WELL, it’s time to celebrate (or apologise) for half a decade of Bm@ils – that’s roughly 250 columns and about 84,000 words since 2008. Hmm, enough for a book…

Five years of columns have included thoughts on news stories, Hillingdon Happenings and anecdotes from the Fisher family’s lives. Often the latter have led to readers shouting in the street ‘Cheese’ (after Bm@il August 17, 2011) or, only last week in The Mall Pavilions, ‘Stalker!’ following revelations about my LinkedIn experience (April 24).

Cheery abuse aside – it has been great when I’ve bumped into many of you at various functions to hear that you have become regular readers. Admittedly this confession is usually delivered in an ’Allo ’Allo whisper, and after a few drinks.

We’ve shared a lot – I’ve just looked back at more recent columns which I file under key words, and it really is a weird-sounding collection. Last year included topics from Torch and Titfer to Sooty, Wasps and Sassoon.

Most weird sounding was a column called Men’s Chests and Baby Clothes. This year you’ve tolerated Tax, BOGOFs and Popcorn (January 16); Life Coach and Tonsils (March 6); and Pope, Play and Vomit (March 27).

These are also featured on the Gazette website and while checking on them before writing this piece, I discovered a site called Journalisted on which, to my surprise, I feature.

My entries are a bit sparse, as obviously I haven’t offered any information and they only pick up articles in newspapers that are signed up to the site. It is run by the Media Standards Trust ‘to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public’ and is funded by, among others, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

I was amused to see it listed the 10 topics or words mentioned most by the journalists they feature. Mine are ‘share’, ‘Hillingdon’ and ‘Fisher Junior’.

Mr F is most put out.

FJ was up here last week from Wales with her dog.

When we went out for a meal, she asked us to leave the radio on for the dog to keep him company but rejected my choice of station (Smooth) because he preferred Radio 4. Apparently the plummy, chummy, voices soothe him.