What price democracy?

The announcement (today) by Tony Blair that he will finally unburden himself of the heavy mantle of office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should give us all pause for thought.

I hold no brief whatsoever for Mr Blair, although I have watched his political career with interest ever since he was shoe-horned into the safe, Labour seat of Sedgefield, in County Durham. The story of the shoe-horn is one that I will save for a later date.

Inevitably, my thoughts today turned to the subject of democracy (even if that notion had been palpably lacking at the time he was selected as the Labour candidate for Sedgefield in 1983). Approximately every five years or so, I am invited to do something which is quaintly described as 'cast my vote' in a General Election which, I am told, might determine the very course of our nation. It has always been a source of concern to me that this 'right to vote' is universal, and extends way beyond the circle of friends and other people I have come to trust for their opinion. Be that as it may, when the people speak, Bill Blunt listens. The gripes I have against the Blair Government are fewer, and weaker, than I might have expected when he came to power in 1997.

But I digress. My thoughts, today, were on another form of democracy: the democracy of the internet.

Ever since I discovered the blogosphere, I have been invited to 'vote' on a quite alarmingly frequent basis. In fact, I think I may have spent at least ten minutes of every day since that date (which, thanks to the wonders of the internet I can pinpoint as 2.42pm on 19 July 2006) voting on something or another.

Every day, I vote for the admirable Ben Sparks, who (for reasons best known to himself) wants to be paid to 'blog for a year'.

Then, there are the new (and old) friends and acquaintances who I regularly vote for via such sites as Fuel My Blog. All in all, I seem to spend an increasing part of my day voting. I don't mind in the least doing this - in fact, I find the whole process both empowering and (to a slight degree at least) enjoyable.

Yes, I have my 'favourites'. And I'm not in the least afraid to list them here - so, if you feel inclined, you might vote for them yourselves. The democracy of the internet means you no longer have to wait five years to scratch a blunt pencil across a ballot paper. You can vote as many times as you like (well, on a daily basis, at least) for some (or, indeed, all) of these people:

Daddy Papersurfer
Papersurfer
nursemyra
Harry McFry
Crofty
GenBIRES
GenBIRES II
Lord Likely
THAT Domestic Minx
Archie

Of course, after having spent just a minute clicking all those links, you may have a few seconds to spare to vote for Bill.
I can't promise you that the world will change when you (preferably right-) click those links. But it may be a slightly happier place, all things considered, than it was in 1983, when Tony Blair abused the democratic process to push his way into a safe Labour seat. If you don't believe me, perhaps you should ask wiki. Paying particular attention to paragraph two of 'Early Political Career'.

If you choose to bookmark this page so that you can, like me, easily vote for those people you have come to respect and admire, then you'll know, by now, it's not my style to stop you.

What price democracy? A minute a day, now, if you bookmark this page.

Bill's Top Tips: #2 Save Yourself Half An Hour of Time (Every Week!)

In its heyday, The Harry Enfield Television Programme was able to showcase some of the finest comedy genius of its era. Together with Paul Whitehouse, Enfield created some genuinely funny characters that have stood the test of time.

Harry's career then seemed to drift into some sort of strange abyss, while Whitehouse's star eclipsed that of his former sparring partner by soaring into the heavens via the vehicle of The Fast Show and the quite sublime Happiness, which charted one man through the stormy waters of his mid-life crisis.

So, the news that Enfield and Whitehouse had re-united once again in Ruddy Hell! It's Harry & Paul should have been the signal to cancel your night out down the pub, or at least to learn how to operate that new DVD recorder you got for Christmas this year.

Instead, the show is a lame and pale imitation of their past work. A mere toenail on the giant of comedy they once were. Whitehouse's star has been dragged down into the Enfield abyss, and not the other way round, as we might have hoped. It is quite simply an unfunny show (which is always, in my book, the sign of a loser for something that purports to be comedic).

My Top Tip for this week is: don't bother watching Ruddy Hell! It's Harry & Paul. Save yourself half an hour of your life, instead. You'll thank me for it.

Bill's Top Tips: #1 Save Yourself a Tenner

Mrs Blunt and I have always had a bit of a soft-spot for Bryan Ferry (easily the best thing to come out of Washington, County Durham since the A1231 road to Sunderland). Who can forget his rollicking version of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall?", which reached number 10 in the UK charts in 1973?

It was on the strength of this memory of a fine interpretation of a Dylan classic, and a review by Ian Gittins in the Guardian a couple of months ago which gave it 4 stars, that I yesterday bought Ferry's new album, Dylanesque. An entire CD devoted to re-working of Dylan classics.

On paper, it would seem like a winner: the marriage of Brian Ferry's smoky voice with the piercing intensity of Bob Dylan's lyrics. If so, then it was a marriage made in hell. This album, I am sad to say 'sucks'.

Ferry's vocals sound lame at best and pedestrian at worst - they are delivered with all the passion of a semi-comatose teenager who has been invited to 'wake up and smell the coffee' by his mother, but who has decided, instead, that he'd prefer an extra couple of hours under the duvet.

Only one track verges - almost - on the reasonable: Ferry manages to breathe new life into a wonderful (and not much known) Dylan song Make You Feel My Love.

But one swallow does not a summer make. Today, I'll be doing something I've never done before in my life. I'm taking the CD back to the shop. Not because it's scratched, or won't play on my car's stereo system (which has happened before now with an odd CD or two) - but simply because it's a pile of pants.

Today's top tip, therefore, is to save yourself a tenner by avoiding this CD like you might a rare and virulent strain of botulism that you found on your doorstep.