Welcome to new, improved and multinational 49£!

Back in the days when I barely knew what a blog was I was introduced to my first group blog - 49£ or forninepounds. Here was my first experience reading a website with a group of diverse individuals blogging whatever took their fancy with no direction other than their own thoughts and findings.

It became a daily destination to read the angry rants of Shanachie, the mad ramblings of Someone Living, the strange thoughts of Midget Wrangler and the words and wisdom of idiot, jothemama, ails, dolly, conformist, mr pink and so on. It was an eclectic mix, controversial, chatty, funny and interesting, where often the genius lay just as much in the comments as in the post.

And then it ended and the Blog Pound came along.

And now - well now it's back with a whole lot of new faces. According to new overlord and master Shanachie,

"Yes we have a load of new bean pickers on board, not only that but we are going worldwide, with posts from Ireland, England, the USA, and mainland Europe.

We will carry on ... with some bloggers who have been at it for years to others that have never ever read a blog let alone posted on one! Very few of us have even met each other which will even make it more interesting!"

There's great potential there for a truly - and perhaps uniquely - cosmopolitan feel to the blog. Given the contributors are from Ballymena, California, Carlow, Essex, France, Kilkenny, Los Angeles, Oslo and Wicklow we can expect great stories and different points of view. As well as some familiar names, some of the new people to say hello to are listed below:

Hello to ANJEE: She's 39, 40 in December, married to Jon, has two children and lives in Essex. She promises to be honest and give us "a little snapshot of life for a normal(ish) family living in Essex."

A big hi there to BLUE EYES: a 45 year old single English lady living in the Sussex countryside. She's had quite a tough couple of years but she promises her posts won't be depressing but positive ramblings about her life and things that happen to her, and thoughts and memories.

Hey there ETAMNI: a 47 year old mom of 4, grandmother of 1 living in California. Intriguingly she apologizes (note the American 'z') in advance "for typos, misspellings, bad punctuation or lack there of, and anything else that would send those who write or read into convulsions" which bodes well for interesting posts in the future

Dia dhuit go dtí DAGNAMIT: He's a 30 something Irish group blog virgin. Also one for apologies, he says he's sorry in advance "for my swearing but my mouth is dirtier than a coal-miner, and more fruity than a banana plantation."

Hi to h.i or the HEALTHY IRISHMAN: He's in LA to escape the cold, is loved up and thinking of kids next year. He's "really looking forward to revealing in innerds, thoughts that is".

Bonjour to le SNOW QUEEN: She's a bit scared of contributing to a group blog but seems eager to give it a go. She lives up a mountain... in the French Alps now for the last few years and describes herself as a bit of a gadget queen.

God Dag to OY who is Norwegian, 32, father of a little boy and is soon to be married. English is not his native language he tells us but if his introductory post is anything to go by, the rest should be great.

Finally, and most intriguingly we have the very verbose, outspoken and mysterious amateurblogman whose very first post conveys such a depth of information that it may be a true insight into the man's character, his hopes and dreams and the genius he is about to unleash on all of us. Or maybe not.

So welcome 49£'ers old and new. I look forward to visiting you, reading and adding comments where I can. Well done Shanachie - glad to see it back, and how!