Will The Real Deidre Moffat Please Stand Up?

It's a commonplace that standards in journalism have slipped a little over recent years. When I cut my teeth on the Stockport Leader, I was taught to walk the fine line between doorstepping a potential story and leaving people to enjoy their weekends unmolested and in peace.

Times have certainly changed. This weekend, the hunter became the hunted, as I spent the whole of Saturday avoiding the persistent enquiries of a pack of hacks, intent on getting me to spill the beans on poor old Deidre Moffat.

I'd been away a few days, so had missed the headline news that Deidre - an old sparring-partner from my days at the Birkenhead Beagle - had (apparently, and - it has to be said - rather amazingly) taken up as the mistress of a successful insurance company chief executive.

Anyone who knew Deidre would have been more than a little surprised at the idea. Apart from a fondness for the bottle and a taste in clothing that could best be described as Brodie-esque, she was never a woman who courted controversy.

That's why I was more than a little taken-aback when the baying hounds (many of them no doubt stringers) refused to leave me alone. In fact, I had to dig deep into my archives to throw them some small sop before they slunk away into the sewers from whence they came.

I can't remember where this snap was taken - I myself had supped too heartily from the vine that evening, if I recall - but it seemed to satisfy them. Of course, I omitted to tell them that the Deidre in this picture would now be around 72 years old, even if she had survived a lifetime of alcoholic abuse.

Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

Rhapsody in G

My recent return to the UK after a visit to Paris has brought with it a raft of fresh anxieties which, I can only hope, my readers will not mind me sharing. One of the young ladies I was fortunate to meet (as part of my research for an article on the much-vaunted new Eurostar service from St Pancras International) was, shall we say, quite amorous in her approach to me over cocktails. I can’t pretend I wasn’t flattered. After so many decades trapped in a loveless marriage, and now free to sample whatever delights the world can offer, it’s a tempting prospect indeed when a woman of 52 throws herself at you in a mist of perfume and silk lingerie.

It was during a post-prandial examination of our respective hotel rooms (strictly to compare notes—she being a fellow journalist covering the same St Pancras launch for a magazine for ladies of a certain age) that she made her move.

Out of due discretion, and the desire to spare you the gory details, suffice it to say that my performance was not considered entirely up to scratch. Too many years of the same, routine love-making meant that the lady in question had cause to err… question my abilities in the bedroom department.

Implausible as it may sound, I discovered that I have reached my seventh decade in life without having the foggiest notion about what or where a G spot is. For the young lady this seemed to be a matter of some concern. I lost track of how many hours we spent looking for this elusive bodily part, and I was reminded of the wise words of old Freddy Marple, a fellow-hack and former drinking partner from my days at both the Stockport Echo and the Birkenhead Beagle. Freddy it was who, after chancing upon a discarded copy of Cosmopolitan magazine on the 409 bus out of Manchester, subsequently made it his life’s work to discover, and document, his wife’s own G spot.

Each week, he’d fill in the boys in the newsroom with the latest developments, eternally hopeful that, with one further search, it would turn up. Alas, despite many years of expeditions, Freddy never did discover that spot. Before he died, he passed the torch on to a young colleague of his who, alas, had a similarly striking lack of success.

I was forced to conclude, at that point, that the G spot might be little more than an urban myth, one step down from the story about the old lady who accidentally killed her pussy in an attempt to dry it in the microwave after a it was caught in a shower. For her part, my former wife was never one to bother too much about spots of any kind, so the subject was, for many years, put to bed.

Nevertheless, the whole, sorry subject of my trystess’ dissatisfaction was a great blow to my self-esteem. On my return home, I quizzed young Jasper on the subject of G spots.

“Pa!” he said, with a guffaw that wouldn’t have disgraced his Uncle Jesmond. “Surely you haven’t fallen for that old line?”

I pretended to be unsure what he meant. “The modern woman came up with the notion of the G spot so she could persuade her partner to spend lots of time looking for it. It’s just a cover for what you might have known in your day as foreplay. It's the oldest trick in the book!”

I can't pretend I wasn't taken aback by this news. Jasper went so far as to blame ‘my generation’ for the whole business. “If your lot had spent more time on foreplay in the first place, there’d have been none of this G spot nonsense for me and my pals to have to contend with."

I did rather feel I was getting it from both sides. The sins of the fathers, and all that. Nevertheless, if I ever see that little hussy from the Eurostar junket again, I'll have a thing or two to say to her, I must say.

Don't Ask Deidre...Ask Bill!

Life as a provincial journalist isn't all exciting interviews, scoops and front page headlines, as my acquaintance Ian Green will no doubt attest. The pressures of reduced staffing often mean that even a seasoned hack is called upon to undertake duties that might otherwise seem beneath them.

That's how I found myself pulled, at the last moment, to cover for the Birkenhead Beagle's resident agony aunt, Deidre Moffat. For over thirty years, Deidre was a mainstay of the Beagle, always ready to offer advice and 'a shoulder to cry on' to the teenage mothers of Bidston, the recovering alcoholics of Prenton and the confused homosexual bank managers of Oxton.

When, after a particularly heavy night on the Guinness, she failed to show up at the office, the then Editor, Benny Anderton, asked me to 'ghost' her column, I can't pretend I was entirely delighted. When he reminded me that I hadn't turned in my Court Report that week, however, I was shamed into stepping into Deidre's (famously size 8) shoes.

Never again. As I leafed through the pathetic pile of correspondence that had arrived in the woman's in-tray that week, I said a silent prayer of thanks to the Almighty that I had hitherto been spared such insights into the emotional traumas of the Wirral's residents.

As a professional, I nevertheless tried to muster a little enthusiasm for the task in hand, but there are only so many times you can write 'Pull yourself together, woman!' and 'Get a life, you sad individual!' before your concentration wanes.

It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of a lack of empathy. I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with the unrequited lover, the man who has just discovered his wife in bed with his sister, the dipsomaniac who has lost his job as a forklift truck driver after one too many mornings on the Woodpecker. But not when they're the same person.

At least Benny Anderton never asked me to cover for Deidre again, and I'd wager that the management at the Beagle felt the £3,000 they subsequently spent on residential treatment for the Wirral's favourite agony aunt was possibly the best investment they ever made.

Not In Front Of The Children

Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, a posting over at Sugar Queen Dreams made me think. How could I find out if my blog was suitable reading for people of all ages?

As usual, it was young Jasper Blunt who came to the rescue. "Pa," he said, "you need to take the Cinema Test, which rates your blog content just as if it were a movie."

Well, having put my 'URL' to the test, it seems that Bill Blunt is not deemed suitable for children,at least not without some guidance from their parents...



This, apparently, because I mentioned the words 'death' and 'stab'.

My regular reader (and I know who you are) will doubtless be surprised, as you will be aware that this is not a place that encourages people to take knives to their enemies. And the thought that I must offer guidance to my children (who are all now in their late 30's or early 40's), before they dip into their father's writings, is not one that sits easily with me.

I must admit, I am careful with my language. I try to stay true to the maxim of my old colleague from the Birkenhead Beagle, Johnny Mercer, who famously said: 'There's no need for profanity when you can dazzle them with inanity'.

It's a brave man who calls Bill Blunt a prude, however. There are times and places when euphemism isn't enough, where only a carefully-chosen swear word will fit the bill. I won't easily sacrifice my PG rating, however, now that I've got it.

On the subject of profanity, however, I am aware that some readers have a more relaxed attitude than Bill does to the use of bad language. Such readers may enjoy this pastiche of the popular children's animation, Postman Pat, re-worked for an adult audience, which attempts to re-locate the beloved postie to a suburb in Middlesbrough.

But, please, don't press that 'Play' button unless you're prepared for more than a few shocking words...