NOTTINGHAMIAN RHAPSODY

Happy September!

I used to say Autumn was my favourite time of year, then I decided that I prefer summers, and then summers got too hot and now I think I prefer Autumn again.

Fascinating.

Firstly, I want to give a shout-out to a new podcast by my friend Steve - you might know him better as teletext legend Horsenburger. If you like all things spooky and paranormal, Boo-Foons should be right up your street. Find it in all the usual podcast places.

Suffice to say, it's far less Marmite than today's unhinged episode of Bubblegun...

Hilariously, our recent Nottingham video continues to get views in part because we seem to have upset a whole bunch of Nottinghamians (I looked it up: this is what they’re called apparently). No idea if we got shared somewhere that they all congregate, but ohhh... the hate-watches we've had! I’ve left some of the comments in place, and had been enjoying winding them up, but I had to hide a few because they crossed some lines. So, now we can add Nottingham to the list along with Amiga owners.

Is it bad that I enjoy it when we – well, I – annoy people that seem to have had a sense of humour bypass? Especially when they entirely miss the fact we were actually very nice about their city?

I mean, the entire rest of the country shits constantly on London and it doesn’t remotely bother me. Yes, that’s sometimes driven by a lot of misinformation and a certain smallminded bigotry – which does bother me - but it’s not like London doesn’t have its issues. I haven’t been into central London in forever because I find it all too overwhelming these days… but that's not because the place has become some sort of no-go-zone ruled by Sharia law (like certain people would have you to believe). There aren't roaming squads of Woke Police shutting down free speech.

At the same time, I’m proud to say I’m from London… even if, technically, I’m right on the fringes of it, with one foot in a juicy swathe of greenbelt. I often get accused of living in a “London bubble” – the implication being that we’re all liberal softy elites down here, and that we don’t have a clue about the issues preoccupying the rest of the country. That’s clearly part of why we’ve had some shitty comments of late, because I think they see the title, see the intro, hear my accent, and think “How dare he come here and have opinions our home!? What does he know?!”

That said, there IS a degree of truth in the whole London bubble thing. My youngest moved down to Brighton, which is probably far more liberal even than London, but my eldest daughter moved up to Lincolnshire and married a local. Things are different up there. But also... not that different, y'know.

Come on, rest of the country: there are enough reasons not to like me without adding where I live to the list.

Anyway. All good fun.