I forget exactly which drink it was that used to advertise itself with the slogan 'It's what your right arm's for'- but I rather think whoever sculptured this fine piece in Charleroi might have had that phrase in mind.
It's a steelworker, apparently.
It’s a brave man who calls Bill Blunt ‘unadventurous’. Not for me the easy life of pipe and slippers - even as my sixth decade starts to slip slowly away, like a golden sun setting in the west, I demand more. You’re never too old to learn, as they say – and I, for one, have that maxim branded on my chest.
So, a mini-tour of Europe (courtesy of cheap-flight pioneers, Ryanair) was ‘just what the doctor ordered’ to stimulate my decaying brain cells. Forgive the cliché, but they’re right when they say ‘a change is as good as a rest’.
As someone who is best known for his trenchant columns on sporting events, my readers may be surprised to learn that I’ve always nurtured a desire to branch out into travel writing. Another string to a bow which already resembles a seven-string guitar will never come amiss.
More than a century and a half ago, the great artists of the time pioneered The Grand Tour. At great expense, and not without some sacrifice of time and effort, it became fashionable to explore the European Continent. Well, thanks to the technological advances society has made since then, it’s now possible to follow in their paint-spattered footsteps for little more than the cost of a couple of cheap DVD players. Special offers from the low-cost airlines puts a slimmed-down version of the nineteenth century Euro-jaunt well within the reach of most people’s wallets.
An eight-day trip from the UK, taking in two Spanish cities, an Italian and a Belgian town offered the chance to sample a slice of Europe for the not-so-grand sum of £52, thanks to Ryanair’s winter sale. Getting from my home on the Wirral to Liverpool John Lennon Airport required a £1 bus fare to Birkenhead Central station, £1.75 to cross under the Mersey and £2.50 for the coach from Liverpool Lime Street to the airport. From there to Valencia was £10, including the obligatory ‘taxes and charges’. A maths teacher might find it interesting to set their pupils a challenge to work out the relative costs for each part of the journey… but I can save them the work. The 12 mile trip to the airport cost 43p per mile, whereas the flight to Valencia cost a mere penny a mile. I can’t pretend to understand the economics of it all, but since Ryanair posted a profit of £326m in the six months to September 2007, I can only think it must be because they charge a fortune for sandwiches during the flight.
My travelling companion, Thomas Hamburger, did me the great service of booking the hotels for our trip. The boy did well, managing to secure very acceptable rooms with twin beds, for around £25 for each of us per night. I must confess I was a little worried we might have to share a bed, even if it would be a la Morecombe and Wise, but in the event we found twin beds rather than doubles to be the norm everywhere we stayed. Quite how the continentals got their reputation for sexual frivolousness in the absence of double beds confounds me.
Valencia (Spain)
Once in Valencia, we took advantage of all the city offered With temperatures nudging 20 C, we got our first taste of ‘proper’ sun since October. There’s nothing like sipping a cool beer in a quiet Spanish plaza in January to lift the mood, but Valencia also offers the enticement of Chocolate con Churros – yummy twists of dough, freshly fried and ready to dip into the thick, sweet chocolate that the Spanish seem to love so much. We couldn’t help but notice that these chocolate parlours were full of ladies who lunch, adding grist to the popular theory that women lust after cocoa like a man desires a pint of Newcastle Brown.
But of course, our main target on our first day in Spain was what any red-blooded male’s aim would be … tapas. Thankfully, we found it aplenty, and no finer than in the bar opposite the magnificent city-centre market. The next day (after an evening during which THJnr philosophised about the problems of ‘writing’), we ambled into one or two bars, including a Basque one, where we partook of pinxtos (the northern Spanish equivalent of tapas – and very nice, too) and sideria, a brew which makes Magners look like the sheep’s pee it really is. We managed to fit in a trip to the coast, and dipped our toes in the Med to reassure ourselves that we weren’t in England (photographs are available, to prove the point).
Bergamo
From Valencia, the flight to Bergamo (Ryanair-speak for Milan, but actually a full hour by bus from the capital of couture) was just €10. I have spent more on a magazine (admittedly an adult one) than I have on that flight. Here, a three day tourist card was available for just €5 – a bargain since this also includes the airport transfer as well as the two funicular railways from the low town to the high town. Top tip: Italy isn’t the cheapest place to spend a few days but, if you do find yourself in Bergamo, take the funicular railway up to the high town, and take a meal – or just a coffee – in the restaurant at the top of the line. You won’t regret it – if only for the view. And the coffee. On Thomas Hamburger Jnr’s advice, avoid the Mexican Karaoke Bar in the low town, even if it sounds like a good idea at 2am in the morning.
Charleroi
The Bergamo – Brussels Charleroi leg of our journey again cost just €10 – and brought a surprise. As a former mining town, and the scene of a major colliery disaster as recently as 1956, it can sometimes seem a little rough around the edges, but as a northern lad I felt instantly at home amongst the beer bellies, flat caps and coal-dust scarred faces. The men of the town were quite interesting, too. Nevertheless, the civic burghers have done their best to move with the times. An integrated transport system is centred round the grand Charleroi Sud railway station, in front of which the canal glides sleekly by, tastefully lit at night. Head for the main square of the town, where dozens of bars battle for your business, ready to force distinctly strong Belgian beers upon you. In the evening, the bars and take-aways in the square are illuminated as if in homage to Rusholme in Manchester, and it’s a strong man who wouldn’t be tempted to sample the beers and the frites and mayonnaise on offer. The walk back down to the station will feel easier after a few of each. And the statue of a steelworker on the canal bridge, facing the station, will seem, somehow, just a little err… risqué. Thomas has an interesting photo of this, which he has promised to get to me once it's developed, so I can share it with my readers.
The big surprise on leaving Charleroi was to find ourselves departing from a different airport. In the 72 hours we had been there, the industrious Belgians had managed to open up an entirely new airport – a swanky, plush affair quite different from the shed we’d arrived at. THJnr and myself were among the first few hundred people to use the place, seemingly outnumbered by the press and TV photographers. But we were off to Madrid... (of which more, later).
As I approach the end of my mini-jaunt around Europe, I have taken some time out to visit an internet cafe in the delightful town of Charleroi, where I am catching up on e-mails before the final leg of my journey (Madrid) tomorrow.
One might assume that a former mining town would have little to detain one after the pleasures of Valencia and Bergamo - but you'd be wrong. Maybe it's because of my own working-class up-bringing, but the place seems warm and welcoming like a wholesome Northern town, with the added bonus of dozens of varieties of Belgian beers to make the day go with a swing. Skipping from country to country as we are, it's easy to see the cultural differences that divide our nations, while at the same time re-inforcing our prejudices. The Italians were indeed smartly dressed and very dapper with it; the Spanish very stylish but in a relaxed sort of way and the Belgians - well, they're happy enough with whatever is available from the market.
Of course, the trip is proving to be a bit of a compromise. THJnr and myself are very different animals, and there's nothing like sharing a hotel room to discover a man's foibles. At least we both of us got to cast off our shoes and socks to have a good 'plodge' in the Med. Valencia's beaches may not be the prettiest in the world (vaguely reminiscent, in fact, of Seaton Carew), but the sand is fine and clean, and just feeling the sun on your face is enough to dispel thoughts of a grey English winter.
And so, like a couple of American tourists, our jaunt continues. It's Monday, so it must be Belgium.
Adios! Ciao! Au revoir!
I realise that some of my readers might be tempted to doubt my feminist credentials. My recent rant about Janet Street-Porter has led some to think, somehow, that I’m a whisky-soaked misogynist of some sort.
I can’t claim I wasn’t wounded by the charge. Just because I’m styled (by my publicists, I hasten to add) as The Man Who Tells It Like It Is, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a certain affinity for the female mind. Watching Willy Russell’s wonderful Blood Brothers at the Liverpool Empire last week was a truly moving experience. I’m not the kind of man who would pretend a tear didn’t cascade its way down my cheek now and again during the performance.
I like to think – alongside the estimable Crofty – that my sensitivities extend a tad further than standing on the sideline cheering the Latics as they trounce Everton in a cup encounter. I’ll also be the first to admit to occasionally listening to Alanis Morissette, without for a moment thinking I’ve dented my credibility as one of the foremost sports correspondents of my generation.
For those who doubt my claims, I can only refer them to some of my earliest writing. I’m not a man to blow my own trumpet, but should there be anyone who thinks I’m a ‘man’s man’, here’s a clipping from one of my earliest forays into journalism, when I was asked to stand in to write a column or two for Letty Bradshaw, the Stockport Leader’s much-respected woman’s correspondent. I think it speaks for itself. If anyone thinks a mere woman could have penned such prose, then they’re clearly biased.
Just when I thought it was safe to take to the air on my mini-jaunt around Europe, a call from Thomas Hamburger Jnr comes in. Would I mind awfully, he asks, if he accompanied me on my trip? He’s had a rough time of it recently, dealing with one or two ‘issues’ he feels must be tidied up before he can re-write his fictional account of Harry McFry. I chided him with the fact that not the least of these issues is that he’s required to finish the bloody thing before he can even contemplate a re-write.
I must say, it wasn’t like this in my day. When Wally Green asked for a story for the front page, a story was precisely what he got. There wasn’t much time for intellectual agonising at the Stockport Leader. Lolling around in a flat listening to Cavalleria Rusticana and complaining about writers’ block wasn’t an option when there were bills to pay and a young family to support.
Well, I suppose I owe him one. It was Thomas who eased my way into the world of blogs in the first place, and he has continued to post whatever musings I send him (with very little editorial cuts). At the same time, I can’t help but think a very different kind of holiday is now in store for me. I’ve had to hastily re-arrange a few liaisons I had lined up en route, as it wouldn’t be seemly to have a friend in tow for some of the encounters I had planned. And I doubt very much he’ll be keen on visiting the great football stadia in Milan, Valencia, Madrid and err... Brussels, which was also part of my plan. The prospect is now real that the entire seven days could be spent in a blur of cafes, cigarettes and culture.
Still, what price friendship? It’s a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of turning his back on a friend in his hour of need. And, who knows, maybe a few days spent ‘people watching’ won’t be such a bad thing? I’ll keep you posted.
So. Janet Street-Porter, the highly-paid doyen of Fleet Street, rails against the humble blog? Donchajustknowit? The much-made-over hackette seems to think blogs are nothing more than self-indulgent mediocrity (Just blog off. And take your self-promotion and cat-flap with you, Independent on Sunday, 6 January 2008).
Perhaps she thinks Joe and Josephine Blogger would be better off punting up £1.80 of their precious cash to read her whining, self-obsessed ramblings in the IoS every week? Keen to see what she was up to these days, I did just that. Her musings about Marks & Spencer, Big Brother and a plug for her latest publication Life’s Too F***ing Short (for which we are invited to punt a further £12.99) are hardly the most scintillating of reads.
She confesses to being ‘a bit nervous’ that M&S might branch out into online food delivery – worse still, that they are considering expanding their range of food to include more basic ingredients with which meals can be cooked. Well, I think JS-P needs to toughen up a bit. It takes more than a shift in retailing strategy by a high street chain to make Bill Blunt even the least bit nervy.
Janet is clearly no stranger to irony. After slagging off the lowly blogger for self-promotion, should we be surprised that her angle on Big Brother is that ‘I was allowed to hijack the programme last Friday’, or that a quarter of her column is devoted to advertorial for her own (just-published) book?
At least no one can accuse her of being a hypocrite. ‘Start each day … by telling yourself you are great. No one else is going to, believe me,’ she says. How true, Janet. Now – where’s that cat-flap? Mee-owww!
When Mrs Blunt scarpered with the fishmonger, she little realised what a favour she was doing me. Accustomed, over many years, to having the odd loaf of bread baked in a bread machine, I was quite bereft when she waltzed off with it as part of the carefully-worded divorce settlement prepared by her solicitors. There’s nothing quite like waking up to the smell of freshly-baked bread, and I must confess I was more than a bit miffed to lose the facility.
My circumstances did not immediately permit me to buy a replacement (bread maker, that is – not wife) but, after an evening of head-scratching, it came to me that I didn’t actually need one to meet my desire for the aroma of cooked dough. Everything I needed was right there in my hands – quite literally, in fact.
If she did but know it, the late Mrs B did me a great service. A consultation with my sister-in-law )not on Mrs B’s side, I hasten to add) was all I needed. She pointed me in the direction of Andrew (God Bless Him) Whitley’s seminal work Bread Matters. It’s not often that Bill Blunt endorses a product, but when he does, his readers can be assured that they should rush out and buy it.
Mr Whitley has produced the definitive reference book about bread. In 370 closly-printed pages, he expounds all there really is to know about bread, and how to make it. Forget your chemicals, your additives and your preservatives. A loaf of bread is flour, water, yeast and salt. That’s all. Since ASDA will furnish you with free yeast (just ask at the bakery), and since Dove Farm produce a very acceptable organic wholemeal flour for just 60p per 1.5kg, in no time you can be producing your own, healthy bread for less than 40p a pop (that’s 80c to our transatlantic cousins).
The only fly in the ointment is friends and acquaintances. For some reason, they seem to think that people who make their own bread use the process to ‘take out their frustrations’. They have this vision of me battering the hell out of the dough. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A good loaf is made with love, time and attention – just like a good relationship. You can’t force these things by shoving them in machines or by pummelling them to death. Bread is the staff of life. Make it with care and devotion, give the yeast plenty of time to do its stuff, and the taste will repay you in dividends.
While I was rustling up a couple of loafs and a cob last night, I got to thinking why, the world over, the classic figure of the baker always seems to be male? Whether it’s the little French boulanger or the dusty-aproned fellow who crops up in nursery rhymes now and again, there’s no doubt that, in our mind’s eye, we visualise a man.
Well, times have moved on. Thanks to campaigners like Emily Pankhurst, women, too, can get their knuckles well and truly dusted with flour. So, take a tip. This weekend, get that oven fired up and feel the thrill of the dough coming together in your hands. You’ll thank me for it.
Whenever the low-cost air carriers publish their new schedules, or whenever they announce a sale, Bill Blunt finds it hard to resist the temptation to wander their websites with an eye to a bargain.
So, when Ryanair began advertising their current crop of low, low air fares, I set myself the challenge of finding out how far £50 would get me. That's near enough $100 to our transatlantic cousins. Anyone booking via the likes of Ryanair, Easyjet and Flybe will have learnt to their cost that it's one thing to find a cheap flight, but quite another to absorb the 'taxes and charges' lurking beneath it.
To make my challenge more realistic, therefore, my target was that the £50 had to include their published taxes and charges. Well, here's what I came up with:
Wed 23 Jan Liverpool - Valencia £10
Fri 25 Jan Valencia - Bergamot 10 Euros
Sun 27 Jan Bergamot - Brussels 10 Euros
Tues 29 Jan Brussels - Madrid 10 Euros
Thurs 31 Jan Madrid - Liverpool 10 Euros
That makes a grand total of around £40 or 80 USD - not at all bad for a journey that takes in three countries and four European cities.
Of course, I've got to find some accommodation for each evening while I'm away. Any offers or suggestions of budget-priced places would be most welcome...
Alas, fate – and the fact that, during the day, the morning and evening ‘commuter’ ferry service is curtailed in favour of a tourist route that adds an extra half hour to the trip – conspired against me. Add to that the potent mix of a bitingly cold (‘nithering’ is the word I am looking for) wind, and building works that interfered with the otherwise short walk from ferry terminal to the Tate and, well … my readers will understand why I was seduced by the charms of a warm and cosy bar, for a reviving shot of Bells. Circumstances may even have dictated that I had another. It all meant that I missed the Turner prize exhibition, and the company of my erstwhile drinking chum.
Now, I’ve never pretended to know much about art, but only a brave man would accuse me of being uncultured. And I think I can recognise vivid and exciting art when I see it. These 17-18 year olds had produced an exhibition that set my soul on fire, making me hungry for more. I am sure there are those who would describe their work as derivative, but I’m not sure there are many youngsters who can work free of the influence of giants such as Hockney. There’s hope yet when our teenagers can produce work of such outstanding quality, and (for what it’s worth) my guess is it will stand head and shoulders over anything given the Turner prize. Here’s a sample. 
I've never been much of a one for round robins. They smack, to me, of a bit of a cop out. Having said that, it's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of not embracing popular culture, especially when it saves him having to think too much about personal letters to people.
Here, then, is my annual round robin newsletter for friends and family. Happy New Year - when it comes!
I know some of my stalwart readers have suspected that my recent 'radio silence' might be part of some elaborate scam, and that I would emerge,in due course, in a North London police station claiming to have lost my memory. Meanwhile, the former Mrs Blunt would be living it up in Hunstanton on the proceeds of a modest insurance policy she had the foresight to take out on me just before we divorced.
Nothing could be further from the truth! I admit that the circumstantial evidence is all there - in particular, my familiarity with a certain Seaton Carew has not gone un-noticed by the odd reader or two. But that's merely a co-incidence, I can assure you.
Instead, my last few weeks have been spent working. When I hung up my quill and faced the dizzy prospect of retirement, I little thought that my financial circumstances would alter so much that I would be forced back to work. However, a divorce and the need to move home have both taken their toll on the old finances, and needs must, etc etc. It's been a shock to the system, I can tell you.
Nevertheless, the holiday season now beckons, so I thought I would take a little time out and wish my loyal reader all the very best for the holiday season. May 2008 bring you all the health and happiness you deserve. 
As a postscript, I must gratefully acknowledge that I have been tagged by the estimable Crofty, and I promise that sometime over the Christmas period I will get round to inventing 7 new things people don't know about me. Or I might just re-hash a few old ones!
When, at the behest of my son Jasper, I launched myself into the world of blogs, it was with no thought to the honours that might be bestowed on me.
Modesty almost forbids me from mentioning, therefore, that Bill Blunt's Blog has recently been awarded the coveted Golden C*** of Excellence Award by none other than that scion of upper class virtue, Lord Likely.
Throughout my career, I have always striven to maintain a modicum of respectability. Not for Bill Blunt the easy headlines to be gained by peppering my articles with words like 'Sex', 'Drugs' and 'Rock & Roll'. I think I know my audience, and those I do know are not comfortable with words calculated to cause my good friend, the Reverend Ivan Stang, to blush.
Lord Likely's award more than made up for the panning I got when my blog was recently reviewed by Humor-Blogs.Com.
I can't pretend I wasn't just a tad mortified to have my blog described as "an absolutely snooze-fest". Nor that someone seemed to think that my reflections on my recent marital breakdown were meant to be amusing: "All this person talks about is his wife leaving him. Maybe he isn't whining about it, but geez, I don't want to read about people's marital problems. If I did, I'd read the Enquirer..."
It would be easy to be wounded by such views. Fortunately, years of working in local journalism have hardened me to comments like that. I learned, long ago, that when the constant barbs of criticism are thrust towards your open heart, you need only to turn aside to deflect them.
At my age, recognition is enough.
Imagine the scene. A young boy still in short trousers and knee high socks, accompanying his Uncle Jesmond to his first ever football match. The excitement of the capacity crowd, the dashing players in their classic 1950’s kit, the roar of pleasure as the pie-man started his trail around the terraces. A mug of steaming Oxo at half-time, to take away the biting wind-chill of the Boundary Park terraces. Those were, indeed, the days - and must, I am sure, have led me into my life’s career as a sports journalist.
Although I was to later to cover many other sports, it was always to football that I returned. The steady commercialisation of the game was not something that I relished. The glorious game, made dirty by the noxious whiff of money, was the living nightmare that enmeshed Association Football during the 1980's, as television got its grubby hands on the game.
As a leading sports columnist of my generation, I sat on the sidelines as Messrs Murdoch and Co sullied the sport with their wads of cash. Somehow, it took the pleasure out of physically going to the match, as you could now watch the entire proceedings from the centrally-heated comfort of your lounge. Grey school shorts and Oxo were swapped, in later years, for bermuda shorts and a few tins of fizzy lager.
Last night, however, I had a conversion on the road to Birkenhead. Having realised that Oldham were playing my new local team, Tranmere Rovers, I decided to forsake the sofa, and don my worsted overcoat. Even as late as a few moments before purchasing my ticket, I was unsure which side to support. But, like that famous psychological test of tossing a coin to make your mind up about something (so that if it falls the wrong way, you finally know), as I approached the turnstiles my mind was made up. You can take the man out of Oldham, but you can't take Oldham out of the man.
And so it was that I joined the hardy band of away supporters, cheering on the Latics as they put up a sterling fight. Despite being close tot he bottom of the League, they fought valiantly against Tranmere, who looked shoddy and uninspiring by comparison. Tension mounted as the game drew to its close, the scoreline 0-0 after 90 minutes of play. Then, magically, Oldham managed to sneak in a winner in the final minute of extra time. Pleasure unbounded for the couple of hundred Oldham fans who had been in proud voice against the desultory silence of their Tranmere counterparts.
Tranmere Rovers 0 Oldham 1
