Pither, the Press and the Granthamgate Horror.

Pither exposed. Ok, it's a fair cop.


Oh lordy! That's torn it! I have been found out. It seemed funny at the time but I have downgraded to Chuckle Factor Five and now think my gonads could be heading for the mincer.
The folk of Grantham are onto me. I wonder how many of them have a sense of humour? I think I will shortly be finding out.
There is a delicious irony in the way I was exposed - it was by Her Majesty's Press. Yes, Pither, 21 years before the mast of daily newspaper journalism, hunted down like a dawg and put to the sword by fellow hacks. Is the blog just a bit of fun or "an insult to Grantham and its people", bellowed the Grantham Journal?
Well, the e-mails are starting to come thick and fast now but, guess what? It turns out that there are some jolly good eggs and socially sound coves in Grantham (thanks Pinky, you were the first). No, this isn't a pathetic, grovelling attempt to apply a placating Pither plaster to the gaping, weeping sore which is this blog. It is the truth.
This leaves me with a dilemma. Is it morally sound and totally equitable to unleash the contents of my own Pandora's Box on ALL of the townsfolk? It is, after all, basically the bricks and mortar of Grantham at which my bile is aimed, the concept, the image in the ether, not the inhabitants themselves - well, not all of them. I am tempted to think that the Baroness Bitch Troll From Hell, the Grantham-born Thatch Creature, was not fair to us during her reign of terror and that when we dared to complain her attitude was somewhat "On yer bike and tough titty fishface". I shall, however, rise above that.
I propose, therefore, an amnesty for all the Thatcherphobic residents of that Lincolnshire town. They shall be spared the Wrath of Pither. They shall, instead, be coralled in a happy suburb - Grantham Even Newer Town - where you can still buy sherbert fountains, where a call centre is a public telephone kiosk, where Big Brother is only a character in a book by Orwell and where people in hospital are "patients" and not "customers". Home-loving hedgehogs shall be theirs, along with funny people and a civic ban on musicals.
Hurrah! Viva Grantham Even Newer Town! Pestilence, plague and the pith of Pither to all Thatcherphiles in Grantham. Do your worst, bring it on. I'm still standing.