Oh, bugger!

Just as I was packing ready for the Blunt's annual trip to Frinton, I learn that the good people over at Humor-blogs.com have scheduled my blog for one of their much-feared 'assessments'.

Having read how they work, I see that they look primarily for quality content ... a nice layout ... frequent postings. Hmmm - that means I'll fall at every hurdle, particularly since I doubt I'll be able to post anything while I'm sunning myself in the East Coast's answer to Juan-Les-Pins.

Timing, as Groucho Marx was always fond of saying, is the secret of good comedy.

Well, as my readers know all too well, I'm not one to cravenly seek awards or flattery from my peers. I've been around the block enough times to know that these things aren't important in life.

I hope, then, that the fact that I have pre-ordered Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police at the ludicrously low, give-away price of just $9.95 (with FREE post and packing, to boot) isn't misread as some cheap attempt to influence the judging panel in my absence.

I'm not so shallow as to worry in the slightest what others think of my writing. It's enough to know that my distinctive voice, quieted for so many years since I retired from full-time journalism, is being heard again.

The Beagle's still barking for you!

Bill Blunt

Addendum: In my absence, you are invited to continue Fuelling My Blog. Not that I'm bothered, you understand, if you don't.

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...

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?

Help, I Need Somebody!

I have never been a man who was afraid to admit my technological weaknesses. In my later days at the Birkenhead Beagle, I well remember the excitement when our first ever Amstrad PCW's arrived, as we gamely got to grips with the language that was Locoscript. Patience and a lot of assistance from the helpdesk meant that we eventually cracked it (even if poor old Johnny Mercer never did understand that a Macro could be more than just somewhere you could buy cheap booze).

I can laugh at those days, now. Perhaps that's why I so much enjoyed this clip, sent to me by Jasper this morning?

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.

Of widgets

My youngest son, Jasper, has been continuing to monitor what he calls the blogosphere and promoting my new blog enthusiastically amongst his friends. He says they find it 'post post ironic', which I take as a compliment.

He reports that, for about an hour on Tuesday, my blog even made it into the coveted Number 1 slot in the News & Politics category at a site called Fuel My Blog. While checking, he noticed that the site is running a competition to design something called a widget. He is nothing if not game, so he's e-mailed his own contribution through to Thomas Hamburger, who has assured me it will accompany this posting.

Jasper has kindly assigned the widget to me, so that if I win, I get the prize of a blog consultation from Better Business Blogging, and the chance for the winning widget to feature on Fuel My Blog's site in the future. Thomas Hamburger has checked out Mr White's site, and assures me a good once-over of my blog is just what it needs.

Wish me luck!

The Losing of the Plot

Much as I admired the musings of my former colleague, Thomas Hamburger Jnr, on the darker side of genealogy in the Birkenhead Beagle, I must confess that I don't know what's going on in his latest Harry McFry mystery.

Whereas with the Hartshorn case I pretty much had it sussed after the first few chapters, I find that I have reached chapter 70 without the foggiest clue as to who stole Laurel McFry's family.

Mrs Blunt has her own theory, which she is keeping close to her (rather ample) chest. As for me, I wish I knew. I'd like to believe it was the butler, but this particular character has yet to make an appearance.

What's going on, and why on earth is Lillian Blyth so obsessed with this Jonathan Harcourt character, anyway? If he's dead, he's dead. It's your fault for living so long, woman!

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.