Mission Complete - the 365daychallenge

Fucking hell, we did it.

I wrote in May about what made me set out on this epic trek into foolishness. A lot of things happened to me in 2018, not all of them brilliant. A low ebb thus reached, and without the prospect of The Ghost of New Year Yet to Come to show me the potential for self-improvement and change, I set out on making my corner of Twitter somewhere to visit, park your arse and respond to a daily question.

Initially the challenge of the title was an in-joke with me, the famed dreamer, the fabled failer of projects, pipe-dreams and plans. Could I really see this through till Dec 31?

Well, I did. Or rather we did. If we've achieved nothing else (and my greatest hope for all of this was to emulate the brilliant comment made by Viz creator Simon Donald - "no one has ever put down a copy of Viz any cleverer than they were before picking it up")* - then we've made friends, built a little community of people with little in common other than looking out for a silly question on Twitter each day to respond to.

We started out highbrow with questions about getting pissed with the Mr Men and which country do you think is shaped like a celebrity (Belgium is shaped like Godzilla) and never really got any deeper or more profound than that.

Some stats for you erm stats fans - the challenge has been viewed overall over 7 million times so far this year. The most viewed question was by Kate Andrews (k8andrews) who innocently asked "Why is your best friend your best friend?" - seen by 167,230 people so far. The most replies (1,074) was to a challenge giving you the means of finding your Victorian villain name.

I've had countless (well, at least 8) messages telling me how much they look forward to the challenge each day, how they've found new "virtual" friends online and connected with people. People have asked me how I cope with that many notifications a day (clue - quiet, undignified spells of weeping and lots of tea) and am I going to continue in 2020?

Well, we've done it once. We can do it again. If you have a question that hasn't been asked before, DM it to me and we'll put it to the people.

Proper actual journo Dorian Lynskey recently described the challenge as like a "dream radio phone-in". That single comment made me smile more than anything else this Christmas. I do feel like a host of some tiny radio show in a remote community, regular callers, in-jokes and all of that. It's like my dream job really.

So many people to thank.

@BigPaulinWales for being the first challenge regular to meet me in the flesh and for his perfect set of questions to end the year.

@zellishrose, @Rover9495, @TheStevenThomas, @JuiceTerry, @deanoB24 and all the other regular question contributors.

Thanks to @k8andrews for the most popular question of the year. Thanks to @drunkenbutcher for becoming our first resident expert.

Thanks as ever to the "lads" @michaelglasper, @nalaknip and @riffraffhands.

Thanks to @cherryaimless and @sgtrendall for hosting in my absence. Thanks to @NickPettigrew for the love and support. Thanks to all of you who trusted me with DM responses along the lines of "I can't say this out loud but this happened" - I have alerted the authorities and await huge cash rewards.

Thanks also to @DuncanMcVey for his questions, enthusiasm and suggestions, @KathyBurke and @jamajestical for bigging it up whenever possible. Thanks to @MariaDonovanWri for being inspirational and @Sianz for being the person who innocently told me in 2011 that I should join Twitter.

Thanks to everyone who replied, retweeted, shared and enjoyed the challenges. I was the Shit Ratio King of 2019 and I loved it.

And last, but by no means least, my daughter Martha who recently asked if "I was doing that stupid thing again next year."

Yes, Martha, I am. I'm very sorry.

Accept no substitute, this is the premier question-a-day-with-a-shit-hashtag game on the internet.

A very happy New Year to you all. Look out for the imaginatively titled #366daychallenge hashtag in 2020.

Yours

Paul

* I can't find the exact quote. It's something like that by someone like that.