My Favourite Planet. In the meantime I have a community of readers in places as far afield as Tokyo, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Oxford, Bristol, Sofia, Copenhagen, Tallin, Cologne, Windhoek, Wellington, Antwerp ... although, as far as I can gather, they all know me either personally or round a couple of corners. It would be great to speak to a wider audience, but this can only happen if you all wave the flag a bit. so please, big up the Drood and spread the links around.

50 episodes of Droodian invective and perspective, wow! Tempus bloody fugit. Break out the Mazeltov cocktails. Slaughter the fatted calf. Or better still, cross the channel to be present at the wedding of Benjamin Arolfini and Diana Williams, with all that this entails in opportunities for social commentary and shrewd observation.


© Edwin Drood, March 2011