Farewell to the Big Blogger

3 years ago this very week, the winner of the North West Evening Mail’s “Big Blogger” contest was announced, and I’m delighted to say... it wasn’t me!

I received a Direct Message on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that startled me greatly. It’s OK though – it turns out it was a mistake and @BigTrish66 isn’t going to scratch my eyes out for looking at her boyfriend.

I then received an even more startling message than the first, from fellow columnist Darren McSweeney, giving me the heads-up that he was about to announce his retirement from columnising (or whatever the official word is for what we do each week) for this fine paper.

Swirling back through the mists of time to the 9th of April 2012, it’s possible to make out two handsome and highly intelligent bloggeristas, who had successfully seen off a large field of competitors in the equivalent of a weekly blogging smack-down, to reach the head to head final. (In case you were wondering, I’m referring to me and Darren. Obviously.)

We had even featured the week before in a genuinely scary nose-to-nose staring contest photo, much like boxers at a weigh-in, ripply muscles and all (although they weren’t visible in the picture for some strange reason).

To add to the electrifying tension, it was considered too dangerous to have both of us in the same place at the same time, so we were photoshopped together, so fierce was the competition for the dazzling prize of a laptop and a weekly column.

Since the beginning of the year that will forever be remembered as the one after 2011, the blogging contest had been a hard-fought battle of skill and wit, as we both attempted to out-blog the other.

Quietly confident – well, as quiet as you can be in this shirt – I’d even gone as far as designing a special Twitter profile picture to celebrate my success, after irritating my friends, family and anybody else who I could persuade to read my outpourings online and boost my hit rate.

Needless to say, Darren won. Apart from the fact that he did indeed garner more hits, he has consistently proven to be a thoughtful, witty and passionate writer, and deserved winner. Championing local causes and writing about his beloved hometown, we’ve been fortunate enough to have around 75,000 of his carefully chosen and assembled words during his time on the paper.

Very kindly, as runner up I was given the opportunity to write a column also, so between us we’ve topped and tailed the working week for the last 36 months, with Darren’s intelligent insights on a Monday, and my somewhat random take on the world on Friday.

But not for much longer. It’s a good job I didn’t get to use that Twitter profile picture with a crown on top, or we’d have missed out on some damn fine ‘Witness Statements’.

You’ve got him for one last time on Monday – all the best, Darren. Fine job, my friend!

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 10th of April 2015. I'd point you to the version the paper published online, but it hasn't shown up on their website. If you want to play 'spot the column' and see if it has appeared yet, go here

Whilst the NWEM tried to whip up a bit of a "fierce rivals" storyline to accompany the final couple of weeks, Darren and me has already been in touch on Twitter and got on just fine. Whilst we've never actually met, I sense that he has experienced many of the same highs and lows as me over the last 3 years of newspaper column writing (although I'm not actually there yet - the announcement of the winner was the 9th of April 2012, with Darren's first column the following week, but I didn't show up in print until the 4th of May).

I think we've both struggled to come up with something every week that we're pleased with from time to time, and I know I've sometime sat in front of a blank screen wondering what the hell I'm going to write about. Luckily, so far something has always wandered into my head in the nick of time, but Darren may well have done the sensible thing and packed it in before the moment that, one day, nothing shows up to fill both the space between our ears and the empty page.

Wishing Darren a very happy 'retirement'.

(CD singles a-go-go! Currently it's 1998's "Come With Me" by Puff Daddy featuring Jimmy Page.)

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