The State of the Blog (and what a state it is too...)

Since we are now into the second half of 2019, I thought it appropriate to provide an update on what's going on with this blog as well as other projects I am involved with.

At the beginning of the year, I set myself a target of three to four posts per month, obviously depending upon having something to write about. Whilst the cadence of posts hasn't been entirely predictable, I've hit that three per month target in every month except May, so I'm pretty happy with that. There have, however, been a couple of other things that have taken up time which has, to a degree, slowed down my posting here.

First up is Then There Were Two, a podcast featuring myself and Eddie Carter of Attention Please, Across the Pond (search Facebook for AttentionPlease1976 for both of those shows), All The Time I Was Listening To My Own Wall Of Sound (link here) and Bearded Gentlemen Music (link here) infamy. You can hear the first two episodes here and more will be incoming. We're also on iTunes if you're so inclined (search in podcasts to Then There Were Two. It's the one with the two dodgy fellers on it...) and there is a Facebook page to be found by searching for TTW2NE. The format for these is pretty simple. Around an hour in length, opinion based and containing ramblings of two middle aged bearded gents, Then There Were Two will basically be a talking shop on various topics, one topic per episode. Four have already been recorded and they will be released on a monthly basis. Another recording session is due next week and as each one is released, there'll be an update on the Facebook page.

Spot the podcast - it's the one with the parental advisory.

In addition to TTWT, there is also Retrovideogamer.co.uk. I was asked to provide some retro game reviews a couple of months back and have so far posted four, with more in the works. It's a fun thing to do and not only does it allow me to replay games from yesteryear but it also allows me to develop my reviewing skills as well. My reviews are posted under the name Oystoa77 and if you have any requests for old videogames, have a look at the platforms supported and let me know via this blog or my Twitter handle @andrew_oyston and I'll see what I can do.

Of course, with the podcast and RVG, that has eaten into my spare time a lot but with a bit of careful planning, this shouldn't affect the TIT much and, as I noted above, as long as I have something to write about then I'll be putting it on here. This will include expanding into the other hobbies and interests I have as well as some more in-depth pieces that I can't cover elsewhere but also the occasional op-ed as well. Let's see what the rest of 2019 brings, shall we?