This is how it started

I opened the postbox and found, along with the usual couple of bills and lots of bumph, a memory stick. Not in a wrapper or in a padded envelope. Just the stick. A Transcend 2 gigabyte memory stick. Looked new.

A moment's elation! Cool, a second ago I did not own this memory stick, and now I do. But then doubt sets in. What jerk has left this here. Does he (almost certainly a he) think I'm dumb enough to plug this into my computer and have it trashed by a horde of enthusiastic wormy things? To which the answer is, well yes, given a couple of hours of vacillation.

So I plug it into the USB port and have a peek. Hmmm. Just two files. One is called readme.txt (well that's original) and the other is called TheDiaries.doc ... could be a Word file. So I double click readme.txt and it opens cleanly enough into Notepad. And this is what it says:

Dear Entity,

I entrust to you a little diary I have kept over quite a long period of time. I have slightly surprised myself by wishing to see it published in some form; perhaps everyone who keeps a journal entertains such thoughts, however fleetingly. But why am I justifying Myself to you?

About Me. I know you will find this difficult to grasp, but I am, how shall I put it, well Supreme basically. Ah, what's the point of equivocation: I Am, and there it is. I always have qualms about immodesty at this point; don't know why. Just makes Me squirm a bit. Ridiculous. However, I digress (so what else is new as Mrs God would say, bless her).

Now I know what you're thinking. No, trust me, I do. You're thinking Hitler diaries, fake ink, cleverly "aged" paper, Stern and the Sunday Times with egg on their faces,and so on. And in particular you're thinking that it is highly unlikely that these Diaries, even if authentic, would be presented on a memory stick. But consider. Would I be doing you any favours by presenting you with a stack of clay tablets, a mile high, scribed in ancient Aramaic? I think not - though it would have a certain cache I must admit. (Memo to self - if this idiot fails to do right thing find new mule and consider clay tabs as alternative).

Enough said. The Diaries are in a file called TheDiaries.doc. I hope you find them interesting and enlightening.

I remain,
etc.

That is how the file actually ended. With "etc." The modesty problem again I suppose.

I was really quite curious by now, so I opened the Word file and found it organised, as had been suggested, as a number of diary entries. I could not decipher the date fields at all - each seemed to comprise 64 hexadecimal digits in a random sequence. So I have simply taken the episodes in the order as found and called them Entry 1, Entry 2 and so on.

I propose to publish them on the Blog - not all at once, since I feel this rather defeats the purpose of a diary - but from time to time, much like a blogger (or even Supreme Blogger) might do.

I will publish them without further ado and without editing, though I may allow myself the odd editorial comment. Just give me time to have a little pre-read; I'll put out Entry 1 soon. See what you think.