Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Those who have known Bill Blunt a good while will know he’s not a man whose endorsement is easily bought. As a columnist at the Stockport Sentinel, I built my reputation for impartiality by never being swayed by a freebie.

That’s why I was sceptical (to say the least) when - courtesy of those fine people, Kevin and Sylvie, at FMB – I was asked to ‘test-drive’ the new Azor shaving system by King of Shaves.

I have always had something of a professional interest in shaving equipment, anyway. I rarely trumpet the fact that my grandfather lost thousands of pounds in an ill-fated venture to design and market the perfect razor blade. As a project, it went well-enough, until he took it to market, that is. Lady Retrospect is a harsh woman, I know, but he’d have saved himself a few bob if he’d realised that promoting Blunt Razors was always going to be something of an uphill battle.

The Azor media pack, when it arrived yesterday, was initially impressive. Less so when my ageing laptop couldn’t access the free CD that came with it. Would it be churlish to expect King of Shaves to send out a high spec laptop just to let me view their images and logos? I think not. As it is, the web already has images aplenty for me to look at.

Well, what’s different about the Azor? As a British contender against the might of multi-nationals Gillette and Wilkinson Sword, it certainly cuts a dash in the design stakes. Cool and sleek, it’s a departure from the over-engineered, garish orange, blue and silver Gillette Fusion, which seems to sprout an extra blade every month. King of Shaves have bucked the trend, and stuck with four blades.

It appeals to my innate sense of economy, too. In a time when money is tight, there’s something to be said for a razor that costs half the price of its competitors, and doesn’t require a battery to make it work.

So far, so good, then. But what’s it like to shave with? Alas, my divorce from Mrs Blunt means I couldn’t submit the Azor to the toughest of tests (one which even the infamous Prolectix Epliator, with its 36 discs rotating and twisting bunches of hairs together and plucking them from the roots ‘like a large pair of tweezers’ was never really up to).

I had to be content with using it on myself, then. The flexible head certainly seemed to make the razor hug my famously rugged chin much more closely than other razors I’ve used. And four blades were more than enough for the task of removing my ‘Mexican Bandit’ stubble. I hope it wasn’t just the psychological fact of having read all the accompanying hype that made me feel that it did, indeed, produce a closer shave.

I hope I wasn’t mistaken, but I’m sure I got more than my normal share of admiring glances from the barmaids when I sashayed into the bar at The John Laird for my usual post-prandial whisky last night.

A Conspiracy of Silence

It would be easy for readers to imagine that my recent 'radio silence' has been prompted by threats of legal action, promoted by the powers that be who are always anxious to still the voice of the dissident.

A glance at the list of labels used for my postings over the last year (handily listed in the side-bar, to the left) will show that my potential enemies are legion, so it would be natural to assume there was a queue of potential litigants.

The truth, however, is more prosaic. I have been distracted from my blogging by one or two projects that demanded my energies. My on-going attempt to compile a Guide to the Wetherspoon Pubs of England has proven to be a task which makes the painting of the Forth Road Bridge look like a pushover. New establishments are opening by the week, and I fear it may be years before I can bring the Guide to publication.

At the same time, I have been getting excited at the idea of taking over part of an allotment which a friend has just procured. I'll doubtless be stopping by over at Mystic Veg's place more frequently for tips and tricks to guide me in my growing - although if his attempts with rhubarb are anything to go by, I may have to cast my net wider in the search for advice.

Storm Clouds Gather

Ever since the renting-assunder of my marriage, relations with my son Jasper have not been what they should. He seems to have spent more time down in Ipswich, giving credence to my theory that he was a mummy's boy. Nevertheless, I've missed his 'dropping by', and I've been at pains to let him know my door is always open to him.

His most recent visit saw him, as usual, 'analysing my stats'. He's always been keen to ensure that my blog meets the needs of its readers, and studying where they come from, why they come her and what they think when they arrive has become a bit of an obsession for him.

'Pa,' he said, on a recent trip to the Wirral, 'you're losing it.' Apparently, my Technorati ranking has plummeted. When pressed, he suggested this might be for the simple reason that I haven't been posting as frequently as I once was.

He knows my situation. More worryingly, he hinted darkly that his mother was considering publishing her own blog, based on a diary she apparently kept during our near-forty years of marriage. I must admit, I was shocked at the prospect. It's one thing for me to post my own reflections on life, but quite another for the former Mrs Blunt to want to do the same. I can only think this has been prompted by Tommy Fishfinger, her new paramour, who has doubtless been filling her head with thoughts of the fame and fortune that might accrue were she to spill the beans on her marriage to one of sport's more infamous journalists.

I'm not happy about it - not one little bit. I have instructed my solicitors to scour the internet and to alert me to any calumnies. There's a big, fat writ waiting in the wings, I can tell you.

Meanwhile, Jasper has helpfully produced another report on 'How People Find Me'. It makes sobering reading, and suggests I need to broaden my subject-matter, lest readers think I have become obsessed by Wetherspoons, Prolectrix Mp3 players and the Georgian Massage parlour in Oldham. I fully acknowledge that, if these subjects are the ones that are driving traffic to my site, I need to think carefully how I label my postings in future. After all, who would want to be thought of as a sozzled, music-obsessed frequenter of brothels in the Oldham area? Particularly when I can aspire to become the world authority on Kappa tracksuit fetishes...

Bill Blunt's Guide to Wetherspoons: No 3: Doncaster: The Gatehouse

Ever since its publication in serialised form in 1928, rumours have persisted that Michail Sholokhov penned the opening chapters of his seminal piece of fiction, And Quiet Flows The Don while sat in the snug of a pub somewhere in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

It's a seductive idea and, as any journalist worth his salt will tell you, you should never let the absence of any corroborating facts get in the way of a story. But that doesn’t mean we should believe everything the Doncaster Tourist Information Centre tells us in an attempt to lure visitors to the place.

As my loyal reader will know, I’m not a man who scorns the opportunity to travel - there’s not a lot of moss on Bill Blunt, I can tell you. So, when Reggie Mackeson, my old pal on the Doncaster Free Press, invited me across the Pennines for the weekend, I was quick to accept. He’s always eulogized about the place, so I was keen to sample its delights. Now, I don’t mind dark, Satanic mills – but when it comes to dark Satanic schools, dark Satanic churches and dark Satanic supermarkets, I can tell you: I’ve had my fill. In their obviously very finite wisdom, the city planners of Doncaster have elected to knock down a ghastly 1970’s-period shopping centre and replace it with a perfectly awful 21st century one.

I thought, however, I could take advantage of the trip to add another chapter to the Bill Blunt Guide to Wetherspoons, which is starting to take shape.

No one can be sure whether The Gatehouse was the very pub in which Sholokhov dashed out the first few lines of his epic Don masterwork. But the facts are clear that there has been an inn on the site since at least 1670. Messrs Wetherspoon didn’t get in on the act until early 2002, modernizing and transforming it into the pub it is today.

Early impressions are of a clean and spacious venue, if a tad on the dark side. Perhaps the fact that I was visiting for breakfast on a rather dull, Saturday morning in February had something to do with that, or maybe the lights were dimmed to protect the sensitivities of the dozen or so sterling men who, even at 9am, seemed to have no compunction in downing a pint (and more) of ale.

The staff at The Gatehouse are an exceptionally friendly and amiable bunch. Presentation-wise, the breakfast was a little lack-lustre, with the fried egg haphazardly thrown over the baked beans and bacon. But it was hot, tasty and greaseless – well-up to the usual Wetherspoon breakfast standard. And a bit more training on the coffee machine wouldn’t go amiss, if they are ever to master the art of serving up a decent cappuccino. However, since Reggie had a couple of vouchers he’d had delivered as part of a marketing campaign, the brekkie and coffee only cost us £1.99 each, so it would be churlish to complain too much.

I wasn’t able to test out the wi-fi signal at The Gatehouse, but Reggie assures me he’s never had much problem logging on there.

All in all, then, you won’t be disappointed by this one.

Decor: 8/10
Food Quality: 9/10
Value for money: 10/10 (using discount voucher)
Location: 6/10
Wifi Access: 9/10

Bill Blunt's Guide to Wetherspoons: No 2: Birkenhead: The Brass Balance

After the acclaim which was accorded my first entry into the Bill Blunt Wetherspoon Guide, it's time, I think, to crack on with the second entry. Having settled on The John Laird as my starting point, it makes sense to review its Birkenhead younger brother, The Brass Balance.

Nestling in a busy street off Birkenhead's rather beautiful Hamilton Square, The Brass Balance offers a (slightly) more up-market environment for the discerning Birkenhead drinker and diner. Named after its former role as the factory of W&T Avery, the scales manufacturers who occupied the site from the early 1900's until the Second World War (although it has had a few incarnations since then - including an Italian restaurant) the Brass Balance is a large pub with a beer garden to the rear to satisfy those individuals (such as Mrs Blunt) who like to pollute the environment with their foul-smelling cheroots.

The menu of food on offer is err... exactly the same as you'll find in any other Wetherspoons. The breakfast is again a good value option, available until 12 noon for just £2.10. The staff seem friendly enough - though perhaps a little more reserved than their counterparts across town.

Old pictures of Birkenhead decorate the walls, as do historical snippets on the town's great and good citizens. Little wonder that my old friend, Tommy Hamburger, was driven to make The Brass Balance the spiritual home of his fictional creation, Harry McFry, who had a bit of a bent for history himself.

The wi-fi access hasn't always been as reliable as it might be, but today (thankfully) it's top-notch. And so, to the scores...

Decor: 8/10
Food Quality: 8/10
Value for money: 9/10
Location: 8/10
Wifi Access: 9/10

The Collectors

It's a peculiarity of the English that we like to collect things. Of course, it's not confined to us, but there's something about our psyche that means we take easily to assembling - often in huge quantity - stamps (and call ourselves philatelists) or useless lists of train numbers (and are called, by others, 'sad').

I was reminded of this during my research for the Wetherspoon Guide Book. Falling easily into conversation with what I took to be a 'regular' in The John Laird, I soon discovered that I had encountered that rare phenomenon, the Wetherspoon Collector.

Readers might well be aware of my professed love of this pub chain. But I have always kept myself 'this side of the line', resisting the urge to collect their hostelries, as if they were a beermat, or a Dinky car.

Not so, Alan Mason. When I met Alan, he was enjoying a pint as he perused his guide book, listing the 600+ Wetherspoon outlets in the UK, plotting his next conquest. He'd travelled from Byker, in Newcastle, and was staying near Formby, just up the coast from the Wirral. When I quizzed him about his hobby, he admitted that he didn't rank the pubs in any sense - it was enough to be able to say that he had visited them. And so, he crossed them off his list, one by one. He didn't even have a favourite, as if that would be invidious.

He combined his hunt for Wetherspoons with the collection of football badges which he made en route, killing two birds with one stone. He was also, it transpired, a trainspotter, so his journey across the land in pursuit of football badges and Wetherspoons was always done by train.

What possessed a man to collect things in such a way, I wondered, and couldn't resist the urge to ask him. "Ah diven't knaa," he said (which, loosely translated, meant that he wasn't entirely sure). He'd been a collector of one thing or another most of his life, and now that he had lost his job he had the time, and the strange inclination, to develop his collections more systematically.

You have to admire the dedication - the sheer, unmitigated obsession - that would take a man to the far ends of the kingdom in the ruthless desire to tick a guide book, pick up a piece of cheap enamel and note down the number attached to a railway train.

And so, wherever you are (most probably having a pint in a pub near Blackpool FC's ground - and I'll leave it to you to guess the name of the pub) I salute you, Alan Mason. Without you, the world would be a slightly duller place.

Bill Blunt's Guide to Wetherspoons: No 1: Birkenhead: The John Laird

INTRODUCTION

Following recent requests from my loyal readers, I have decided to launch the Bill Blunt Guide to Wetherspoons.

This occasional series will chart my own personal view of this pub chain. It already ranks quite high in my esteem in general terms, since it offers its customers free wi-fi access. This has often been a life-saver to old Bill, as I zig-zag across the country in search of all the news that isn't news, to keep my readers happy.

I must confess you don't see many Wetherspoon regulars using their laptop while having a drink. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

I'm kicking off my guide with a pub that I came to know well when I worked on the Birkenhead Beagle: The John Laird. Birkenhead is blessed with two Wetherspoon pubs, and I'll be covering the The Brass Balance at a later date.

The John Laird takes it's name from the shipping magnate who helped make Birkenhead the thriving industrial centre it once was. It's located just behind the rather ugly shopping centre that dominates the town centre. Wetherspoons practices differential pricing in it's establishments - and The John Laird is most definitely one of the cheaper places in their chain.

It's not one of the biggest Wetherspoon's you'll ever go in, and it's clients are most decidedly among the more hardened drinkers of Britain. It's not unusual to see half a dozen elderly men taking a pint or two at breakfast.

The place is still suffering from the pre-smoking ban days, but a lick of paint will no doubt freshen up the decor a little.

But it's an honest enough place, with plenty of characters to meet. The staff are some of the friendliest you'll find in a pub, and they're equally happy serving Bill his 79p cappucino as they are the regulars with their pints of Marston's Pedigree at £1.39.

Wetherspoons keeps its prices low by fast rotation of stock. As a rule, you'll find a wide range of regional, guest ales, too.

The full English breakfast costs just £2.10 - a bargain, in anyone's language. Don't expect haute cuisine - but what you'll get will be well-enough executed, and pretty healthy for a cooked breakfast, with the preference being for grilling, rather than frying.

I've never had a problem accessing the wifi signal from this site (would that this were true in every Wetherspoons).

And so, to the score:

Decor: 7/10
Food Quality: 9/10
Value for money: 9/10
Location: 5/10
Wifi Access: 10/10

Staying True to Your Self

What a man has for his breakfast is his own affair. I know some of my friends who swear by the full cooked English, piling their plates with sausages, rashers of bacon, eggs, hash browns, griddled mushrooms and the rest. That's their business, and they're welcome to it.

For those of that ilk, Wetherspoon’s Full English Breakfast is something I can heartily recommend. When I have tried it, I have rarely emerged dissatisfied (although one or two establishments that it would be churlish for me to name have occasionally served the bacon just a little on the tepid side).

In my later years, I’ve found myself drifting towards eating cereal for my first meal of the day. What can beat a bowl of crunchy Bran Flakes, whether that be the Kellog variety or the reasonable and tasty own-brand alternative available at Aldi?

It’s also the case that I tend to stick to just one particular cereal each day. Not for me the constant swapping between Weetabix, Cornflakes and Shredded Wheat. I can go months and years eating the same variety, without getting bored, before I decide it’s time to switch to a new one.

Reflecting on this in the company of a delightful young lady who was attending a conference I was speaking at earlier this week, I characterised myself as a ‘cereal monogamist’. For some reason, that seemed to be her cue to terminate the conversation and leave the bar, so I never did get to find out her views on the subject. Perhaps I should have waited to discuss it over breakfast, the next day?

Of friends and family

Since our spell away on holiday I've seen less and less of my good friend, Thomas Hamburger Jnr.

I'm partly to blame for this myself, of course, as my tour of Wetherspoon pubs of England has taken me to some far-flung corners of our sceptered kingdom. In the process, I have become something of an expert on the esteemed chain's beers, food and wi-fi access points. I can almost feel a guide book coming on...

But I finally find a free day or two to catch up with his griping tale, Harry McFry Investigates The Mystery of the Missing Family, which I have watched develop with interest. It's a peculiar piece, and not at all what I would have imagined Tommy coming up with.

From what I was told would be a 'minor walk-on part', I see that my own role has developed so that it might, even, become quite central to solving the mystery. I can't pretend I'm not flattered. All those years working on the Birkenhead Beagle didn't bring a lot of recognition, and the idea of being a key character in one of Tommy Hamburger's books has a certain cachet about it.

I see that some readers have even begun speculating whether a movie might someday be made of the story, and have even gone so far as to suggest possible candidates for the key roles.
Enumerator (which is a grand name for any blogger) thinks my own role should be played by Bill Nighy, whereas 70steen has plumped instead for Jack Nicholson. I must admit, the idea of Nicholson tackling an Oldham accent is a seductive one... and one which, if pulled off successfully, might even be worthy of an award of some kind.

Personally, I'm not sure. Nighy is one of my favourite actors, even when he's had a bad hair day, whereas Nicholson's role in As Good As It Gets reminds me more of Tommy Hamburger Jnr himself than me.

Robert Lindsay as Harry McFry has a definite appeal, I must say - but Alan Rickman has his strengths, too, and Mrs Blunt has always had a soft spot for his suave 'come-to-bed' voice.

Anyway, my daughter Barbara couldn't resist coming up with a possible promo poster for the yet-to-be made film of the yet-to-be-finished and yet-to-find-a-publisher novel, which I include below for your amusement.



My best advice to you at this stage, however, is not to book your table for the awards ceremony just yet...

Breakfast at Wetherspoon's

My daughter, Barbara Blunt, has always been the artistic one in the family. Her early foray into the t-shirt business as a teenager (and who would NOT want a 'Bill Blunt Speaks My Language' logo on their chest?) was something of a springboard for her later career.

Since reading my posting about the delights of the Wetherspoon chain of hostelries, she has been hard at work on a screenplay for what she calls a 'modern day parody'.

Her main character is only loosely based on that of Holly Golightly, the New York socialite made famous by that darling of the silver screen, Audrey Hepburn.

Holly (at least Barbara's version of her) is the kind of woman you'll find in the corner of any Wetherspoon's at eleven o'clock in the morning, nursing a Gin and Tonic and wiping away the smudges of fag ash from the 'little black number' she threw on before she went out last night.

Her make-up may look a little awry, her hair dishevelled, but somehow she manages to attract a certain kind of gentleman with her invitations to "Come and buy me a drink, lover-boy," always drawled in that raspy, half-asleep voice fuelled by Marlboro Lights.

George Peppared-Steak-on-Rye will play the louche writer, Paul Varjak-Budweiser, always a sucker for Holly's come-on lines.

I'm not an expert on the movie scene these days, but I do rather think she's onto something with this one.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

ADDENDUM:

Barbara has complained that the above picture did not do justice to her fine artwork. Some of the detail may have been lost, so here are a couple of close-ups, just in case anyone comes across Holly and, in the darkness of the bar, imagines she is, for a moment, Audrey Hepburn. The warning signs are clearly there - if only the need for a good going over with the old Prolectrix...

Whither Wetherspoon's?

The Wetherspoon chain of pubs in the UK has always striven to be a little bit different. Their ability to takeover existing buildings such as old cinemas, theatres and the like and to transform them into civilised places to drink has taken them a long way. Their commitment to good beers and ales, sourced from all around the world, has introduced the palates of a new generation of drinkers to the delights of ‘real ale’ at a fair price. Meanwhile, their early morning opening times, and service of a full English breakfast for as little as £2.10 (just around $4, for the benefit of any trans-continental readers of this column) is a rare bargain in a world of ever-increasing costs.

Now, they’ve gone wi-fi, and are currently offering 30 minutes of free wi-fi access to all customers. For the cost of one of their very fine Lavazza coffees (just 79p in most of their premises across the country – even if a disappointed Chelsea player would be asked to pay 99p in central London), you can ‘surf the net’, catch up on e-mails and even – as I am this very minute – post to a blog. And all from the comfort of a sunny conservatory overlooking the Cheshire countryside.

I don’t wish my good friend Thomas Hamburger Jnr to feel redundant, however. Without the patient explanation of the pub manager, I would probably still be stuck at stage one of the helpful instructions they provide for you to connect up. But, it’s personal progress of a sort, for me, even if, in future, I’ll still be asking Tommy to do my postings.

The whole experience has, however, given me a genuine love of the Wetherspoon ethos. Long may they thrive. I know Mr Hamburger would agree – since his genealogical mystery has more than once name-checked The Brass Balance in Birkenhead, which I know was always a particular favourite of his.