Springfield

Thanks to Alkelda at "Saints and Spinners" for directing me to The Simpsons Movie site where you can make your own Simpsons avatar character. Above you can see me strolling through Springfield to meet my old mate Homer in order to discuss next year's "Mature Blogger" awards over a do-nut or two.

By the way, visitors old and new, this blog will probably be in mothballs until August 9th because Shirley and I are heading to the south of France tomorrow - Biarritz then Lourdes, then five days with my brother and his girlfriend near Pamiers before a short spell at the Mediterranean near Perpignan and then home. See ya later!

Matter

"...the matter was now in the hands of the police." Yuk! I know they're pigs but that is disgusting!

Division

Towards the end of June, Yorkshire was hit by the worst floods in living memory. Thousands of households were affected and yet... the national media and national politicians were slow to react. It took a full ten days before the BBC Ten O' Clock News gave proper coverage to the awful floods in Hull -which labelled itself with bitter irony, England's "Forgotten City". Our new prime minister - Gordon Brown took twelve days to reach South Yorkshire and Hull to pat rescue workers on their backs and visit some affected dwellings and schools. To give Prince Charles his due - he was round and about offering heartfelt support well ahead of Mr Brown.

And now new floods have hit our island - but this time mainly affecting the southern rivers Severn, Avon, Thames and Great Ouse. And what do you know - surprise, surprise - the film crews and reporters, politicians and journalists are there straightaway! They are standing in waders and wellies - they are "Live" from the scene while Gordon Brown is shown marshalling his cabinet like Winston Churchill in wartime. An objective observer of the media would confirm this clear bias. England remains a divided nation.

You see it in various guises. Look at a quality Sunday magazine - take the restaurant recommendations - invariably they are nearly all down south with perhaps a token northern restaurant thrown in for good measure - to keep accusations of bias at bay. I remember when I was ten or eleven years old, camping with my family in South Wales - I met a boy of similar age who came from London. We were chummy enough for him to ask me one evening at the swings, "Do you have electricity in Yorkshire?" That kind of ignorance about "Up North" abounds in southern England and there are plenty of southerners who have never travelled north of Watford. It's like an old map and in the unexplored northern territory the cartographer has written "There be monsters!"

I am proud to be a northerner. I would loathe living in London with its pretensions and cosmopolitan over-indulgence, its greasy palmed taxi drivers and besuited tube commuters scowling like saints in stained glass windows, its Hooray Henries and "IT" girls, its beggars and blaggers, its Chelsea and Arsenal and pearly furred women clambering out of Bentleys and motor cycle couriers honking. Good heavens - I am shocked to admit that we northerners probably have more in common with the Scots than we do with those southern softies! Come on lads and lasses! To the barricades! Home Rule for Yorkshire!

Sport

Isn't television sports coverage wonderful these days? Although football (soccer to Americans) will always be my first love, there are numerous other sports that I can watch in goggle-eyed awe. Rugby - the only sport I ever really excelled in at school - cricket, tennis, darts, snooker, indoor bowls, basketball, athletics. One of the few sports that bores me rigid is horse racing - in fact any sports that involve horses leave me feeling grossly underwhelmed.

Last evening, I watched the conclusion of the British Open Golf Championship live from Carnoustie in the county of Angus on Scotland's east coast. Sergio Garcia of Spain snatched defeat from the jaws of victory while Ireland's Padraig Harrington held his nerve to clinch his first major and a cheque for £750,00. It was tense and fascinating stuff. Golf is about form and bounce and lady luck. The changing weather meant that participants were suitably challenged. It was a great tournament.

Padraig Harrington - the first Irish winner of The Open since 1947.

You know sport doesn't matter. It is unimportant - a mere adjunct to life - but perhaps it reminds us that living life to the full must involve some frivolity and activities that take the spotlight away from the daily grind of work and sleep and getting food on the table. At times it is like a new religion - with hushed audiences, team colours, chants and pure unadulterated hero worship. Perhaps they'll make Padraig Harrington the next Pope!

Apologies

It appears that the "Mature Blogger" awards have created some tantrums and foot-stomping from many bloggers who were not recommended for this year's prizes. Unsuccessful candidates must recognise that the "Mature Blogger" team set very high standards, scouring the world wide web and closely monitoring thousands of blogs from around our planet. However, our Welsh team of judges have sadly blundered this time round by failing to forward their nomination by the due date. For this we most heartily apologise.

The affected blogger may now have the satisfaction of knowing that the Welsh judging team have been sentenced to a weekend drinking spree in downtown Cardiff - bound to end up with fighting, an unwanted pregnancy, a night in the cells or a real Cardiff greeting - the broken glass attack that leaves you permanently scarred. Land of my bally fathers! Of course the affected blogger is the annually "Demob Happy Teacher" - Jennyta , known to her friends and ankle biting pupils as "Taffy". This blog can be intermittent as mature Jennyta lives a demanding life - balancing the stresses of home, school work and sheep rearing. Once again Jennyta please accept a big "sorry" from "Mature Blogger". A bouquet of lilies is even now winging itself to your door!

Jennyta - wantonly setting the style in her Welsh sheep farm playground.

Ceremony

The audience of assembled mature dignities was hushed yesterday evening as the winners of this year's "Mature Blogger" awards received their coveted prizes at The Woodseats Workingmen's Club off Woodseats Road in Sheffield. Each recipient gave a moving and maturely phrased acceptance speech with awards being variously sponsored by Walls' Pork Sausages, Saga Holidays, The Pfizer Pharmecutical Company and The Cooperative Funeral Parlour on Queens Road.

This year the only overseas winner was the mature Mrs Friday-Webb from Rednecksville, North Carolina. Her figure-hugging jet-black chiffon gown with its plunging neckline caused some members of the audience to gasp with incredulity and Ms Mopsa from Devon yelled out "You brazen hussy!". Her brown tweed twinset with cerise blouse and grey Nora Batty stockings did not invite the same kind of reaction.

Above: Mrs Muddy Boots, Ms Mopsa, Mrs Friday-Webb and Ms Griselda A. Cobblers thumbing through "Studs and Stallions" magazine after the Woodseats ceremony.

Interviewed afterwards, Mr Arctic Fox said he had always thought of himself as rather immature and Ms Griselda A. Cobblers from Northampton said that she felt so mature "it hurts!"

Scandalously, Mr A. Clewley from North Yorkshire was discovered behind the stage curtains in an unseemly romantic clinch with the ice cream magnate Mrs M. Boots. Both blushed with dire embarrassment. Rebuttoning her blouse, a flushed Mrs Boots growled "What you looking at you perv!" Mr Clewley asked for a beta blocker.

Direct from Springfield, Vermont, President Homer Simpson gave a video-conferencing address in which he praised maturity in blogging. The Sheffield master of ceremonies, well-known screen actor, Olympian, academic and all round good egg Lord Yorkshire Pudding referred to up and coming bloggers who could be in the frame for next year's awards - including Texan Earthmother - Mrs ByGeorge, Washington State subversive storyteller Alkelda the Gleeful, animal-loving terraced house-dwelling journalist Miss Tracey Muttering-Meanderings, Manchester's princes of blogging Steve of "Occupied Country" and Mr Sparrots from the city's wealthy Cheshire underbelly and last but not least South London's own Hamish McBeth - Mr Walter Reidski.

After the ceremony award winners and supporters all descended on "The Big Tree" in Woodseats and in a mature way got utterly sozzled on sweet sherry and barley wine. Hic!

Supporting wrinkly bloggers

Awards

Borrowing an idea from Ms Mutterings and Meanderings, I have decided to institute a new blogging award:-

When listed you are entitled to copy the logo above and paste it into your own blog. The font is obviously "Simpsons" as the exclusive Society of Mature Bloggers is led by our noble President Sir Homer Simpson. The first six recipients of this award go to bloggers who have blogged with mature dignity, saying wise and mature things. Such bloggers drink in moderation, pray each night and begin every other sentence with either "When I was young..." or "In my day..."

1. Mr Arctic Fox - in spite of his weird ideas about paragraphing.
2. Mr Arthur Clewley - in spite of the fact he keeps going into a coma and failing to blog.
3. Mrs Friday-Web - in spite of her vindictive attitude towards The Thing.
4. Ms Ali Cobblers (Griselda) - in spite of her kindness towards down and out Scots in London.
5. Mrs Muddy Boots - in spite of her lucrative ice cream empire.
6. Ms Mopsa (definitely female) - in spite of her rural and inbred Devonshire habitat.

Any other bloggers who feel that they deserve the "Mature Blogger" award must send me money or grovel.

Sir Homer Simpson - President of Mature Bloggers.