The Green Man Blog is one year old, I thought it was today but, checking back, the first post was on the 26th May. Never mind, such is the nature of The Green Man, he has never been particularly good with dates.

The Green Man blog arose out of a creative writing course that I was attending at the time. It started as a creative writing exercise and had essentially three main objectives,

1. to explore contemporary issues in art, ethics and science,
2. to promote and educate in the richness and depth of the culture within which we live,
3. to promote men's physical and psychological wellbeing through challenging the destructive myths and values that constrain and diminish the quality of men's lives

The big challenge for a new writer has traditionally been to get published, that is after the big challenge of coming up with something worth publishing of course. The internet has changed all that, $3.75 a month, a little bit of technical know-how and today you have a world market for your writing.

The beauty and the curse of the internet is that there is zero quality control on the material that is published there. The only measure of quality is the degree to which people, having stumbled on a site, return to read more. The Green Man is most gratified to know that, out of the 6 billion or so of us that share the planet, there are at least 4 people that fit into that category vis-a-vis The Green Man blog.

Seriously though, the readership of The Green Man has grown consistently over the 12 months and continues to grow. The current readership is around 1,100 people per day which is quite gratifying.

It is quite easy to get caught up in the day-to-day argy bargy that occupies the front few pages of our newspapers, which many will note The Green Man is also not immune from. It is, however, mainly froth and bubble. The Green Man will endeavour to maintain his focus on the more important aspects of life, namely art and beauty, exploration of our cultural heritage, the greater understanding of ourselves and others that science gives us and, of course, that nakedness is seldom a bad idea, except, perhaps, when you are frying chicken.