Isn't Frankie Boyle a funny wee man?

AS a person, wee Scot Frankie Boyle is probably a very charming and sensitive man, who buys flowers for his partner every Sunday, adores his two gorgeous children, cries at those sentimental Channel 4 weepies and regularly reads Mills & Boon.

But as a comedian, Frankie Boyle is a totally odious creature, who is about as funny as the bubonic plague.

Of course humour is a very subjective notion. Yet there were legions of fans lining up to support fearless Frankie this week for his side-splitting brand of jaw-dropping, close to the knuckle laughs.

That was when he perceptively chose to take a pitiful pop at a group of Hampshire schoolchildren who set a world record by arranging themselves in the shape of the Olympic logo.

Wise-cracking Frankie really hit the funny bone by describing the effort as “the most autistic response to a global event.” And the Mock The Week star added: “For the kids of Gosport, learning how to stand bewildered in a blue jumper is all they need to qualify them for a life of working in 99p stores.”

Oh how his fans lapped it up, loving the cheap, moronic humour. “Frankie's a comedian, he tells jokes and is very good at it,” wrote one on a comment board,

“Grow up for goodness sake.” Another chipped in sagely: “If you take things too seriously, then avoid this style of comedy and quit moaning all the time. Get over yourselves.”

And then this from another fervent Frankie fan: “A while back, audience members complained when Frankie Boyle made a disabled joke. However, they shut up after he reminded them that they had laughed all evening at ginger jokes, Irish jokes, sexist jokes, religious jokes and chav jokes. It's a bit hypocritical being touchy about one particular subject because it's close to your heart, but okay to pick on everyone else, don't you think?”

Well, they're welcome to fun-filled Frankie's brand of subtle as a sledgehammer humour, which is not clever, inventive or sophisticated. It's one-dimensional, based purely on the ability to shock.

I detest political correctness, as much as I loathe the words health and safety, so if there is an arena for Frankie's comedy then fine. But don't try to justify it as generally acceptable. Because it isn't.

Ironically, the Frankie story broke on the same day that we launched the Doughnut Dash 5k in aid of the Hampshire Autistic Society. Record-breaking 400 metre runner, Iwan Thomas, who I first met at the Atlanta Olympic Games 16 years ago, where he went on to win a silver medal in the 4x400m relay, had agreed to help promote the event.

Now retired, Iwan does a lot of TV work and corporate events - and recently ran the London Marathon - so trying to tie him down to a time for a photo call was tricky. But he was superb and posed for cameras and chatted to reporters to help launch the Doughnut Dash which takes place at the Mountbatten Centre in Portsmouth on Sunday, July 29^th.

Iwan admitted he would love to be there himself for the 13-lap race where competitors have to eat three Krispy Kreme doughnuts half way round. 

Already, we've had a good number of entries for this unique venture - the first of its kind in the UK. So with the race taking place over the first weekend of the London Olympics, I'm hoping that this unique fund-raiser will touch a nerve and we'll be inundated with folk wanting to compete.

All the money is going to the Hampshire Autistic Society which has been going for more than 30 years now, providing a wealth of services for the 16,000 people in the county who are affected by autism.

My son, Ross is one of those. Sadly, he suffered his first epileptic fit this week in almost six months which was hugely disappointing. Ross, who is now 14, has been taking the anti-seizure drug, lamotrigine after suffering a series of fits. This one on Wednesday was brief as he fell of his chair while going into a fit. We can only hope this is a rare lapse, but it is scary to have to deal with Ross's epilepsy on top of his autism.

Ross cannot talk, he cannot express his fears or his pain. He is an innocent autistic, the sort of victim that the courageous Frankie Boyle chose to pick on. How brave and wise of you, Frankie - pushing the bold boundaries of humour in aid of a cheap laugh.

The Doughnut Dash should be a fun event, let's hope the weather brightens up over the coming months. Besides the 5km run, there will also be children's races over 400m and 800m and there will be an adult 4x400m doughnut relay.

So, if you are down on the south coast, or know friends on the south coast who fancy a run and a few doughnuts, then log onto: www.doughnutdash.co.uk

I've got a meeting with the Portsmouth sports shop Alexandra Sports in the next week or two who have promised to supply some prizes, which is fantastic.

We'll have plenty of laughs on July 29^th, and when you are dealing with autism, you have got to keep your sense of humour – but there is a limit to that comedy, especially when it becomes tasteless and crosses the line.

When football had soul and humility

BLINK and you may have missed it on television, but at the end of the FA Cup Final last Saturday, Chelsea captain, John Terry, was pictured shaking hands with Fabrice Muamba on his way to holding aloft the famous trophy.

Terry, followed by Frank Lampard along with a succession of Chelsea players, warmly embraced and spoke to the Bolton Wanderers footballer who, just weeks earlier, had been lying critically ill at a London hospital after collapsing during a Premiership match.

The unbelievable outpouring of compassion and care shown towards the unfortunate Muamba by players and supporters from all shades of football was heart-warming and benevolent, yet it was also at odds with the ugly side which, at times, the professional game seems to represent.

As a piece of entertainment, the professional game is right up there. Skill levels are supreme, the quality of football sits at an unparalleled and unprecedented level. 

Yet the pay-off is that professional football is also a sport riddled with arrogant, millionaire footballers whose foul-mouthed pitch side tirades require few lip-reading skills, and whose propensity to play the game without honour betrays a spirit of the game where it once mattered.  

Equally, watch any television close-ups of some of the fans, spittle spewing from their mouths, fists thumping at rivals supporters, players, the referee - it borders on the moronic and pathetic. 

So like Jekyll and Hyde, these same upstanding citizens bowed their heads in sombre silence, put partisanship to one side, to describe football as a force for good in coming together for Fabrice Muamba. 

To me, this banal behaviour bordered as hypocritical, as if football was playing its credibility card.

Football lost all credibility the day it sold its soul and traditions to commercial television. How can the FA Cup Final be relegated to a 5.15pm sideshow on a Saturday afternoon following a programme of league football where key relegation and promotion issues were being decided?

Remember when FA Cup Final day was a day when football stopped and everyone's day was shaped around three 'o clock kick-off at Wembley Stadium's Twin Towers – the long TV lead-in from early morning with “FA Cup It's A Knockout”, interviews from the team hotels, cameras on board the team coaches, all the previews and goals, celebrity chats, Goal of the Season, the players walking out on the pitch, “Abide With Me” and then the final itself with David Coleman, John Motson, or if you fancied the simultaneous ITV offering, Brian Moore?!

I've just finished reading a book called “Steak...Diana Ross – Diary of a Football Nobody” by David McVay. He was a journeyman defender who played for unfashionable Notts County during the 1970s. The Magpies were my team, lumbering around at the time in the old Division 4, before eventually working their way up to the nose-bleeding heights of Division 1 guided by the irrepressible Scot, Jimmy Sirrell and later Howard Wilkinson.

The book is not a ghosted autobiography written by one of the Premiership fancy dans after a career spanning the life cycle of a rabbit. 

Instead, McVay's delightful book is a gentle jaunt through life as a footballer when the game was so much simpler, and poorer. It unstrips some of the legends who I grew up with and idolised; Don Masson, Brian Stubbs, Steve Carter, Les Bradd, Eric Probert and Arthur Mann. Their photos, cut from the pages of the Nottingham Evening Post, along with the match reports remain glued in scrapbooks hidden somewhere in my loft.

McVay's book tells of players' nights out after games, their madcap antics in training and even before matches. The played hard, and enjoyed life too – mainly Woodbines and Shipstones Ale! McVay was paid a paltry £25 a week and £40 a point, and drove around in a battered K-reg Fiat 218. No quarter was given in matches, or even in training at times, especially if one of the young apprentices tried to show up one of the pros, but there was a humility about the players and a depth to the game.

These players connected with their community and understood how it felt to go to work on a Monday morning after a team's loss on the Saturday – which was a frequent occurrence for County fans. They also respected their rivals as the book details how closely the Forest and County players got on even though the Reds from across the Trent were always regarded as the illustrious cousins.

Of course, football wasn't so wonderful then. Hooliganism, poor stadia, boggy grounds, hardly any live football on TV – just Match of the Day or the Big Match on a Sunday – and often the quality of football wasn't that great. But the atmosphere at grounds was generally rustic, and the pie and chips tasted bloody great. There was a charming innocence about football in the 1970s.

There is much to praise the modern game for, notably the rapid medical attention which Fabrice Muamba received at White Hart Lane which saved his life and the excellent stadia we now enjoy at top dollar prices.

However, football has lost its soul and will sadly never regain it.  

First rule of a successful marriage - clean out the mud-strewn shower tray!

JUST cleaned out the messy shower which, despite my best cleaning efforts this morning, still had a coating of mud round the fringes of the tray.

This, after returning home just before breakfast, caked in mud along my arms and legs having gone arse over tit Bambi-like during a quagmire run along a river path. My footing was all over the place, sliding away with every impact along the mud-strewn path, where the river had burst its banks and was flowing into fields alongside.

Catastrophe struck as I tried to leap across a ditch and embarrassingly ended up on my back. Conditions were treacherous, the path never ending, and it was a relief when I managed to get onto firmer ground with the road back home.

Clearly the first lesson for a harmonious marriage, besides not peeing when the toilet seat is down, always remembering to replace the top on the toothpaste tube and never inflict your cold feet on your partner in bed, is don't leave muddy dregs in the shower tray!

The first week of married life has seen us return to our normal working lives - Alison working as a staff nurse at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and me back in Eastbourne.  During the week, I've had the opportunity to see close at hand how tomorrow's journalists are being taught with visits to Brighton and Portsmouth universities. It's light years away from Harlow College where I trained in journalism for a year.

Media then was so much simpler - we were trained as newspaper journalists, sufficiently skilled in 100 words a minute shorthand, law, local and central government, newspaper practice, and we even had typing classes! Now, students are being equipped as multi-media journalists, as journalism reaches across as a diverse discipline encompassing newspapers, websites, including social media journalism, video and audio.

The world of newspapers is going through its biggest cultural change ever. A storm rages inside this media snow-shaker with everyone wondering what the landscape is going to look like once the snow settles. At Johnston Press, my current employers, the thinking is definitely digital. By 2020, the plan is for revenue between digital and print to be split 50-50, yet despite the uncertainty this is an exciting era we live in.

Newspapers will always exist, but they will no longer be the prime source of information. Instead, newspapers will gravitate to become news organisations built around their historic brand providing news across a variety of media. To stand out amid the flotsam and jetsam of micro-blogging and hyper-local news sites of one man in his bedroom, the regional press has to retain its integrity and reliability as accurate sources of information.

Speaking to some of the journalism students struggling to get to grips with their shorthand, unsure of its relevance today when all you need is a voice recorder, is they remain tremendously excited to be in the foothills of the media challenge.

There are clearly issues of media trust from the fall-out of the Leveson Inquiry - it was a shame that the voice of the regional press was not heard so loudly at the inquiry since we live in a totally different orbit to our national cousins.

For those journalists who cut their teeth on typewriters, subbing by hand and dealing with tetchy compositors from the hot metal era of newspapers, we have to adapt and change. If we don't, then newspapers as a brand will die. However, news is news; recognising its value as a commodity and re-purposing it for the 24-hour news environment we now live in.

The way ahead is potentially treacherous, we just have to be sure of our footing along the news information highway to make steady progress.

A wonderfully wet white wedding

IT must be the wettest drought for years, as I look out of the window at a bedraggled dog-walking neighbour returning home after an early morning constitutional through driving rain.

The Environment Agency's bleating about the drought conditions, even though there are flood warnings posted around the UK after the wettest April in 100 years, is about as lame as the memorable "wrong type of snow" which British Rail found in Excuse Alley in the early 1990s after severe winter weather disrupted the rail network.

However the rain failed to dampen spirits - there's a newspaper cliche if ever I wrote one - for Alison and my wedding on Saturday. All week, the Met Office had predicted that Saturday would be cloudy but mainly dry - but no, it rained all day. Bring back Michael Fish and Jack Scott with their sticky-back plastic symbols, they were probably more reliable.

Wedding days are always memorable occasions for the happy couple. For Alison and I, second time round the mulberry bush, we wanted something which was different from our first weddings, retained the solemnity of the church service with our own personal touch, but a day which very much involved our friends and family, particularly our eight children.

We had a blast. The genuine love and affection from friends and family was like a warm soft wave, lapping over your toes as you stand on the seashore; so comforting, so kind, so perfect.

We married at Christ Church in Swindon for a service conducted by our good friend, the Rev Simon Stevenette, who had caught the first 20 minutes of Swindon Town's last home game of the season before dashing back to the church. Simon told me he had done that once before, catching most of the first half of a game, and then heading back to the church, which is a half mile sprint from the County Ground, only to find the bride and her father had arrived 10 minutes' early!!

The service was perfect. Simon had warned us not to have the letters H-E-L-P stuck to the soles of our shoes as we knelt in prayer. The 160-year-old church has never looked better, vibrant in colour with flowers adorning the aisles, and the atmosphere was electric when 15-year-old soprano Eleanor Williams sang "You Raise Me Up" and "Pie Jesu". What a talent.

For Alison and I, it was about involving our children in the service; Alison's son Alex gave his mum away, and my eldest son, Micah, served as best man, as well as giving one of the readings. Charlie and Phlippa, Alison's two daughters, were bridesmaids, and sons Leo, Sam and Ben, helped my friend Gary Littlecott, were there as ushers. It was wonderful that my youngest son Ross could be there too with this respite carer Martin, and it was a joy to have the whole family together.

The reception at the Blunsdon House Hotel went swimmingly well - a rather apt phrase on such a wet wedding day - with a floor show in the evening which included a magician, singers, Elvis and a sketch involving myself and friend Will Feebery which consisted of eating sausages and doughnuts with my head poked through a sheet and Will operating my arms from behind!

Many guests chose to stay over on the Sunday and it was lovely that we were able to spend time with our family and friends. For Alison, she has friends going right back to her early nursing days and a year's trip to Australia who were at the wedding. For me, I had my group of school friends with partners and children to continue a friendship which goes back 40 years. We don't see each other often, but the cameraderie and the friendship is picked up immediately.

Now back home, Alison and I begin a new and exciting life together. We've got more baggage than lost luggage at Liverpool Street Station, but in Alison I have found a soul mate and a friend, and in turn we have found ourselves surrounded by such good friends and families.

It is a commodity which is priceless.

Claire Squires: an amazing testimony to the faith of human spirit

IT'S a testimony to the faith of human spirit and generosity that, at the time of writing, more than £600,000 has been raised for the Samaritans following the death last Sunday of London Marathon runner, Claire Squires.

The scale of generosity has been quite staggering for the 30-year-old hairdresser, who collapsed and died in Birdcage Walk near St James's Park after completing more than 25 miles of this gruelling challenge – she was just a bend away from the finish line in the Mall.

People from all over the world have made donations to her JustGiving page – in fact, 55,000 people have donated to Claire's cause, with the website saying it will waive its fees after a record number of visits to her page on Monday.

I last ran the London Marathon five years' ago on an absolutely blistering hot day in the capital. Temperatures that day peaked at 23.5c, with radiated heat from the road reaching an energy-sapping 27.5c. The race took its toll on the runners. It was carnage over the last 10km with dehydrated and cramping casualties lying on the side of the road wrapped in foil blankets, others retching into the gutters as St John Ambulance dealt with more than 5,000 people.

The race in 2007 also claimed the life of 22-year-old David Rogers, a fitness instructor from Milton Keynes, who collapsed again not far from the finish and later died in hospital. It was later discovered that he had died from drinking too much water – hyponatraemia or water intoxication, when there is so much water in the body that it dilutes vital minerals such as sodium to dangerous levels, leading to confusion, headaches and a fatal swelling of the brain.

For David Rogers and Claire Squires, they were the 10^th and 11^th runners to die after competing in the London Marathon since this showpiece event began in 1981.

The risk of dying on a marathon course is twice as high if you drive it than if you run it, Canadian researchers once found.

Life is a 24 hour risk, whether crossing the road or climbing a mountain. Wouldn't life be so dull and boring if we were constantly wrapped up in cotton wool? God forbid if the moronic and mindless health and safety crowd ever decided to bring a halt to marathons because of the remote risk of fatal injuries.

Following the death of David Rogers in 2007, in fact with any of the previous London Marathon deaths, all of whom were men, there was nothing like the amazing public reaction which has seen Claire Squires' fund-raising efforts spiral to such unbelievable proportions. When she set out from the start line in Greenwich last Sunday morning, her fund-raising for the Samaritans had reached a fairly modest £500.

So the question is, why the sudden interest in Claire Squires? Her death received the same initial media prominence as David's, but it is the level of fund-raising which has turned this snowballing story into a global one. Was it a sudden interest in the work of the Samaritans which pricked people's conscience? Maybe now we have hit a double dip recession, this story touched people's generosity as well as their hearts. Why did Claire Squires strike a philanthropic nerve?

Bluntly, one has to ask whether a key factor was a very pretty and photogenic female, whose smiling face in running kit and athletic poses, shone like a beacon from newspapers and websites to help foster the phenomenal fund-raising momentum. Had it been hairy old me, with the protruding tummy collapsing outside Buckingham Palace, would I have garnered so much support for my charity? Probably not.

Fair play to Claire and the Samaritans. Here was a gutsy young lady who had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity and for whom the Samaritans was a cause close to her heart through her mother's involvement as a volunteer, and following the death of her brother of a drug overdose 10 years ago.

Reading the tributes from her friends, Claire was someone who was loyal and always helped others. I wonder what she makes of what has happened.

The London Marathon is an amazing running race, unlike any other. It is a spiritual experience driven by the fantastic levels of public support along the 26.2 mile route. When you think how greedy the world has become, driven by a grotesque selfishness and frequently a disdain at times for fellow man, the feelgood-frenzied atmosphere from the London Marathon restores your faith in human spirit. 

It is chicken soup for the soul.

Claire was an amazing woman, since taking on the marathon remains a supreme test of body and mind. For Claire, she will have left an amazing legacy from her short life. A legacy perpetuated thanks to the fantastic and unexpected outpouring of public generosity.

TODAY will forever be known as pain Friday!

It began with what was meant to be a gentle seven-and-a-half mile early morning run along the Solent on a beautiful sunny start to the day.

Ian the postie, who has become a regular running partner has decided that this time next year he and I will have tapered perfectly for the London Marathon. Based on my form this morning, I ran through the muddy clifftops and across rain-soaked field with weights seemingly in my shoes thinking 26 miles was merely a pipedream.

"This is as bad as it gets," I shouted to Ian, whose feet danced along the surface, running effortlessly off his toes; the soles of my shoes were weighted firmly back, my legs ached and my breathing laboured heavily.

We got round, though. It was miles in the bank, I stuck to the task, and once we increase the mileage I'm sure the aerobic fitness will return as the runs become a little more enjoyable. I'd certainly like a fourth tilt at the London Marathon, and will be watching enviously this Sunday at those lucky enough to take part in this year's carnival around the capital. It is like nothing else, a true spiritual experience.

With the wedding little more than a week away, my fiancee Alison had asked one favour before the nuptials. Would I get my back waxed?! The things we do for love!! I had my legs waxed as part of a charity fund-raiser five years ago, and didn't feel a thing. Today, it was 20 minutes of pure pain at the beauty salon where I'd chosen for this masochistic marriage appetiser.

The lady at the salon was nice enough as she poured on this hot liquid onto my back, and then preceded to rip the hairs of my back. Never mind it smarting, this absolutely hit the pain threshold roof. I didn't want to show any pain,  or make any wimpering noise - the humiliation would have been too much. Instead, as part of distraction therapy, we chatted about the lady's own wedding plans - she's getting married in Lapland next February in an ice palace, taken there by a carriage drawn by reindeer. I bet her fiance isn't have his hairs ripped off his back.

Anyway, I survived the ordeal and Alison is delighted. But I feel like a plucked chicken as my back feels all sticky and wet. I have no idea why women put themselves through the ordeal waxing. I was definitely not feeling my feminine side lying on the couch of the beauty salon, stripped to my shorts while seeing the lady put these waxing strips filled with thick, black hair into the bin. I should have kept the waxing strips and presented them to Alison as a wedding present.

And so to complete the day, there could have been nothing better than a trip to the dentist for some root canal treatment, which took over an hour, didn't hurt physically, but financially, crickey O'Reilly! That's me on salad for the next month.

It's all systems go, though, for the wedding. I'm envious of my friend Emma who this week jetted off with her fiance Simon to get married in Jamaica - just the two of them. Ours is very much a family affair, but while the temptation to head off to get married on a sun-kissed beach is enormously tempting, there can be nothing better than sharing the day with family and friends, some of whom you haven't seen for quite a time.

At least come our wedding next week, I'll be a little bit fitter, I'll have my teeth fixed and whitened, and a hairless back! Sorted!!

Forgive me blogging father, for I have sinned....

FORGIVE me father, it's been six long months since my last confessional blog. I've become such a badly lapsed blogger. It's not because I didn't have the time, father, or even the inclination to sit down and write; writing is, after all, what I do professionally and have done for more than 30 years.

No, the reason I've lapsed badly is because I've had nothing to say. I've written newspaper columns for many years, based on the first rule of communication; if you've got nothing interesting to say, then don't say it!

Not that this basic principle has prevented a hideous clogging of the social media arteries by tedious Tweets and boring blogs from folks who want to reveal to the world what they had to breakfast or dinner, intricate details of travel plans, or the latest office gossip. What is the world coming to? Get a bleedin' life, I say!

Don't get me wrong, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and their various acolytes have opened up a whole new exciting world of information. Working in the media, we've had to up our game considerably in recent years to a new level, and we're still trying to keep up after a sluggish start. We are no longer custodians of news and information. Our cosy environment has been disrupted. Fifteen years ago, we would have no truck with the internet and the world wide web. To newspaper men back in the mid-90s, the world wide web was the devil incarnate. Now, it is the mother of necessity and if we don't embrace it properly, then we will die.

No, it's how the social media is used today which freaks me out. There is so much chaff that it really is hard to distinguish the wheat. It's like being stuck in an overcrowded pub with so many inane conversations spinning around that those half decent ones, those with any semblance of value, go straight over your head.

The mundaneness of social media sometimes beggars belief, notably the blogs and Tweets of so-called professionals who, pre-Twitter, would always have thought cautiously before giving a considered opinion on any subject, especially those reaching the public domain. Now these experienced communicators, and footballers, open themselves up with off-the-cuff observations which lack perspective or any sense of trust or respect.

So will mine me any different, or will it be another boorish blog?  Truthfully, that's in the eye of the reader.

Well, there's enough material bobbing around in my small life to offer something which could be readable - I'm getting married in two weeks' time, work has taken a fresh turn in the past year taking me to a new part of the country, I'm in the midst of organising a Doughnut Race during the Olympic Games, while training for the London Marathon in 2012, and I have an opinion or two.

These views on my blog are my own, they're not plagarised and are often written with tongue firmly in cheeck. If you like them, then say so, if you don't, well there are plenty of other interesting geekish blogs to digest.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee........