Happy Birthday Fryday

What started as a simple and one-off exercise to test the theory that the pen is mightier than the sword turns 20 years-of-age this year.
I don’t know the actual date, but I do know I wrote my first Fryday in 1994, which may make it one of the oldest e-letters still going.
That first posting was written to “fry” a Glen Innes panel beater whom I described as Auckland’s worst.  It was I think the first and last Fryday with any real malice and was sent to a few friends as a warning.
Since then I have tried to keep it light-hearted and the distribution list has hovered around 100, though the more recent blog version has reached 12000 hits.
Many of you have shown kindness in responding to individual postings. The one that received the most response was my tale of inadvertently poisoning my Sea-Monkeys. That posting, like most from the first 10 years, is now lost, at least from my computer.
The series that received the most comments (mostly good) was George W’s Letters to God followed by H’s Letters to Michelle—both now dispensed with. Letters from Wogistan get commented on, but the king for comments is reserved for Whetu; you seem to like his quirky view of the world.
Some of you may have given up on Fryday and consign it automatically to the junk file. But in 20 years I have had only 2 requests to have names removed from the distribution list. I did so immediately though regrettably in the case of one and with some humour with the other considering he wasn’t even on the mailing list and for someone working in public relations was unnecessarily abusive.
But the rest of you have stuck around and I hope I have, most times, given you a bit of a laugh each Friday/Fryday. Some have even past on Fryday to others, and I am both pleased and flattered by that.
So, thank you for your kindness and readership over the last 20 years.  I have no immediate plans to close Fryday; not at least while there is still my beloved Hamilton, and I will later this year publish the archive as an e-anthology, and introduce a new columnist, whom I hope you will like.
Oh, and by the way: despite me, that panel beater is still in business, but then again so is Fryday, so let’s call it a draw.
Have a good weekend.