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Goodbye, Thank grumpy it's Friday...

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Cheerio!

Thank grumpy it's Friday is no more.

After 291 columns (292 if you count the potentially libellous one that didn't get published), 145500 words, and 6 years, my days of writing 500 words a week for publication in The Mail have come to an end.

In case you hadn't guessed, this is the big news I've been mentioning for a couple of months now.

Having found myself, with increasing regularity, sat in front of a blank screen with the submission deadline screaming at me, I spent the latter part of last years worried I was drying up. This also got me questioning if I was actually any good any more.

With little in the way of feedback from either the paper, or it's readers, I finally decided I'd call it a day at the end of the year, and sent an email to the paper explaining at the start of November. Column 289 would be my last outing.

The reply was somewhat startling. They were just about to offer me a full page. Not just in the Mail. In the News & Star too, which covers the north and west of Cumbria.

Ooo. Validation. What to do?

I thought about it a lot. Chatted to a few people. Consulted Mrs G. I even tried a Twitter poll (42% said "Never stop - I love you", 50% "Keep going - you're OKish").

I still couldn't decide.

Eventually, I started being a bit more positive. I have ideas all the time and thoughts about things in the news etc. I'm just poor at remembering them. What if I (and this is shocking) WROTE THEM DOWN?!!!

So here we are. Jenwis Hamilbutton was killed off during Big Blogger. Thank grumpy it's Friday has ended.

The lure of a page to express my innermost weirdness, in two papers, was too much. I'm giving it a go. The paper wanted to badge me as "Cumbria's grumpiest columnist", but as I'm actually only grumpy 99.7% of the time, that didn't seem appropriate.

So now Fridays will be accompanied by "A wry look at the week".

Apologies to the 8% on Twitter who voted "Stop. For God's sake".

New title. New photo (thanks, Jenna!). 2 papers. 3 topics. A whole page. 1000 words per week.

Eek...


And here's the first outing from The Mail, with an initial teaser on page 2. Looks like the decision to go with "A wry look..." was too late for this edition. I'm presuming the same layout will apply in the News & Star, but I haven't got a copy yet.

I think I might be a little bit proud...
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