I arrived at my desk early. It was still dark outside. The wind was howling in the trees. I cannot say how many tangents I took off on before finding my groove. I have written about my P & Q modes. Here is another. The R for ‘random’ mode. The next time I slip into R-mode I will record the twists and turns of my journey. But for now let it suffice to record that all of a sudden I hit the groove. After that it was full steam ahead until I disappeared down the hole in the middle three hours later. That metaphor shows my age because compact discs, unlike long-playing ‘thirty three and a third’ records, go the other way and you fall off the edge. The first track of a compact disc is at the centre. Vinyl has it at the outer edge.

There is pressure with this William Shepherd weblog. Daily postings are unnecessary but a daily record must be maintained. With the William Franklin weblog postings can happen as and when. The first posting went up a week ago and was a declaration of intent. This year I am going to get rich and here’s how!. You don’t believe me? Then watch this space! Quite a challenge to the gods. Come and get me, if you dare! Odysseus would be proud of me...and Beowulf. On the other hand look what happened to them.

To make my first weblog interesting I wrapped the message in a little personal piece of theatre about my father: the original William Franklin. This struck a chord with a fellow blogger who sent in a comment that went like this: ‘Just dropping in to say that my 18 month old son is called Franklin - name chosen because I couldn't think of a bad example (I work in a school, so most names are tainted in some way!) and I could think of several good ones: Aretha, Benjamin, Roosevelt, that turtle thing. I'll add William to the list.’

Brian Scranage runs five blogs. Both he and his wife were born in 1963 and now have two teenage tearaways. His house in Leicester is full to overflowing with much junk, huge piles of unmarked work, dozens of redundant replica kits from Bury Football Club, his bike and The Complete History of Leyland Motors. I feel I have known him all my life.

The elder of my two younger brothers once lived in Bury. I am the second of four boys. If I understand the subtle class distinctions in the North West his move to Uppermill was a move in the right direction. This Lancashire town huddles just a little precariously between the slopes of The Pennines and the outskirts of Oldham depending on whether you look right or left when you open his front door.

Shortly after the first posting I added two more in support my reckless claim: a 5-year record of the Swedish Krona against the Pound Sterling and a 5-year history of the ABB share price. That was Sweden sorted. Today it was Germany’s turn. Posting four was prompted by a piece in the financial press about the sharks circling Scotland & Southern Energy. Posting five was a remix of an article in the Christmas issue of Rye’s Own.

The title of the article was The Politics of Wind Farming. The blog came with a few lines to establish my expert credentials and a piece on Romney Marsh. Energy politics, wind farming and The Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm then made cameo appearances before making way for The Beast of Essen, a giant power and utilities conglomerate that goes by the innocuous-sounding name of RWE and trades under such brand names as Thames Water, Yorkshire Electricity and Npower. The bottom line was to get over to Germany on Thursday 13th April and do some civil disobedience at the Annual General Meeting if you are serious about outflanking the barbarians and stopping them putting up their monstrous towers...each twice as high as Nelson’s Column...on Romney Marsh.

The rest of the day I devoted to The Politics of Killing People. You misunderstand me. I refer to an 18-page cesc publication. By nightfall the manuscript included an article that came in from Helen Dew’s Living Economies network in New Zealand. Chris Cook, a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange thinks we need another Bretton Woods to set up an Energy Clearing Union. Buckminster Fuller predicted a Global Electricity Grid ringing this One World Island of ours. Once in place currencies would fade away and the kWh would reign supreme. The title of Chris’ paper is Price Dollars in Oil not Oil in Dollars.

I have three family and four colleagues. I would like to have seven colleagues. But getting family to work in a family business is hard. It cuts no ice to remind them that they will inherit the fruits of their endeavours. This karas of mine...Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut...now receives priority access to me courtesy of Yahoo! text alerts...something they will come to regard as a dubious privilege.

A pack of fifty mail alerts costs five pounds. No sooner had I paid my dues than my mobile burst into song. The next two minutes of its rapidly depleting battery life was devoted to a-buzzing and a-beeping. After the rumpus had died down I approached cautiously. Thirteen message alerts and an e-mail inbox full to overflowing. Now I know the meaning of friendly fire. Are there limits to friendship as well as growth?