Accept No Substitute

It's a brave man that accuses Bill Blunt of being worried about the competition. It's not my way to concern myself with imposters.

But Jasper was doing a spot of Googling just today.

William Blunt looks like the kind of guy you'd stake your pension on. Or use as your estate agent, if you lived in California.

That's OK with me. So long as he doesn't intrude into journalism. The world's big enough to take two Bill Blunts.

I like to think that my distinctive voice will set me apart from any imposters, so that readers will find the 'real' Bill easily enough.

Battle of the Poets

Things have come to a pretty poor pass in UK journalism when two of our more obscure quality newspapers are battling it out for circulation by trading on the reputation of the country's greatest poets.

The marketing boys at The Independent and The Guardian must be having a 'Doh!' moment, now that they've realised they've both commissioned a series of booklets profiling the nation's best poets as giveaways to boost their readership.

So - who'll win with this one? It's not an easy call when, on a slow Wednesday, Alexander Pope is pitched against WH Auden. But my money's on Auden. You heard it from Bill Blunt first.

Don't Look Back

"Pa," young Jasper said to me this morning, "perhaps your readers would enjoy reading about how you got interested in journalism?" I thought I detected just a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but it's so difficult to tell with the younger generation these days. Well, it's an idea, anyway.

When I try to recall the spark that led me into a life-time of working in a newsroom, I'm drawn inevitably to that Christmas Day in 1953, when an excited young chap opened up his presents to find, amongst them, a John Bull Printing Set.

In the days before blogs and computers, this was possibly the only way a youngster could get to see his name in print. For the benefit of anyone who never saw the John Bull in all it's glory, it provided an array of tiny rubber letters (none of which, strangely, came with accents - unless there was a special edition of French letters that I never discovered), and you were expected to slide these into a special holder.

Once you had assembled your words, using a tiny pair of tweezers, you were ready to impress them on an ink pad, and then away you went. Of course, producing anything more than a few lines was the labour of Hercules - but it was a start. This was desk top publishing at its most primitive. But the heady smell of the ink, the wondrous smudgy feel of the paper when it had received its imprint was like a drug to a child with little opportunity before him other than, perhaps, working down a local mine.

I am sure it was that Christmas Day, in the kitchen of that tiny, terraced house, that my fire was first lit. The rest, as they say, is history.

Happy Birthday Ma'am

Few would accuse Bill Blunt of being a royalist. Legion are the times I've railled on the printed page about the excesses of our Royal Family.

Yet it's (one of) our Queen's birthdays today. So Happy Birthday, Ma'am!

At 81, she still keeps herself busy, even if the sycophants at the Daily Telegraph might have overstated the case a little in their leader article today:

The Queen will have a quiet day at Windsor Castle today to mark her 81st birthday. Most people of her age spend their days quietly the whole year. But the Queen, in addition to her daily engagements at home, is to make a state visit in the first week of May to the United States, 50 years on from her first, when Eisenhower was President.

If truth be known, very few 81 year olds are spending their days quietly nowadays. Dorothy Evans, of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire is a case in point. If the reports are to be believed, she has spent a considerable portion of the decade in the regular harassment of her neighbours. That doesn't strike me as someone sitting quietly at home.

I am also indebted to Chris Dunham, for pointing out another error in the same leading article.

This year's visit is for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first permanent settlement in troubled Virginia, a state named after the Queen's ancestor Elizabeth I.

Maybe the leader writers at The Telegraph know something we don't about the (famously virgin) Elizabeth I? Or maybe they need a lesson from Thomas Hamburger Jnr about the true definition of 'ancestor'? It's a shame he no longer writes his articles on genealogy for the Birkenhead Beagle, as I imagine he would have had a field day with that story, even if he would baulk at Wikipedia's suggestion that our Royal Family are some kind of species of bacteria.

We were barking for them

Ever since I 'retired' from journalism, there has been a constant stream of visitors to the door of Blunt Mansions anxious to find the secret to the elixir of my writing style. At one point, my articles featured on the syllabus of a northern university which I do not need, here, to name.

When confronted with some nervous student, and asked the inevitable question 'Of what have you been most proud in your life, Mr Blunt?' I invariably replied that it was my time at the Birkenhead Beagle which gave me most pleasure.

Thomas Hamburger Jnr has featured the Beagle prominently in his griping new mystery story about the missing family of Laurel McFry, on which I have written earlier.

Few outside of Birkenhead may have heard of it, but the Beagle was renowned for its strapline 'We're barking for you!' Over the years, it boasted the writing talents not just of Thomas Hamburger and myself, but also of Johnny Mercer and Frederick C Marple - both men remembered for their acerbic pens.

The Birkenhead Beagle is probably best known for it's achievement, in October 2001, of managing to produce more editions in one day than any other UK national or regional daily paper. What herculean efforts were required to achieve such a record can only now be guessed at. From the first edition at 8am, through to the final at 4pm, the Beagle can truly be said to have left it's mark on the streets on that day.

My own paltry contribution to that momentous day was to pen a few brief words for each issue - and I was proud to do so.

Alas, neither Johnny Mercer nor Freddy Marple lived to see that day. This post is, therefore, dedicated to them, and to their contribution to journalism over many years. Wherever they are now, I am sure they have a ready audience for their acid tongues.

It don't mean a thing, if you ain't got the swing

I see from today's Independent newspaper, that Ewan Morrison, a self-proclaimed Scottish Purveyor of Erudite Filth, claims to have spent a year 'swinging', while 'between' novels.

His 17 Point Guide to Swinging (and reading about the sexual exploits of other people is always something to be relished as you tuck into your bacon and eggs on a Saturday morning) is a handy 'cut out and keep' guide to the current state of sexual mores in the UK. Two websites set up to cater for this new breed of sexual experimenters both claim to have around 700,000 'members' (no pun intended) - although swinging being what it is, I imagine there is a lot of overlap between the membership.

Perhaps I need to underline at this point that neither Mrs Blunt nor myself have ever felt the need to 'swing'. She is a fine woman, someone to be savoured and not shared. Any marital needs I might have are most ably met by her, and those that are not are filled by the admirable dishes served up at the Light of Bengal restaurant.

Not for me the wanton pleasures of watching other people in the act of copulation. I will leave that to the Scottish players, for now.

Heaven is a Door in Waterloo Street

It's quite some time since I wrote a regular column for the fledgling Oldham Athletic FC fanzine, Beyond the Bolundary. I was sad to learn of its demise since, in its hey-day, BTB rocked the very foundations of the football establishment.

I am nevertheless proud of my own, minor contribution to what one critic once described as 'poetry in print'.

Although it is some years since my family lived in Oldham, I have fond memories of the place, notwithstanding that, at the time, it was ruled by the kind of 'Old' Labour Party mafia that might have even embarassed Pol Pot's regime.

So, I was naturally delighted to stumble across a 'blog' penned by a true Oldhamer. Reading it brought back happy recollections of the time I caught a famous Oldham footballer 'straightening his tie' in a Waterloo Street doorway. I was never able to write about it, you understand: not for me, the sensationalist kiss-and-tell tabloid tales. His secret was safe with me and, I am pleased to report, Mrs Blunt never got wind of it, either.

Anyway, I trust you will enjoy Crofty's most estimable Blog. I would have been proud to have a writer of his calibre working alongside me on any one of the numerous publications I have contributed to.

Well done, that man!