A prize from a Madeley

Now this may be a little confusing. As I sit ready to write, I'm not sure exactly how much detail to go into, but here goes anyway: I have won another prize from a fellow blogger. Except he's not really a blogger nowadays, and he wasn't who he said he was when he did blog, and the prize is from him, but in another name that isn't his own either.

Soon after I first started blogging in 2007, I chanced upon the Richard Madeley Appreciation Society, which I found to be most entertaining, even if I suspected it might not have been written by the great man himself. Readers from outside the UK may not have heard of Richard Madeley, and to be honest I don't know much about him myself, not being a TV viewer. But he's a B list celebrity, and seems to be a pretty sound person, not given to racism or outlandish religious or political philosophies.

Anyway, Richard (or Dick) left some comments on my posts, and I commented on his, and there was a bit of banter, and we exchanged some emails outside the blog, until it eventually became clear that Dick wasn't Richard, but that was OK with me because if I enjoy the writing I don't mind who holds the pen. Or the keyboard, or whatever.

Then Dick became a little disillusioned, because the reason he was blogging as Richard Madeley hadn't worked out (it's a little confusing, actually) and there were some other issues in his life. And then things went a bit quiet, until all of a sudden, up popped Stan Madeley. With a book: Second Class Male. And I guessed the name of Stan's favourite Norwegian fjord, and he sent me a signed copy of the book.

I haven't read it yet, but no doubt it will feature in one of my regular 'What I've been reading' posts. But I think this must be the first ever book that I've been given by the author, even if the author in real life isn't actually Stan Madeley, or Dick, or Richard, but someone else. So I'm pretty pleased with it, and thanks, Stan!

Anyway, he's got another book in the pipeline but the publisher is waiting to see how this one does, so I shall buy one to give away to someone seeing as how my copy probably hasn't contributed to sales figures. I thought about putting it up as a prize to a reader of this blog, but I don't have enough readers to avoid embarrassment if I tried a stunt like that - the response to the 200th post taught me that. If any readers wish to comment on whether they would like a free book, just go ahead. And just so you know, this is our 400th post, so happy blogaversary to me and Lola II.