I never thought it would, back when I started this lark in Summer 2007. I certainly never planned that it might. But last week's ice-dipping post prompted the following comment from the wonderful Iota:
'(and you really did it for the blog fodder, didn't you?!)'
Pshaw! I thought. How dare she suggest I would do such a cheap, populist thing. But I know that - as ever - she's right, at least in part. I mean, it's all very well to throw yourself into a pool of freezing, smelly, pond water with a girlfriend just for fun (doesn't everyone do that to celebrate a birthday? No?), but it's another thing entirely to do it and then to be able to write about it. That makes it a lot more attractive to a sick and twisted blogging individual such as myself...
And then at lunch on Sunday with some friends, as they recoiled in horror at news of my ice dip and questioned my sanity in doing it, someone (OK, Husband, the sweet man) pointed out that there are a whole load of things that I have done that I may not have if I hadn't known I would have the chance to write about them afterward. Meeting complete strangers off a bus from Cardiff with the intention of spending an afternoon with them, for one example. Going to a gay club and watching a bloggy mate from across the pond perform her 90's hit for a crowd of adoring fans, for another. Going to the launch of the John Lewis Christmas range - on a hot day in July. Spending a morning road-testing a Dyson vacuum cleaner (you know how to live; rock and roll PM, rock and roll...).
And the big one; moving to Russia. OK, that would probably have happened anyway, but I was certainly a lot more sanguine about making the move knowing that I could write about it and reinvent it, making it funny if it proved not to be...
And this is just for starters; I know if I went back through the 800 or so posts on The Potty Diaries one by one, I would discover a lot more examples of my behaving in an uncharacteristically confident and gung-ho fashion just because I knew I would be able to show off about it to my online mates afterwards...
(Because if I'm honest, there is just a teensy bit of showing off involved when I do these things. I know. Such a surprise!)
Right now, for example, encouraged by the same friend who persuaded me to jump into a frozen lake last week, I'm even considering the madness that is running the Lake Baikal half marathon next March. You know; the one that takes place in minus 15degC, on ice, and which this year had the contestants running the first 15k's through 6 inches of fresh snow in their hobnailed running shoes. The one which has to be completed in 3 hours, or the race organisers pick you up to make sure you don't freeze to death.
I won't do it, of course; I'm the world's worst runner. Well. I probably won't.
But just imagine the blog-fodder if I did.
What about you? If you blog, are there things you've done just because you knew it would make good blog fodder?
