Special Guest Blogger: Annie Oakley

It's a sad fact that the most profitable place to open a clinic that specializes in penis enlargement operations would be next to a gun range but it may be men with small genitals that like to play with guns but as the owner of a pair of X chromosomes it doesn't apply to me.
After becoming a crack shot to support my family's hunting, i won several shooting competitions and then beat a circus sharpshooter at his own game after he had bet me $100 that i couldn’t win against him, i later married him. I then toured the country with Sitting Bull as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, shooting dimes out of the air, snuffing out candles with one shot, and extinguishing smoking materials while they remained in men's mouths, one cigarette being shot from the gob of Kaiser Willhem of WWI fame.
One of my best tricks was turning my back and shooting at objects that were behind me using a mirror but not being the owner of testicles, the press hated me and ran several false stories and of the 55 suits i filed against the newspapers who ran the false stories to clear my name, i won or settled with all but one of them but the legal costs ended up being more than the settlements i received.
I was firm in my belief that with the exception of any penis related activity, i am of the opinion that anything a man can do, so can a woman and women could be just as skilled with guns as men, saying that i would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies.
As for the Second Amendment Gun Laws, obviously i am in favour so it is a shame that the people who try to defend it are idiots saying stupid things like it is all a left wing plot to disarm law abiding citizens so the Government can oppress them when another group of students end the days with bullet holes in them but don't listen to those soft limeys like this blog owner whose kids grew up playing with Barbies and Lego, American kids should be playing with guns in their bedrooms because a car made out of bright yellow lego bricks will be of no use in modern day America when someone starts to shoot up the local Walmart.

Shut Up And Sing

That deafening noise across the UK this morning was thousands of British Justin Bieber fans dumping their merchandise into rubbish bins because us British will put up with many things from our stars, but bigging up God and his merry band, nah.
Bieber has said that he has launched into a new direction and that direction is towards the made up man in the sky with the big long beard and good for him if that floats his boat, or Ark, and it may play well in the altogether more Religious USA but over here it puts him in the same league as Cliff Richards and that's not a cool league to be in.
Tony Blair admitted that he was afraid to speak out about his faith while he was prime minister for fear that voters would regard him as 'a nutter' although to be fair we reached for the 'war-mongering tosspot' first, and then the 'religious nutter' but he had a point because in the UK coming out as part of the God Squad sounds the death knell for anyone in the public eye unless you are the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Bieber's story is that everything that’s happened to him over the past decade, the drugs, the women, the negative headlines caught up with him and one night while staying at a Pasteur's apartment, it dawned on him that: 'I shouldn’t be on the planet still. I think it was by the grace of God so i need Jesus in my life'.
Not being one to miss a chance to recruit one of the most famous people and their bank account in the World to his gang of holy rollers, the Pasteur signed up Bieber to his cause and has been showing him the path of Jesus ever since apparently, a path that has lots of cash-point machines probably.   
If Bieber thinks hitching his star to God and his son will give him some sort of inner and mental peace then there is no harm, to his career this side of the Atlantic certainly, that's as dead as the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, but if it soothes his troubled mind then he can knock himself out with all the rosary beads and candles he can carry for all we care.  
If he thinks he can bang on about Jesus being some sort of saviour to British crowds then he can expect shouts of 'Shut up you weirdo and just sing 'Babe' to be hollered at him because we have a long history of mocking anyone who comes to the British public clutching a Bible, and damn right too.

Act NOW Boris

As Covid-19 cases rise significantly in the UK, it should be a no brainer that taking action now will prevent having to take prolonged and more painful action in a few months time but as seems to be the case with this Government, no brains is their specialty.
With a R-rate over 1 and daily cases now topping 4,000 and the corresponding death rate ominously creeping up with it, putting the brakes on immediately for a fortnight would drag the figures down but leaving it a month when the cases and deaths have tripled would take a longer period of lock-down and a world of hurt for families.
The state of the economy is the least of my concerns, it may take years but that will come back eventually, the same cannot be said for the unfortunate souls who die from the disease as it regains it's grim foothold on the population so whoever is advising the Prime Minister needs to grab him by the lapels and give him a good shaking.
Boris Johnson was rightly pilloried for amongst his many misjudgements in March, locking down too late causing the needless deaths of thousands, let's hope that he doesn't make the same mistake this time and can see that even if it takes a succession of short term stops and starts, it has to be better than waiting until the country is being ravaged once again before acting.
He also needs to get a grip on the test and trace system which has been woefully inept despite the relative respite of three months of summer to put a working system in place.
He got it disastrously wrong last time and he will be held to account for that but don't make the same mistake this time around and leave it until the bodies are piling up in the hospital morgues before deciding something has to be done, do it now.   

Special Guest Blogger: Giacomo Casanova

Right around the time the American colonies were throwing tea into Boston harbour and moaning about taxation, i was one of the most iconic male whores of all time and wrapping up a sex tour around Europe, bouncing between major cities and leaving so many impregnated ladies in my wake that it shouldn't be much of a surprise that i ended up sleeping with at least one person in my family tree. Unfortunately, that one person happened to be my daughter.
I lost my virginity aged 11 to my tutor’s younger sister and considered a career in the Church but sex and gambling put a stop to that particular vocation and i did like a practical joke although digging up a corpse and leaving it in my weak hearted friends doorway was a step too far. 

When he had a heart attack and the Venetian inquisitors were asking awkward questions i left Venice sharpish for Paris where i swindled many powerful elites but soon i ran out of women in Paris to introduce my penis to so went to Amsterdam and opened a silk factory manned by female only workforce, obviously.
People would say Giacomo, use your gift make money or buy a yacht, maybe a fast horse, and i say Casanova's gift to women is my groin so i went on my infamous year-long sex tour taking in Marseille, Genoa, Florence, Rome, Naples, Modena, and Turin, as one does. I got to see so many wonderful cities partly because i got kicked out of nearly every place i went because after sex i would give the woman a biscuit and i was causing an obesity problem.
I turned up in London which is a beautiful city. A real special place filled with hopes and dreams and beautiful and hot women, and men like me. 
Well not many men like me, but it is a jungle out there and i had my fair share of Rhino's in England.  I love all woman, even the fat ones, though I didn't tell anybody about that but then i couldn't because i didn't speak a word of English which was a slight problem when attempting to charm women on the British Isles but i still managed to catch venereal disease, so i did okay.
I lost my left hand in a duel over the heart, or more accurately certain other body parts, of an Italian actress and once fell for a young man who turned out to be a woman in disguise which was a nice bonus and had a ménage à trois with two nuns, one of who became pregnant so explain that one to the Chief Nun.
The daughter thing is even worse than it sounds, i didn't know until after she was pregnant with what turned out to be my own grandson and i asked her to marry me and then the mother decided to reveal that i was the girl's father. Oops.
I died in Bohemia working as a librarian which is a beautiful end to my story, like a gorgeous woman bending over to pick something up you know?

Special Guest Blogger: Rocky Marciano

Despite being the only heavyweight champion to have finished his career undefeated, i am hardly ever mentioned in the list of the greatest heavyweights because it is said that my time came during one of the lowest points ever in the Heavyweight division.
I was described as moving as though i was carrying a sack of coal on my back and was called flat-footed but i was never going to be a piano player, the name simply would not allow it although i was known to my fans as 'The Brockton Blockbuster' and known to my opponents as 'Oh my God, I just got flattened by a truck'.
I was undefeated in 49 fights and a had a knockout record of 87% and i competed in the AAU Olympic try-outs for the 1948 Olympics in the Boston
Garden but i busted up my hands beating George McInnis and had to withdraw and turned professional instead and 4 fights later i dinged the lights out on Jersey Joe Walcott with the infamous right hook i called Suzie Q.
Being from a poor family i was very careful with money and i got out of the boxing game early for two reasons, one is that big men hitting you continuously in the head is never a good idea and people punching each other in the face and bleeding may be some peoples idea of fun, well it was mine to be fair, but the other was that my manager was taking an extra large slice of my earnings so i began hiding money and turning down cheques worth thousands in favour of only hundreds in cash, because cheques could be tracked down by the boss.
It was this obsession with money which led directly to my death when i was only 45. Offered a free flight from Chicago to Des Moines, Iowa on a small private plane, i couldn’t resist. The pilot was inexperienced and the plane crashed, hitting a tree and killing all on board.

Special Guest Blogger: Bon Scott

Australian rock gods are about as rare as a sober Australian but i started out as AC/DC's chauffeur which isn't bad as far as promotions go.
Of course it ended with me being found dead after choking on my own vomit parked on a London back street but the bit between was brilliant.
I brought a loud, crazy, frantic, and overtly sexual energy to the group, not to mention an 8-year-old's sense of humor, at the Sunbury Rock Festival, we got into a fist fight with the rock band Deep Purple when we nicked their equipment and another one with the boys from Black Sabbath when we said they were washed up has-beens.
The adage may be never give up, never slow down, never grow old and never ever die young but it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, but apparently at least part of that journey takes you to a club named the Music Machine, a heroin dealers apartment and then finally to East Dulwich where you are left to die.
My band did go on to bigger and better things, they did consider Slade vocalist, Noddy Holder apparently but i was always the force behind AC/DC, I sang the songs and it was my face on the merchandise with the big hair, getting the girls, the non-stop partying, the clubs, the hotel suites, the TV smashed into a thousand pieces on the forecourt beneath our hotel suite window.
I sang about working class people, trying to make it through a tough life, I sang about the things they wanted like trashing hotel rooms, wearing glitter on your eyes, and waking up in a ditch next to a totalled sports car or not waking up in a pokey French car in a back street and dying young and leaving a beautiful, if a bit sick smelling, corpse. Rock n Roll!

Special Guest Blogger: Erik the Red

As sure as you can't be a midwife to a fairy, expect wisdom from a fool, or find a well dressed Englishman, it is assumed i was known as Erik the Red due to having red hair but it was more to mine and my families fiery temper.
Originally from Norway, my family and i ended up in Iceland after we were exiled from Denmark when my father killed a man after an argument and while in Iceland i attacked Eyiolf the Foul and killed him and then there was Thorgest the house builder who accepted the crystal cup at the feast offered by the dwarf or how you say nowadays, done a right cowboy job on our house so i killed him also and his sons and a few of his friends.
My son Leif had his mothers temperament, he went to North America and never killed anyone but his sister, Freydis, was certainly a chip off my block.
She followed her brother to North America and became caught up in a battle with the natives and ran through them slaughtering them, even more impressive that she was eight months pregnant at the time.
I did discover Greenland, a land of the frost giants but i wanted to attract settlers so i gave it the pleasant sounding name Greenland because Freezeyourballsoffland just doesn't have the same ring to it so it must have been a shock for those settlers when they found out how much of Greenland is covered in snow and ice.
Being a Viking was pretty cool, especially how we would roam around smiting fools with that massive sword of ours and taking a longboat with 20 of my finest men, heading to where the sun sets and finding a village to pillage, plunder and burn. Good days.
Sadly, by the coming of spring i was no more and ascended to the great halls of Valhalla but my legacy would be Greenland and the advice that to win in a game of life, you have to annihilate everything and everyone in your path in a blind rage which worked for me.

Special Guest Blogger: Joseph McCarthy

Paranoia is a terrible thing. Are you disagreeing with me? There's no point denying it, i know you are. Anyway, you don't have to take my word for it (and we know you don't) because you just have to look at all the Communists who were fired from their jobs and blacklisted from their industries for showing communist sympathies.
I had a list but we didn't get them all, those sneaky SOB's were everywhere and everything in America that has gone wrong was the communists fault but my fellow Americans were too smart to be fooled by Commies and you know what makes a real American?
Not a cowboy hat or enjoying a fine T-bone steak or even going to a baseball game nor is it shooting a gun. It’s something the Reds don't have, our freedom to defend the indefensible.
They hate that we have the freedom to ruin peoples livelihoods with scandalous lies or the freedom to elect a complete dumbass to President but most importantly it's the freedom to go into an oil rich country and tell them how to do things, blindly defending these freedoms is what makes a true patriot.
People say to me Mr McCarthy, what are the warning signs that my son or daughter could be becoming an extreme left wing Communist?
There are a few signs such as if they read complicated literature, have concern for their fellow man, they think for themselves and they like to share or show any doubts about the fairness of our Capitalist system then they should be immediately reported to a policeman because you have a Communist in training on your hands and the nightmare scenario of your child applying for a Democrat Party membership.  
Keep faith though because catch them early enough and in the right's company you can help rid them of any human decency to become a proper right winger. Keep them peeled people, those sneaky red bastards are everywhere!

Special Guest Blogger: Billie Holiday

When your father is 16 and your mother 13, life isn't going to be easy and throw in being guilty of being black in America then it's almost impossible. I became one of the first women of color to sing in an orchestra comprised of white people when i began to work with bandleader and clarinetist Artie Shaw although as i was guilty of not being white, i was not allowed to sit on the bandstand with my fellow musicians and had to enter and leave buildings through the kitchen rather than the front door.
I got into heroin and alcohol and one day in 1947 everything changed for me when i got busted for possession and sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp.
As i now had a criminal conviction, my Cabaret Card was revoked which meant that i was unable to perform music anywhere which sold alcohol which hit my career.
One of my most famous songs was Gloomy Sunday, a song which was said to be so depressing that at least one hundred suicides were attributed to it and the BBC banned my version of the song from being broadcast, only allowing performances of instrumental versions.
My other, and most famous song, was 'Strange Fruit', a song about the 'fruit' often seen swinging in the breeze that trees in the Southern US states seemed to sprout at an alarmingly and horrific rate at that time.
After years of alcohol dependency, i was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis and took up treatment for liver disease and heart disease but that day in 1947 came back to haunt me even as i lay dying.
I spent my final moments of life under arrest, it seemed the police were so determined to log that they had arrested me again, they made damned sure they got me before i inconveniently died so arrested me just as i took my last breath.

Special Guest Blogger: Solon

I don't know what was in the water in Ancient Greece but they sure did churn out a lot of us philosophers, probably the most famous being Socrates, Plato,  Diogenes and Aristotle and all very impressive and a good case could be made for all of them being the greatest thinkers ever, but i am credited for not only thinking up the earliest form of Democracy that would later become the system that you have today but i did it in the forms of poems.
How much more fun would it be and what with the age of austerity we are now in, all those poems about bankers although i'm struggling to think of any words that rhyme with bankers. Nope, can't think of any.
All my poetry has since been destroyed and it was a long time ago but my legislation including clear constitutional, economic and moral changes which led to me being included as one of the seven sages of Athens, the top seven individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom. 
I put into legislation that my reforms must stand for ten years and then to make sure i scarpered to Cyprus but it all fell apart after four and my nephew took over and formed a tyranny but the idea of democracy was formed and took hold later.
As for poetry, it has become the art form of choice for lovelorn lovers rather than law makers so here's one for you.

To poetry writers everywhere,
You may find this poem unfair,
Your cloud may wander lonely in the air,
But for your writing i just don't care,
It's adolescents with floppy hair,
With broken hearts they must repair,
Their deepest thoughts that they must bare,
With rhyming couplets laden with despair,
We all get passionate about things some time,
Just we don't make it into a bloody Rhyme!

Thank you, i'm here all week and the one after that, and the one after that and for all of eternity actually.