But where to start? One must begin at the beginning. A most sensible place to start, I feel. Our story starts on a small island across a small pond from a giant egg-timer shaped mass. On this island, people drive on the right side of the road. That is, to say, the left. Right?
The first office of The Web Paper began life in a school. Humble beginnings for such a grand enterprise, I'll admit, but one's lucky break doesn't always come instantly. This building, crooked and tore to it's roots, had more bangs to it's name than the Ol' Relieable Smith 'n' Wesson, which is a true testiment to it's structural stuborness, I can tell you! The work force of The Web Paper at this time came in the form of two sorry-looking gents. The twig-sized bean-pole, so-called Big Al for his massively small stature and the one that can only be the Master; the Webmaster that is!
These two, deciding there was lots to be gained from the new-fangled internet age, started work on an e-zine (whilst carefully avoiding the pub as a place to hold conferances!). BigAl, being the coffee addict, became head journalist. I, of course, became the Webmaster! Also, as you can't have a writer editing himself (just think of the chaos that would produce!), I humbly took on editing responciblities too.
It was originally called "A Web Paper". A "working title" I had insisted, used as a placeholder for the imaginative title when it sprang forth from the overworked cogs of the eccentric mind! The home page slowly took shape as I piled the coding into Notepad (the only way to code a website properly!). None of the fancy buttons and menus you see before you today, oh no, it started off looking like an online newspaper. Headlines and articles in neat little columns, after much painstaking work and testing, I might add. No one came up with a better title, so the name stuck. Of course, it's been altered slightly to reflect The Web Paper's vast fame, but it is still essencially the same: an online paper.
BigAl set off on his mindless ramblings in the cunningly titled form of "Al's Column". This started off with fantastic flair and the paper's atmosphere sprung into action. Reader's were entised from all across the globe. The popularity, I fear, must have gone to his head for as the articles became more popular, so the strict ahearance to update deadlines lasped. It would frequently take several phone calls before even the beginnings of an article arrived. All this, while readers continually emailed in demanding more, more, more!
To ease the pressures on my caffine addicted main event and the bulging sides of my email inbox, a new journalist was hired. One who would add a new essence to the atmosphere. One who would provide some comic relief to BigAl's ramblings. One who would keep to deadlines! The Lang provided all these qualities. He was already working for me on a part-time basis, giving the excellent and enjoyable "Thoughts for the Week". I offered him a full-time job and a one hundred percent salary increase and he accepted without hesitation. A huge relief to my rising blood pressure, as BigAl, lacking focus to his articles anyway, was beginning to run out of ideas! Lang immediately produced a fresh injection of momentum that would prevent The Web Paper from running out of steam.
The quality of BigAl's work was beomming dire, so bad, in fact, that I refused to publish it. This had to be stopped or would cause ruination to our enterprise. BigAl needed focus! I called him to the office (which had expanded slightly from the moldy shack we occupied when we first set up). "Al," I said. "Your articles are getting bad. You need focus. Start a new section entitled 'This Week in the Office'." As BigAl, slowly moped over to the exit, his affiliation to keeping deadlines dawned on me, so I added. "Immediately!!". BigAl moved a little faster!
And so, the first article of "This Week in the Office" arrived and it was excellent. I allowed myself a moment to appreiate the prospects: two writers, both now with focus and articles that border on genius and an ever expanding reader base. Yes, the prospects were good. I risked a glance at the task list of things to do to the site's coding, which had now extended into it's third page. Maybe not that good!
A new era of The Web Paper had arrived.
The Webmaster