I'm a celebrity look-a-likey: get out of here!

In an age which celebrates celebrity, it's always comforting to think that, as you wander down the shop to buy your paper, there's always the chance you might be mistaken for someone famous.

Sometimes, it's the only thing that gets me out of the house, and was the reason I invested in a decent fountain pen a couple of years ago.

Those seeking re-assurance that they have that 'certain something' could do worse than visit MyHeritage.com (as I recently did) to discover precisely who they resemble.

In choosing which photo of myself to upload, I chanced upon a snap taken from my days at the Stockport Herald. Wally Green was fond of using it atop my regular column, and I must confess it always led to a flurry of correspondence from ladies of a certain age. Looking back, that may have been the start of Mrs Blunt's insane jealousy, which has bedevilled our marriage ever since.




Of course, the process is hardly scientific. But it does go some way to explain why I was once beset upon by a horde of hippies who seemed a little high on something, all yelling "Tommy!" and demanding to be told the true story of Keith Moon.

And, why I was so popular on my holiday to the Nile delta in 1972, when taxi drivers were positively falling over themselves to offer me a seat in their cab...

Worshipping at the Font

When I was a callow youth, knocking about a leather football on the municipal park, my thoughts rarely turned to how my life would span out. If they did, I may have imagined a career in professional football, perhaps. I do remember even wondering whether a future in the (then) popular medium of BBC radio might have awaited me.

It wasn't to be, of course. A particularly vicious tackle during a match with a local secondary modern school's centre back put paid to any hopes I might have had of turning out for Oldham Athletic. And any dreams I nurtured of working in the broadcast media were dashed because my accent, at the time, was considered something of an impediment.

My life was fated to take a different course, and a sports journalist I became. Even so, when I later came to ruminate on retirement, I never thought for one minute I would be penning a blog. Younger readers may find it difficult to conceive, but they hadn't even been invented at that time. I suppose, if I am truthful, in those halcyon days I imagined my dotage would be spent on cruise ships in the Med - and I don't mean as a celebrity speaker.

One thing's for certain: I little expected I would spend my 65th birthday in deep discussion with my best friend, Thomas Hamburger Jnr, on the subject of fonts.

I've just come off the telephone to Tom. We were both logged onto a website he discovered earlier tonight which more than lived up to its name:
www.1001freefonts.com.

Perhaps it's because we both of us worked together at the Birkenhead Beagle, but our telephone chat tonight found us discussing the merits of Detectives Inc vs Decadance, and Ready when you are vs Ransom. After fully an hour of swapping views, we both of us had to acknowledge that it was a sad way for two grown men to pass the time. Surely we should have been down the pub, playing dominoes?

The Wasted Money of Marketing

When I was a young cub reporter in Stockport, I remember the day my editor at that time, Wally Green, took me aside to discuss a recent report I'd written on a house fire. "Blunt!" he said, "Your writing is like advertising. And you know what they say about advertising?"
As a young, wet-behind the ears journalist, I didn't - but I was keen to learn.
"They say that 50% of the money spent on advertising is wasted. But no-one's sure which 50% it is."

I took it as the kind of mercurial compliment a person of Wally's brusque nature might hand to an up-and-coming writer of the new generation.
It was while I was reflecting on the new campaign by the Tripe Marketing Board that Wally's wise words came to mind. On paper, it looks like a sound strategy: tripe sales have been in steady decline in the UK since 1953. Year on year slippage has reached such a level that there is hardly a butcher left in Oldham now who stocks the stuff.
It's a tough one to crack. I discussed the dilemma with my son, Jasper, over a pint or two of Black Sheep Ale at a hostelry not far from Saddleworth the other day.
"Pa," he said, "it won't work. I'm from the generation that thinks the Welfare State was invented expressly so I would never have to eat tripe."
He may well have a point. Still, as someone who has fond memories of early married life with Mrs Blunt, and our Saturday afternoons boiling up the unguous mass of white blubber in a foul-smelling kitchen, I couldn't help but feel nostalgic for the passing of tripe.

Let's hope that the billboard campaign cooked up by the boys at the TMB works then!