Special Guest Blogger: Chuck Norris

I always assumed that death was actually too afraid to check its calendar when it sees my name, the Grim Reaper kept sending me Get Well cards even when I’m not sick just to stay on my good side but its appears he finally plucked up the courage to knock on my door.  
People always asked me, how did you become the man, the myth, the legend and its a long story and starts with Karate, ends with a roundhouse kick to the face of destiny in Hawaii and involves a whole lot of denim in between.
I wasn’t born a martial arts master,  I was actually born a relatively normal human being in Oklahoma and my early years were quiet as I was a shy kid. But then I joined the Air Force and got stationed in Korea where I quickly realised that waiting for bad guys to come to us was a waste of perfectly good punching opportunities and that’s where I met Tang Soo Do among the rice paddies, a Korean martial art.
I came back to the States and started opening Karate schools where i didn't so much push the gentle resistance side of Karate and concentrated more on the fists and feet and in the late 60s, I started competing. I won the World Middleweight Karate Championship in 1968 and held it for six years.
They didn't just give me black belts, they practically begged me to take them and I accumulated black belts like some folks collect stamps. Taekwondo? Check. Judo? Check. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? I eventually mastered so many styles that I had to found my own: Chun Kuk Do, or The Universal Way.
When I retired in 1974 it was because I ran out of people who were willing to be hit by me for a trophy and a man can only kick so many sparring partners before he starts looking for a bigger challenge so then came the movies.
Some folks ease into acting with small roles, maybe a commercial. Me? My first big break was literally going toe-to-toe with Bruce Lee in Way of the Dragon. Bruce was a dear friend and a phenomenal martial artist. He asked me to play his opponent in the final fight at the Roman Colosseum and it was then that I realised my chest hair had its own gravitational pull. It was a simpler time, one roundhouse kick at a time.
The 1980s were a blur of cordite, sweat and sleeveless shirts but the 80's were a terrifying and desperate time to be alive. The world was entering a recession and governments slashed welfare budgets so they could treat themselves to a nice war every now and again. The United States and Soviet Union stockpiled ever more powerful weapons in a game of Thermonuclear Chicken. Duran Duran walked the Earth unopposed like some New Romantic behemoth and I did Missing in Action, The Delta Force, and Lone Wolf McQuade and then came the 90s and I swapped the jungle for the Texas brush and became Cordell Walker.
Walker, Texas Ranger ran for eight seasons. We didn’t have a script for most of it. The writers would just write Chuck walks into a bar and I’d take it from there with me representing Law, Order, and the ability to kick a man through a plate-glass window while wearing a very nice cowboy hat.
Around 2005, something strange happened. The internet discovered me and memes abounded even if nobody actually watched my films but it did keep the youth of today aware that there is a man out there who only backed down to give myself more room for a running roundhouse kick which most people have at some point tried to replicate in their living room and ended up knocking over Grandma's flower vase or her prize-winning porcelain cat.
Beyond the flying kicks and the unwavering stare, there was a man with a set of principles as solid as my jawline. I was an outspoken Christian, and my faith was always part of me and I loved everyone as long as they were not gay, or into science or anything although i do put my extreme right wing views down to being punched and kicked in the head so much in the 70s but i maintain that America is the land of the free, not the land of the free lunches for minorities. Okay? I don't care if they are the ones serving it. They shouldn't get it for free.
So that's my story then and now i know what the internet is like but this is a somber occasion and humor at this particular time would be inappropriate so you are going to mourn and be sad and somber and you will be respectful. Any deviation from this will result in me coming back and delivering an immediate roundhouse kick to your face.

Special Guest Blogger: Shannen Doherty

If you’re reading this, one of two things is true. Either you’ve finally decided to care about my life story (thank you, loyal fan!), or you stumbled here while Googling 'Is that 90210 girl still alive?' Spoiler: She’s not. But more on that later.
Let’s start at the beginning or as I like to call it, the part where I accidentally became a ’90s icon.
I was born in 1971, which, in astrological terms, means I’m a Cancer.
My big break? Little House on the Prairie. The show where I played a girl who lived in Minnesota and by the time I joined Beverly Hills, 90210, I’d mastered the skill of  pretending to be a rich teenager.
Eventually, I decided to stop playing teenagers and start playing, well, adults? You may have seen my 10 page nude spread in Playboy. Very artistic.
It was a rocky transition but hey, I tried and while I may not have won any Oscars, I did manage to survive Hollywood long enough to realize that no one knows what they’re doing. Not the producers. Not the stylists. And definitely not me because i was labelled the bad girl of the nineties which didn't help when the tabloids regularly featured heavy partying, on set lateness and physical fights but especially particularly my long running feud with fellow 90210-er Jennie Garth.  
My next big hit was being cast in the television series, Charmed where i played one of the lead characters, Prue Halliwell, the oldest of three sisters who are witches but after three seasons i was sacked due to severe on-set tensions with co-star Alyssa Milano.
My attitude probably explains why i was married, and divorced three times, well two and half actually because one of my last acts was to finalise my divorce and the official declaration arrived two days after my death.
Cancer. That's one party crasher we all hope never shows up. In 2008, I got the 'You’re dying, sweetie' news but I’m Shannen Doherty! I didn’t just have cancer, I turned chemo into a spa day (minus the cucumber slices), survivors’ meetings into group therapy and my YouTube channel into a platform for me to argue with my Intravenous Drip pole.
The worst part? Explaining to people that yes, I did have breast cancer which had spread to my bones and brain, and no, I won’t stop talking about it.
I guess now i'm dead I am best remembered as Brenda Walsh and not the woman who laughed in the face of mortality and wore ugly sweaters to chemotherapy but that's ok, as long as i am also remembered for my grit, hope, badassery and gorgeous, glossy hair.

The Truth About Out There?

Hilary Clinton said she would 'get to the bottom' of the alien conspiracies if elected' but then she didn't get elected so that was the end of that but recently Former President Barack Obama told a recent podcast that aliens: 'Are real but I haven’t seen them' but the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have registered the alien.gov and aliens.gov web domains to the official government website registrar and issued a 'Stay tuned!' email complete with an alien emoji in response to journalist’s request for clarification.
Despite now calling UFOs UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) something is coming as we can only hope that the US Government is better at releasing files about Aliens than they have been releasing files about pedophiles.  
I'm not sure how much coverage it got in the USA but a colleague at the American Media company i spoke to told me that last week at that Barksdale air force base in Louisiana, an order was issued to 'shelter-in-place due to an unmanned unidentified aerial systems operating over the installation'. Not saying it is aliens watching whatever they were doing in Louisiana and with the American Government annoying everyone, it could have been any number of nations buzzing Louisiana with something but that lacks imagination.
UFO experts are keen to remind people that a release of files in the 70's revealed that most UFO reports in the 1950s were in fact manned reconnaissance flights that they lied about to protect sensitive national security projects so they are waiting to read things for themselves.  
In 2021 a US government report was released that showed they had investigated decades of unexplained aerial sightings in US airspace and there was 20 unidentified flying objects that they are unable to explain short of they are not US military and could possibly be the experimental technology of a rival power, such as China or Russia but it does not rule out extraterrestrial activity as a possible explanation.
What i always tell people getting over excited about aliens visiting is that what they are talking about is UFO's with extra emphasis, italics and underlining of the Unidentified part of those three words.

Nige Don't Love Don Anymore

After the best part of a decade lodged firmly in Donald Trump's colon, The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage has belatedly clocked that most British people really don’t like the US president and is now desperately trying to distance himself from the Orange turd.
Whether the British attitude is down to his name being in the Trumpstien files only less than Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell or the disastrous Operation Epic Fail the mastermind has unleashed on the Middle East or just because he is an abhorrent human being on every level but Farage, who has his eyes on replacing Keir Starmer into Number 10, now wants us to forget that Farage really, really did like Donald Trump.
He is also keen to hope we get amnesia that only three weeks ago he was ranting at the Prime Minister for failing to jump two-footed into Israel and the US’s Iran operation yet these days he's saying that the UK should avoid 'unnecessary and costly involvement in foreign wars'.
Nobody in the current crop of British politicians have sucked up as long or as hard to Donald Trump as the fag breathed Nige and with Donald Trump being as popular as a cream cake at an Slimmers World meeting with the British, he's been letting it be known that  the relationship between the two men have cooled.
All as believable as a former Prince being in the Woking area not sweating and eating pizza the night he was sexually assaulting one of Epsteins victims but Farage is finding that you are judged by the company you keep and his company for a long time was the guy who is currently screwing our energy, food and mortgage bills while threatening to start the third world war and call us picky, but we don't like that.

Special Guest Blogger: Chris Rea

I never thought I’d die at Christmas. Not because I’m not festive. Oh, I am. I’ve always fancied myself the sort of bloke who’d go out in a blaze of tinsel and mulled wine, preferably after eating one too many Quality Street chocolates. But I didn’t expect it to happen right when my most famous song started playing on every supermarket sound system from Aberdeen to Arizona.
Shuffling off this mortal coil 3 days before Christmas. The irony? It’s not lost on me.
I spent most of my life chasing fame with a guitar and a determination to prove I wasn’t just another bloke from Middlesbrough who liked the blues. And then, somehow, I became famous. Not 'I’ve-got-a-waxwork-in-Madame-Tussauds' famous, mind you. More like 'Wait, you’re that bloke who sang that car song, aren’t you?' famous. But hey, I’ll take it. I once got served before George Michael at a fish and chip shop in Hartlepool because the bloke at the counter recognised my voice. True story. I think he thought I was going to break into song. I did. It ruined his day. And his chips.
I sold over 30 million records which isn't bad considering I had a voice that sounded like it’s been sanding down a coffin for the last 40 years. And yet, people still loved me. Or at least, they love the idea of me driving home for Christmas anyway.
Bless that little ditty. I wrote it in ten minutes during a heatwave, dreaming of snow and family and not getting lost on the M1. I had no idea it would become the unofficial anthem of the festive season.
Every time December rolled around, I become a seasonal deity. Shops blasted my dulcet, gravelly tones at pensioners buying mince pies. Radio stations played it on loop and then i died at Christmas. Perfect timing. Bit of a PR masterstroke, really. Nothing says legend like passing during the peak playback season of your most iconic track.
And the best part? I’m gonna be sharing record space with Wham! and Mariah forever on every Best of Christmas record. Get in.
I may not have had the flamboyant costumes or the stadium tours of the bigger pop acts. I didn’t wear capes or date supermodels or set anything on fire (on purpose). But I sang about driving, about rain, about life being a bit rubbish sometimes  and people listened. And now, whenever someone listens to Driving Home for Christmas, whether they’re stuck in traffic, missing a loved one, or just eating a cold turkey sandwich at 2 a.m., I’m there with them.
So dying at Christmas wasn’t part of the plan. But then again, neither was becoming a cult figure for seasonal driving and remember, if you are driving home for Christmas and you hit a patch of ice, steer into the slide.

Meningitis Outbreak Not Another Coronavirus

A Meningitis outbreak in Kent which has claimed the lives of two young students takes us back to the early days of the Covid outbreak with lines of people queuing up to be vaccinated and concerns over the amount of inoculations available.
At the moment there have been two deaths and 27 confirmed cases and 15 further under investigation in the Kent area and the NHS are warning that they expect cases to rise over the next few days although they are keen to  state that unlike the Covid virus, the Meningitis bacteria is not transmitted through the air and it is safe to use public transport.
As of this morning over 930 students at Kent University have received the immunisations but as they can take up to a week to work and is more of a long term protection, anyone with symptoms should take Antibiotics immediately which work much quicker.
The scientists at the Department of Health are calling this outbreak as 'unusual' and 'affecting more people than expected' have traced ground zero to a nightclub in Kent where most of the victims visited over the last few weeks and are working on several theories including the students sharing vapes as the the bacteria which can cause meningitis is transmitted primarily through saliva.
Also being considered is that the lack of social mixing by students in their younger years due to the Pandemic may have left them less naturally immune to MenB as well as the bacteria itself possibly evolving and changing to be more transmissible.
Obviously there will be scaremongering but nobody in authority is expecting this to spread to other parts of the country and if there are cases from students returning home, it absolutely is not another Covid which was spread through the air and the Meningitis bacteria does not survive very long on surfaces.

Special Guest Blogger: Billy Bonds

Famous? Me? That bird who sings about the poker face is famous. I’m just an old docker's son from Stepney who happened to be decent at kicking a bag of wind around a muddy patch of East London. Blimey. If that’s all it takes to be famous these days, the standards have slipped more than a defender on a greasy pitch at the Boleyn Ground in January.
People talk about me playing career. Captain of West Ham for a decade, a couple of lovely FA Cup wins to stick on the mantelpiece, over 800 appearances. Mind-boggling numbers, aren’t they?
I wasn’t pretty. Never have been. Me hair had a mind of its own, and me running style was described by one journalist as like a baby giraffe chasing a runaway lunchbox. Fair enough. But they didn’t call me ‘Bomber’ for nowt. My job was simple, get the ball, and if the other fella was attached to it, well, that was his Lookout. We’d play on pitches that looked more like the Somme than a sporting venue.
Being captain, though… that was different. It wasn’t about being the best player. It was about being the first one to a fight and the last one to leave. It was about looking at young Trevor Brooking, this elegant artist trying to paint a masterpiece on a canvas of cowpat, and thinking, 'Right, son, you just worry about the brushwork. I’ll handle the decorators.' That was our legacy. A bit of silk and a whole lot of steel. We weren’t just famous, we were family. The fans knew that because they’d cheer for a last-ditch tackle as loudly as they would for a forty-yard screamer.
Then they had the bright idea of making me manager. The Guv’nor. Crikey. As if playing wasn’t stressful enough. Being manager is a mug’s game. You’re responsible for everything. The kit, the tactics, the tea bags, and stopping a 19-year-old with more money than sense from thinking he’s the next messiah because he’s scored in a pre-season friendly.
I lost a good deal of me hair in that job. I reckon I could have made a small wig out of what I found on the floor of the office each morning. But was nice to see those kids like Lampard,Ferdinand, Cole and Carrick come through.
My tactical masterclasses, I’ll admit, were… limited. My main philosophy was: 'Give it to the clever one, and if you lose it, win it back bloody quickly.' Not exactly Arsene Wenger, is it?
But it worked. We had a go. We always had a go. That, for me, is what West Ham is all about. Not the fame, not the headlines, but having a proper go, that and bollicking the linesman all the way down the tunnel at full time.

Destiny Calling For Aston Villa

The Football season is reaching its exciting climax and it is a great time to be an Arsenal fan because of the 4 possible competitons we could win, we are still in contention for all 4 with the first one this Sunday against Manchester City in the League Cup Final.
Nine points clear in the Premier League with 7 games to go, it looks like it would take an almighty collapse to lose while we are playing Southampton in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup and  last night an Eze wondergoal and a not too shabby effort from Declan Rice saw us through to the Quarter Finals of the Big European Cup where Sporting Lisbon await.
I was hoping for the Norwegian side FK Bodø/Glimt just for the romance of a club from the Arctic Circle with a capacity of 8,270 spectators joining in the fun but they blew a 3-0 first leg lead to end up on the wrong side of a 5-3 scoreline. Oh Skam as they say in those parts.
So it is a good time for us Arsenal fans but i would be getting excited if I was an Aston Villa fan also because as fate would have it, they are managed by Unai Emery, a man who knows a thing or two about winning the Europa League having picked up this particular Pot four times and this is where it get strange.
He has won it three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal but lost in the final with Arsenal whose name does not include VILLA so if I was them i would be booking that double decker bus now for the end of May because destiny has spoken and it is saying the only thing that will stop them winning the thing is a name change between now and the final in Istanbul on 20 May 2026. 

How Starmer Reached His Iran War Conclusion

What's the difference between Donald Trump and a tanker full of oil? One is dense, sticky and heavy and the other one is a tanker of oil and after 18 days the Iran War is still ongoing and despite all the inane White House bluster about having already won, it doesn't look as though it will end anytime soon as the Orange Man-baby keeps begging for help as the missiles continue to fly from Iran and the US economy takes a huge hit because of the ships stuck on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz.
I have always struggled to warm to Keir Starmer but the fact that he told Trump to do one when he tried to pressure him into the joining the misadventure has  raised him up in my opinion and giving the reason that the UK Government deemed it illegal and was launched with no viable plan was a slap across the bright Orange cheeks of the US President.
We now know why we reached the decision that it was illegal and the ever changing reasons given for starting it a crock of bull because in the meeting with the Iranian and the US was our own national security adviser Jonathan Powell who briefed the Cabinet that at the meeting the Iranians had made some surprising offers to continue diplomacy which included a permanent deal with no sunset clauses as well as down-blending the stockpile of highly enriched uranium under the supervision of the IAEA inside Iran and a three- to-five-year pause on domestic enrichment with the US being given the chance to participate in any future civil nuclear programs and in return, nearly 80% of the economic sanctions on Iran would have been lifted.
Powell and the other mediators also spoke of concern that the US delegates, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner where out of their depth and had no technical team alongside to rely on but after the opening offers, Powell and the other delegates considered it progressive and fully expected the next round of talks in Vienna on Monday 2 March to bring forward a diplomatic solution but but never happened as the US and Israel launched their all-out attack two days before the meeting was due to take place.
Oman’s foreign minister, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, who was part of the talks, appeared on news shows to outline just how far the talks had progressed and that he described a deal that could be signed within days and appeared to back up Powell's assessment that diplomacy was working and the war was rushed into at the behest of Benjamin Netanyahu.  
One Gulf diplomat with knowledge of the talks said: 'We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.'
It was Powell's advice that formed the basis of the UK government’s refusal to back the US attack on Iran as there was no compelling evidence of an imminent threat of an Iranian missile attack on Europe or of Iran securing a nuclear weapon and as there was a viable diplomatic option, the US and Israeli attack was necessary.
Instead the UK regarded the attack as unlawful and premature since Powell believed the path remained open to a negotiated solution to the long-running issue of how Iran could reassure the US that it was not seeking a nuclear weapon.
Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, yesterday answered a question in the House of Commons which asked if she believed a negotiated path between Iran and the US was still possible at that time, replied that: 'The UK did provide support for negotiations and diplomatic processes around the nuclear discussions. We did think that was an important track and we did want it to continue. That is one of the reasons for the position we took on the US strikes.'
Trump can bluster and lie all he likes but judging by the complete reluctance of any other nation to join him and Netanyahu in their war, everyone else also reached the same conclusion as the Brits.

Special Guest Blogger: Dickie Bird

So, here I am. Famous, so they tell me. When I were a nipper, running around the cobbled streets of Barnsley, the only famous person I knew were the lads who could afford a second helping of pudding. Then, I couldn’t go for a pint without someone wanting to talk about a catch in Brisbane in 1979. It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong. But it’s also… peculiar.
Me life. Well, it started with a cricket ball. More specifically, with me trying to hit one and missing it by a good three feet. I’ve always said, I were a better player than I thought. It’s just that the cricket bat had a different opinion. I could see a ball swinging in the air a mile off, but when it came to hitting the thing, I had all the grace of a falling wardrobe. It’s why I became an umpire, I suppose. It was the only way I could guarantee I’d be right at the centre of the action, without the embarrassment of being clean bowled for a duck.
And what an action it was. Suddenly I was out there, in the white coat, under the sun, with the greats of the game. Ian Botham, swaggering to the crease like he owned the place… which, half the time, he bloody well did. Vivian Richards, with a smile so wide you could see his back teeth and a bat that sounded like a thunderclap. They were all famous, see. Properly famous. Me? I was just the daft Yorkshireman in the coat telling ‘em to get on with it.
I stood behind the wicket of 66 Test matches and 92 One-Day Internationals. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Let me tell you what it really is. It’s 158 occasions of desperately trying not to need the lavatory while the cameras are on you. It’s thousands of hours of squinting at a little red dot and trying to work out if it clipped a bit of wood or not.
But I had me rituals. Oh, aye. They’re what I’m properly famous for, I think. The meticulous polishing of the bails between overs. Making sure they were pristine. Can’t have a grubby bail, can you? It’s just not cricket. And the little signal for the telly replay, finger up, twitching like I’ve sat on a bee.
And the seagulls. Don’t get me started on the seagulls. Lord’s, 1975. One of them big, swaggering London gulls lands on the pitch. Right in the line of sight. I shooed it. It squawked. I shooed it again. It squawked louder and took a step closer, as if to say, ‘You want a piece of this, soft lad?’ We had a standoff. Me, a famous international umpire, and a bird with a greedy eye and a bad attitude. The game stopped. The crowd were in stitches. In the end, I had to get the groundsman to come out with a broom. It was the most undignified moment of my career. And yet, it’s what people remember. Not the thousands of correct decisions, but the time I got mithered by a seagull.
So what am i remembered for now I’m gone? Will it be the immaculate crease? The unwavering eye? Or will it be the story about the time I stopped a Test match because I’d lost me lucky coin? I hope it’s a bit of both because that’s what cricket is, a ridiculously serious game played by people who are, at heart, a little bit daft.