Having just returned from a weekend away my Fun Monday will be short and sweet.
Center Parcs was fab and we all had a brilliant time. Misses E and M were proper water babies, and we even got Mr B in the waves which was fab. I’ll tell you all about it later in the week.
Thanks for visiting Babs while I was gone. She really appreciated it. 
Our lovely host Ann says…”I want to hear about a web site and not just about any old web site. I want to hear about a web site that’s changed your life. A web site that you can’t live without. A web site whose inventor you’d like to see win a McArthur Genius Grant.”
The website I would like to ‘nominate for a McArthur Genius Grant’ is a very personal choice to me and has changed my life immensely in the past year, as it is the site that led to my becoming a blogger.
I’m sure this may not be the kind of site many of you would pick as life changing, and I hope you’ll all forgive me this little bit of indulgence, but it’s the first one that came to mind and has really been part of huge changes in my life.
Napoleon Fantastic, as many of you will probably have gathered, is a mate of mine and Mr B’s. He and Mr B have been in bands together for a long time. In fact, probably getting on for 20 years, maybe more. He is a great singer/songwriter/guitarist, and a funny and intelligent bloke.
He began blogging as Napoleon Fantastic in September 2006 and has blogged pretty much every day since. His blog is a mix of music, hilarious stories that make you laugh, smile and cringe, and whimsical thoughts about life in a small and very insular Derbyshire village.
He writes beautiful, cheeky, and at times irreverent prose in a voice not dissimilar at times to Terry Thomas, Leslie Phillips or Richard E Grant in Withnail and I.
He has a wise and beautiful little dog called Audrey, a lovely neighbour called Mary, and glamorous friends and relations including Nelson Galaxy and Sonny Starr.
So why did Napoleon’s website inspire me so?
Well it was all because of this…
You see, when Nap show-cased his daft poems/peoms, I had to write, and well, it started something you know?
No, not that kind of something, tsk tsk, but the something where you find someone whose work compliments and inspires and motivates yours and vice versa. We are now collaborating on a book of animal inspired silly verse, and it was he who said to me,
“Jo, you should write a blog, I think you’d enjoy it.”
So I did.
And I do.
Thanks Napoleon. You are fabulous.
Now go check out the other Fun Mondays.
I will be around later in the week and will be catching up on all my blog buddies soon. Tonight, I have to put my girls to bed, unpack, sort out my brother’s birthday prezzie and do washing. Lots and lots of washing.
And, mop Mr B’s poorly brow. Yes he’s ill again.
Bugger.
Oh and, erm, Napoleon would like me to add that he is very handsome.
Which of course he is. 
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January 14th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Oh yes, he’s quite handsome!
January 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
i do dig the poetry. and ok, i’ll give him handsome. and this blog? well, i come for babs, but i stay for the prose.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Wonderful post! What a wonderful story. I have heard so many people that got started blogging because of someone else. It just me wonder how and when it got started and what enspired that person?
I guess I’ll dig that up later.
Glad you had a wonderful time and can’t wait for details.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
We owe him a debt of gratitude. =)
January 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Fabulously handsome.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Great post. I will check this out! I guess we owe him some credit.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Love the post. I’ve really enjoyed finding out how people started blogging. That theme has come up a lot today (and everyone’s come at it through a different blog) and it’s interesting to see how it happens.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Yes, devilishly handsome.
Mya x
January 14th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Well done to Napoleon and his rather wonderful blog – he’ll appreciate the praise. Did Mr B really go swimming? Now that’s something I wouldn’t like to see.
January 14th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Great post. I will check him out!
January 14th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I like the little poems that got you started. And he’s easy on the eye!!
January 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
i’ll have to check this out, obviously!
January 14th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
He is some yummy eye candy.
and the poems are ,erm, interesting.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I love the two poems on the link!! I have always said your future is in children’s literature and I continue to stand by that. Thanks, Napoleon. What would we do without Jo?
January 14th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
great post and story!! glad you had a wonderful vacation and I am sorry your poor honey is sick again!!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:26 am
When you introduce a new blog to addicts… they have to go check it out!!!
by the way..We all wish we were writing silly verse
January 15th, 2008 at 5:24 am
yup–I think we all get encouraged or inspired by others–just in different ways
January 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Jo,
I owe you a pint.
(Told you I was handsome . . .)
January 15th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
“..the merit of wooing and wedding a ferret…”
BWAHAHAHA! LOVE IT!
Great choices, dearie!
January 15th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hope Mr B is better now.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I will get to the site to listen to the music. It is always great to be a part of someone getting their just rewards. I hope he and the band do well. NLM
January 15th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Great! Another brilliant blogger to add to my reader. Thanks a lot, Jo! I’m drowning as it is!
January 16th, 2008 at 4:43 am
I’ve got such a hard-on right now.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Thanks for all the comments everybody. I amslowly getting round to all your blogs but it’s taking me a while so I apologise for the delay. We are the house of the sick at the moment. Bleurghh.