Defenders of the Mirth

Hello to all those who have come here having been subjected to the shameless promotion over on Google+

We have made a political promise today – to campaign immediately, and to full effect, for the preservation of what may turn out to be Google+’s Northern Ireland moment of history.

This is not a task we enter into lightly, and nor should anyone feel that we are doing this solely in the interest of raising our own publicity; although this will be undoubtedly an unfortunate and, in many ways, unwelcome side-effect. We feel strongly enough about this motion that any kind of celebrity status we may garner we will grin and bear magnanimously.

So, friends, SAVE THE BELFAST THREAD. Work with us through this challenging time.

Anyone currently unaware of the ongoing threat to our national heritage, we urge you all now to visit http://plus.google.com/103135006586075679705/posts/NaTAb42rF7x to see what we, as a society, may be about to lose.

KEVIN MCNICHOLL MUST BE STOPPED!

Thank you Mirthlings, thank you all.

Right, one of the things I always promised that I would do on the site is to continue my blog, which was to be fair, was only available to people that knew me on social networking sites. Well I’m not going to do one of the usual crazy rant type blogs, this is more of a retrospective on what has become a pretty big part of my life.

The Defenders of the Mirth started, as most things do online, as a crazy conversation via msn. To the younger readers msn was what we old people used before facebook and text messaging. Johnny(Intertree) and I were having a general conversation about things we would like to do, I was talking about the blog I was writing and expressed a desire to move it to a place were more people could find it. The conversation eventually turned towards podcasting and how that seemed to be a great way of expressing our crazy ideas and relieve the general public of reading information and instead have it drip fed through their ears. Partially drunk on the power such an outlet would provide, the idea and the bare building blocks of the show were hammered out over the next 4 hours. It was a long conversation and I was very sleepy by the end of it.

After a short time a situation arose that led to Intertree and I living together. This convenience led to the first podcast. Now, anyone that has actually heard the podcast will know that it was lacking in mirth and there was quite a lot of nerves. We had never done this before and were afraid that we would sound like complete idiots. I was already used to the idea of being and idiot and actually having to look at myself (as some of you lucky people don’t) only compounds the fact but there were jitters non-the-less. In retrospect the death of other podcasters really wasn’t the best subject of our first cast but well, we had and an episode recorded. We listened to it and took solace in the fact that it wasn’t completely like the used tampon of the podcasting world we were imagining. Johnny(Intertree) also pointed out that if you go back and listen to any podcast from episode 1 and go through the episodes you will notice a steady improvement as the show finds it’s feet.

Looking back now I can state that there are some episodes I love and remember fondly. The first “Marks Moment” and episode 3 really contributed to the direction of the show and actually indicated that this show was going to contain some mirth. As the weeks went on other features and moments were included, the inclusion of opening skits(especially Ecto Sinclair and Mystic Mandy), our ongoing subplots involving the space station, the growth of our supporting cast and their contributions to the shows and a certain Mr. N Cognito all added depth and humour. Basically it was getting better.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is thank you. We have had success to a degree were I’m happy. I just wanted to get to get my friends all in one place and talk about the crazy stuff that made us laugh, get outrageously angry, stupidly excited and occasionally touched our heart. The fact that we may be listened to outside our immediate group of friends is a brillant bonus but not the reason I started this.

Goodbye Cunts!!!, AboveAveargeJay