As World Cup fever starts to take a grip, and England’s best players begin shooting themselves in their feet, tripping up in the shower, or eating dodgy lasagne, Blighty starts his new series focusing on the 2006 tournament. And what better way to begin than a good long look at the England squad - to […]

The Blighty family have returned from their little sojourn to the coast. In keeping with tradition we returned on the hottest day of the year. A heatwave hits the UK and we spent the day driving up the motorway dehydrating and recalling our rainy days on the beach. For anyone living outside the UK a […]

Blighty is going away for the week. Anyone in the Tenby area say hello. Blighty will be the one wearing a dufflecoat and sporting a big pink umbrella. Normal service will be resumed sometime around the 18th of June, so not long to wait really. If you find cold turkey coming on, delve into the […]

The Guardian are getting all excited about a tattooed ex-biker from Bradford being shortlisted for the Orange Prize For Fiction. Joolz Denby obviously isn’t the type of ‘chic’ they expect to know how to spell literature. We’re not sure if its the tattoos, the bike or being from Bradford that causes such surprise.
The shortlist consists […]

Blighty Blog has got a brand spanking new home. It is http://www.blightyblog.co.uk
So, all those thousands hundreds tens one or two people who currently link to the site take note. The original notaflag.com url will forward to the new domain for the foreseeable future though.
There could be one or two bugs as it propagates apparently. (Should […]

The editors of a new anthology of women’s writing have criticised the general lack of ambition shown by female authors. They have accused them of being ‘disappointingly domestic, the opposite of risk-taking’. Female authors have countered, pointing out that Tolstoy’s novels were domestic and that defining domestic as dull is wrong. We understand what they’re […]

The long list for the Orange Prize for Fiction has been announced. We’d show it to you but it’s a bit… well, long. There are 20 novels on it. It’s an award only open to women, from anywhere in the world, and the winner gets £30,000 to spend on ink. The panel of judges is […]

We in Blighty are, in many ways, as fickle as our weather. We like nothing better than talking a chap up, only to bloody his nose (see below) at the first window of op.
On BBC Radio Four however longevity reigns. The pace of change is reassuringly slow. I was considering this yesterday lunchtime while listening […]

There is something ironic in the fact that Bill Wyman’s hobby, when he’s not gigging with his fellow pension-age rockers the Rolling Stones, is digging up old relics with his metal detector. Apparently Wyman once dug up a coin minted during the reign of Harold II. Back when the Stones were really good then.

Do you know your Austen? I scored a, quite creditable I thought, 11 out of 18
I bet the manager of the large hotel by York station doesn’t fare very well. They have a large sitting room, and to add a bit of classs they have wallpaper adorned with names of three classic English authors. I […]