1. Hey ho, here it comes. (Mike)
"In front of me, and indeed all around me, thousands of pairs of hands are stretched up high in assertive V-shapes, obliterating the view of the band, engulfing me in one shared feeling of joyful, certain release."

2. The corny ones will get you every time. (Clair)
"My life is ruled by cliches."

3. We should be proud of what makes us, us. (PB Curtis)
"Anyway, I digress. I was in the middle of talking about class structure in Britain, and I go off and get hung up on Greek cock."

4. Sing it. (Rob)
"At the age of ten, the word “Schadenfreude” is still in my future, but the concept has arrived."

5. For the first time, the system had let me down. (Clare)
"At the age of five I insisted my teddy was female (why should all bears be male?), and marched around the playground shouting 'Boys are rubbish, put them in the dustbin!'"

6. For the first time, the system had let me down. (Pam Br)
"There was never any question - I was going to university and I was getting a degree and I was going to have a career. I though it would all just happen naturally, without any effort from me. First mistake."

7. There's no motivation as strong as love. (Stuart Ian Burns)
"Is my niggle that I'm not in love at the moment? I used to get it all the time, the stomach cramps, the inability to form actual words when someone is around, the not knowing where to put my hands."

8. I'd hate that. (Saltation)
"Just saying: if I am wot nearing my hearing, sorry: hot searing nigh earing, you might have more of an outside chance of not being not able successfully to utilise the absence of the missing double negative re that."

9. There I was, dangling from a cliff on a burning rope over a pit of tigers. (Rob)
"The eminent Japanese Buddhist D T Suzuki described enlightenment as “exactly like normal life, but a few inches off the ground”, and that hits the mark. It felt: scary; exhilarating; wonderful."

10. So I wait, and I wonder. (Hg)
"Like Natalie Imbruglia, I'm torn. Both blessed and cursed with the ability to empathise with either side of a dichotomy, I'm a living synthesis of every possible tenable position. It's tiring."

11. I dream of a life where I know what I'm doing. (Vitriolica)
"I still want to eat ice cream three times a day for a week (the week after, I'd be just as happy eating cabbage the same way). I still want to leave my hair unbrushed then shave it all off on a whim. I still want to go shopping and spend way too much money."

12. I'll just say "sod it!" anyway. (Anna)
"If you use genitalia as an exclamation, particularly if you use the genitalia of your own sex, how can anyone be offended? You are only calling on the things dearest and closest to you, damning it for not helping you in your time of need."

13. I mean - we've all got genitalia here, haven't we? (Em²)
"Wouldn't it be so much easier all round if we could dispense with these fiddly bits and breeding was simply a case of filling in Form 37D(ii), ticking your preferences on Form 175-8 (revised 06/96) and then allowing up to 30 days for delivery?"

14. Schpongggg! (Will)
"So perhaps this isn't a midlife crisis - it's the bit that comes before. In order to desperately attempt to recapture lost youth, you first have to lose it."

15. But then we’ve just gone and got a Playstation 2. (Jonathan)
"Back at our spartan, book-strewn home our dad biroed a screen full of spacemen onto the underside of a man-size hanky box and handed it to my sister, mimicking Uncle Stuart’s humourless monotone: ‘Here love, see if you can get ten thousand on that!’."

16. A loss of innocence. (PB Curtis)
"Here we are, two freshly-minted ex-virgins, still attempting to bask in the communal glow of what neither of is is ready to accept was absolutely not a momentous experience... surely, this above all others, this is the time for honesty? Isn't it?"

17. But I knew she wanted to. (Clair)
"So, while I still treasure the time I spent in Germany, and still feel, from time to time, homesick for the place where I spent a good part of my childhood, I now feel that I belong back here."

18. England, my home. (Martin)
"Is there a lesson to be learned from this, something for me to share with the lovely Mike and his lovely readers? I think there is, and it's not about me, or about Hari, or about the sweet baggage handler at Heathrow whose skin tastes of honey."

19. But part of me still blames Elton John and David Furnish for the end of the best relationship I have ever had. (Martin)
"I need to get on with my life. I need to forget. I go out looking for external validation to do that."

20. In the last few weeks, I've had a lot of meaningless sex. (Pam Br)
"Or at least I think that's what she meant, because what the text message actually said was "N the lst phew weaks ive had a lt of meeningliss sx". I'm going to delete her out of my phonebook."

21. Save us from the stupid people! (Gert)
"But, exactly how do you blog sex? 'I lay there and he moved towards me with a towering pulsating tumescence which he clinically inserted into my BBC journalists look away now.'"

22. Probably, like the curate's egg, parts of it are excellent. (Jonathan)
"So I didn't ring up, I emailed again. And copied in his boss again. As well as his boss's boss, and my immediate manager, just for good measure. And also the bloke who sits next to me - I can't even remember why, I was having an attack of self-righteous office rage and I wanted everyone to know about it."

23. So why do I have to make things so damn difficult for myself? (Saltation)
"I looked at my watch. Good lord. I was wearing a verb. Pants? Same. Jacket? Ick. Pass the tissues. Coat? Quite. I swiftly di-vested myself of my shirt to maintain grammatical consistency and sprang to my feet with a spring in my in-step."

24. I was so embarrassed. (Anna)
"When the bus came, and I stood there, smelling a little of smoke, and a little of man sweat and ground-in Super-Tennants, I decided I should probably be giving up smoking."

25. I would like to say "No". (Em²)
"I would like to say 'See this job? This marrow-shaped, festering and pulsating pile of cack that you refer to as my rôle? Do you want to know where you can stick it? Would you like some help getting it in there?'"

26. It'll come in a bunch of five, I'll tell you that much. (Vitriolica)
"I could never work out how geography could bring out such strong emotion in a person."

"And I can only wonder...if it was now, I could have sued the bitch."

Thinking about it, this final sentence of Vitriolica's brings our little game of online Consequences almost full circle, with its echoes of Rob's piece, in which he named and shamed his wicked singing teacher.

So let's leave it there. My thanks to all who took part. (No, there aren't any prizes this time. Souvenir mugs are on sale in the lobby.)

Readers of yesterday's Independent newspaper might have come across a two paragraph extract from this blog, as part of a two-page spread on "Citizens of the internet", in which Troubled Diva rubs shoulders with online diarists such as Boris Johnson, Barbra Streisand, Moby, Jamie Oliver, Salam Pax, Belle De Jour, Gillian Anderson and Rosie O'Donnell. Nearly four years after starting the blog, this was its first ever mention in the printed version of a national daily newspaper - and so, naturally, I was thrilled.

Except for just one teensy-weensy thing. The excerpt in question wasn't actually written by me at all, but by the lovely and talented Vitriolica (who is also about to whup my ass by winning Big Blogger). This led The Independent, in their wisdom, to credit the authorship of Troubled Diva to "Anonymous Woman".

Oh, that's just bloody marvellous, that is. My one brief moment in the sun, and it's as "Anonyomous Woman". HELLO, THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER! MY NAME IS MIKE, AND I AM A FULLY BE-PENISED AND BE-TESTICLED GEEZER, OF THE MALE VARIETY! AND WHILE I'M ABOUT IT, PERHAPS YOU COULD ASK, THE NEXT TIME YOU LIFT A LARGE CHUNK OF COPY FROM THIS SITE? I DO HAVE A COPYRIGHT NOTICE, YOU KNOW!

And relax.

So, yeah, sorry about the lack of updates this week, but it has also been the final week of Big Blogger, where I have been devoting all my energies to the final week's task: seven posts, in seven days, on the theme of the number seven. Here's what I came up with:

#1: the seven ages of Mike. A potted autobiography, in seven year intervals, which finishes up in 2011 with a suspiciously happy ending. I like to think of this as an "aspirational" piece.

#2: seven deadly sins of blogging. When inspiration runs low, there is always meta-blogging to fall back upon. Regular readers will know of what I speak.

#3: Where are they now? We catch up with seven of the former Big Blogger housemates. Glory for Peter, but ignominy for Zoe. Riddled with in-jokes, this was still my favourite of the seven posts.

#4: twenty questions. (an interactive post). Actually, this one turned out to be a total flop. But hey, it worked in rehearsal.

#5: seven stonkers and seven honkers. The inevitable music-related post. Eight weeks into the contest, and it's a wonder that I managed to hold back for so long.

#6: seven reasons why i don't want a dog (in the face of enormous pressure from my partner). This has been something of a "live issue" in recent months.

#7: seven things to bear in mind when casting your vote, if you haven't already done so. A desperate last-minute pitch for votes. Truly I have no shame.

Anyway, with Vitriolica on the verge of being crowned Big Blogger 2005 (she really is streets ahead), I shall be returning to this site full time. I've enjoyed the Big Blogger experience: chaotic, informal, daft, mostly good-natured, and with something of the feeling of a summer camp for bloggers about it. No idea how many people have been reading it, but that was part of the fun; I think we were bascially just performing for each other's amusement, and I enjoyed the "off duty" feeling which that engendered.

Right then. Time for an al fresco luncheon in the PDMG: melon and serrano ham, washed down with a glass of apple juice. Did I mention that we've been on holiday all week?

And finally: because he asked nicely in the village pub yesterday evening, then got all embarrassed and nobly withdrew his request, and because he's a regular reader and a good mate, and because I've never, EVER done this sort of thing before... this next link is for "Bob".

Potentiostat.

One does what one can do oil the wheels of industry. My melon calleth. Good day to you.