The Befouled Weakly News sprang into life in January 1997 as a sometimes, occasional form of communication with family and friends. It followed on from the highly successful Radway Times which served a similar purpose for approximately ten years prior to that.
Originally distributed by post, and then by e-mail, the News eventually found its way onto the Interweb in September 2006 – one very astute internet provider recognised that the contents of these weekly e-mails should definitely be categorised as spam and hence delivery to a number of recipients was adversely affected. Surprisingly, some subscribers actually complained and one unfortunate soul, who shall remain nameless (although not unrelated to Hanover Bob), experienced such difficulty with his subscription that it was eventually decided to further clutter up cyberspace by posting future copies of the News online.
About the Author
Greg Stragnell grew up in small town America – a small town called Los Angeles – well, in a reasonably close proximity thereof (Greg’s writing tip No. 1: Never let fact get in the way of great exaggeration). Born of highly intelligent parents and eventual sibling to many, (scratch that parental description), Greg developed the wacky sense of humour we witness herein. A fast runner and sportsman at the age of twelve, it was downhill from thereon, and by the age of eighteen sport, whilst retaining a position of elemental importance in his life, had been relegated to the box, and Greg to the sofa, whereupon he has spent his latter years in blissful contentment.
In the interim he has earned his living aiding and abetting the education of British schoolchildren under the auspices of Oxfordshire County Council who kindly paid him enough to keep the wolves from the door and multiple dogs under the table, and gave him a lovely vase to commemorate his first twenty five years.
He has fathered three brilliant and gifted offspring that we know of, has loved and laughed through “adult” life in the company of his “gorgeous” wife Penelope (herein referred to as “Ms Playchute”), and has become famous in a limited capacity for his “hollow back”.
Mr Stragnell’s hyperbolic renderings of trivial occurrences on the home front and regular, vociferous diatribes against the idiocies of government and those in positions of authority, treat their subjects with equal significance and, more often than not, scathing sarcasm. His style is his own and his repetition of pet terms, a favourite indulgence (Greg’s Writing Tip 2: Hit upon a good thing – repeat it ad infinitum – you simply cannot overdo it) “Needless to say” and “veritable” made particularly frequent appearance in his earlier scribblings, so frequent in fact that the “Gorgeous Penelope” (ref Ms Playchute) threatened a good smack.
And so, Dear Reader, prepare yourself for a veritable roller-coaster of a ride through the meanderings of a finely tuned mind – needless to say, so finely tuned that on occasion the insights herein will defy your comprehension, belie your convictions and might even make you laugh.
Ms Playchute.
It’s all a wicked and thinly veiled plot to drag the oldsters kicking and screaming into the present. I, sir, am greatly disturbed by all this modernity, as I am quite comfortable living in the past. Besides, all this new-fangled stuff makes my head hurt. Additionally, sir, the instructions below amply prove my opening statement…it is simply gibberish, gibberish, I say.