I suggest you get your finger out !

The beginning is as good a place to start at, than any.
It may not be the most original or ornate structure to kick off this blog, but it's traditional. It satisfies the ancient lineage of written narrative and bows to convention with all the courteous nature of a Victorian gent.
"Good day Sirs! Madam! Welcome...may I help you into your carriage? How frightfully delightful it is for you to join me in my humble abode"
I had envisaged a more elaborate, multi-layered, escher-esque introduction; maybe on my death bed, or in the womb, like Tristam Shandy. A relative poioumenon of dream logic and sideways glances at the mundane.
Maybe it'll elevate this blog above all others, I thought. Maybe it'll herald in a new genre bridging the murky waters of art and journalism?

I wanted to deliver 'fact' in the frivolous conventions usually reserved for fiction, like a town cryer who graduated from RADA. I wanted to be a poetry spouting Jeremy Vine, pirouetting through the days events with the grace of Wayne Sleep and the integrity of Martha Stewart.
Only, in practice, I have to be interesting, informative, relate to as wide an a audience as possible. And I can't imagine anyone wanting to decipher a pretentious stream of rhyming couplets in an attempt to retrieve the lottery results.
And so, I leave the fractured rationale, so akin to the world of art and surrealistic vision, to Kauffman, Tarantino and the French.
This I have decided will be a blog, straight as an arrow; as direct as a Roman road.

My mission statement, if I have one, is this: I intend to research, methodically and journalistically, events from my local area, and subsequent areas of interest.
There will be discussions, essays, reviews, news items, features - and all safely below a seven out of ten in the "fun" charts.

It won't be mirthless, but I WILL omit any deliberate belly laughs.

So, I will start here. At the beginning.

Hello,

My name is James.
I am a qualified NCTJ journalist with experience writing for print, on-line facilities and as a reprographic proof reader.

I have set my sights on a career in the local print industry, at a time when jobs are as unstable as spinning plates. Vacancies seem as baron and sparse as frog spawn in the dead sea, and speculative letters are met with oppressive silence and casual disregard.

Finally today I got a response. From a local newspaper, for whom I have worked previously, during a brief tenure as a work experience kid. I enjoyed this period, and impressed enough to get an interview. However, my lack of driving licence was a stumbling block and I was back to the drawing board.

Now, as I sat in that familiar editors office, the walls strewn with front page exclusives and high profile scoops, the only things different were the licence in my wallet and the editor.
A professional, stern looking fellow who looked my CV up and down and then immediately dispensed with the niceties.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush" he said "you need to Pull Your Finger Out!" TM.

So here I am. Pulling my finger out.
And so here are you. At the beginning.

My finger may be muddied... but it is out. And I'm determined for it to stay out.