RIP Jenwis Hamilbutton

We are gathered here in this... (looks round a bit) um... blog, to mourn the passing of Jenwis Hamilbutton. His life may have been short and largely irrelevant, but he touched the lives of so many people that... sorry? Oh. Apparently that was someone else...

Jenwis Hamilbutton rose briefly to fame on twitter during 2010, when he was retweeted by BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey, having criticised his shirt. A similarly unspectacular claim to fame occurred when a tweet he crafted at 1am on a windy night appeared in F1 Racing magazine. An amalgam of bits of Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button (mostly the hopeless bits), he came into existence via 3 pints of cider, a Creme Egg and the Electric Light Orchestra’s mournful 1986 farewell album “Balance Of Power”, played loudly over headphones.

In his short existence, he was followed on twitter by Paul Hardcastle of “19” fame, and a bunch of slightly odd but jolly nice people, whom he was never entirely sure actually existed, until he met some of them in the tea rooms at Sizergh Castle, and got beaten by one of their daughters at Top Trumps.

Early in 2012 he entered the North West Evening Mail’s slightly baffling “Big Blogger” contest, intrigued by the prospect of actually being rewarded for typing lots of silly stuff and having someone read it. Little did he know, but this was to be his downfall. After squeezing through to the main competition, he was advised that, in the interests of fairness, he was to be terminated, and replaced with his much duller, older and hairier creator, Peter Grenville.

Hamilbutton leaves behind an extensive CD collection, a niece obsessed with Doctor Who, and £3.49 in loose change.

Grenville, sometimes referred to as a “Marketing Officer” for a charity or “That bloke with the loud shirts”, expressed shock at the news that his random ranting was now actually being credited to him, and attempted to disguise his appearance by wearing two hats, a risible plan at the best of times, but made far worse by the fact that one of them was pink, and didn’t match his scarf.

As we speak, an angry mob of lycra-clad cyclists and aggrieved Range Rover and Audi owners, with their fog lights shining in his window, are nailing burning wind chimes to his front door, and would have been joined by irate Virgin Trains staff, had their train been on time.

Speaking via twitter, he is alleged to have said “LOL!” before a particularly heavy bag of recycling struck him on the forehead, rendering him slightly less annoying than before, just as some snow, forecast a fortnight ago, gently started to fall.

This blog post appeared yesterday as an entry in the North West Evening Mail's "Big Blogger" competition. Do me a favour - click on this link to view it on their website, please? Thanks to clicks, I made it through to the main contest and the final 10. One gets eliminated each week. Apparently. I'm pretty sure they make the rules up as they go along...

(What better way to celebrate my untimely demise at the hands of the press, than with a spot of ELO? Keeping me company tonight is the "Live At The BBC" double CD.)

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