This blog began under the strangest of circumstances.
I wanted to live in (not just visit), London. Therefore I brilliantly applied to graduate school and was accepted. The resultant student visa assured my London residency from September 2014 to March 2107. Alas, it was not jolly, and all because of a jealous woman. The Creative Non- Fiction Masters program at London City University was diabolically mismanaged by Julie Wheelwright. She routinely (every year I was to learn later) persecuted the most promising person enrolled in the program. I suppose to eliminate the competition. I was utterly devastated at the time, did battle nobly but decided my peace of mind was more important that the battle. Uncharacteristically, I abandoned the program, which included the biography of my Uncle Dave Dryburgh which was to serve as the final project. However, my creative juices were dried up, I was in despair. But I had a belief, that turned into a dream, then the dream was realized. The ‘realization was a self-published a book centered on the Tate Britain, In Contemplation and in Conversation . It consisted of my speaking in prose to some of the paintings housed in the permanent collection, with a poet musing to the same image. Using my trusty iPhone, the image was memorialized. Assistance was required to assemble the prose, poetry and photographs into a collection for self-publishing – it arrived in the person of Chris Jackson.
This from the Introduction: “The book has an even stranger ending in a way. In the final days of his work on this book I asked computer Guru Chris if setting up a blog was a difficult talk. “Super easy” said he. Two days later I owned alexmcbride.com London and beyond. It is immensely popular. At this writing it has had almost 100,000 hits since January 22, 2017.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet”, as the song goes. I did not, nor ever shall, use marketing, promoted the blog’s existence with business blog cards and my big mouth. Never have I ever been a blog follower. Chris’ only advice: include a couple of photos and use the title to describe what was going on. I have written almost daily, Chris has posted almost daily since that day which shall live in infamy, January 22, 2017. My statistics are nothing short of astronomical as you shall soon see. People from all over the world seem obsessed with alexismcbride.com. Stats! shall play a permanent role, – some shown country by country, others count the views and viewers daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. There is also an amusing video, featuring Alexis and a globe.
I think I will keep blogging, because actually I write for myself. Writing the blog centers my day, motivates me to explore the world in all its complexity. It chronicles a journey of my unusual existence on this planet. Faithful readers will know that I ‘reverted’ to the Islamic faith on October 20, 2020. The faith has provided the peace and inner happiness as promised. The faith coupled with this blog, constitutes the core of my existence.
