The return of James Blunt: How the former tank commander (and the most ridiculed man in pop) conquered a new army of fans .. Twitter! Singer James Blunt – a former Army officer – has said that the nation’s focus on those killed in war means the thousands who returned with life- changing injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan are being forgotten. Bibliographies. NNDB has added thousands of bibliographies for people, organizations, schools, and general topics, listing more than 50,000 books and 120,000 other. He’s posh. He wrote You’re Beautiful, the most loved – and loathed – ballad of the century. But, James Blunt tells Event, now he’s having the last laugh. In an exclusive interview today in Event magazine, he says that, while attention is understandably focused on the death toll, the wider effects of the conflicts are overlooked. James Blunt crowdsurfs at the Invictus Games Closing Ceremony during the Invictus Games at Queen Elizabeth park. The International sports event for 'wounded warriors' and organised by Prince Harry It’s taken ten years, but James Blunt – tweet, if you dare – is cool. A decade after the release of the former Army captain’s debut album, Back To Bedlam, Blunt has enjoyed a remarkable year and a dramatic boost in the hipster opinion polls. In the past 1. 2 months he has turned 4. Moon Landing, re- entered the singles chart’s orbit with Bonfire Heart, and married his girlfriend Sofia Wellesley, granddaughter of the Duke Of Wellington. The 2. James Blunt’s sensitive soft- rock albums may have always believed him to be a name to drop in fashionable circles, but his brilliantly witty emergence on Twitter, the gung- ho Top Gear appearances (he attempted to roll the ‘reasonably priced’ guest car, and raced the fastest lap ever recorded in wet conditions) and his unapologetic, latter- day playboy lifestyle have sealed the deal for the singer whose hits include You’re Beautiful, Goodbye My Lover and 1. He is currently cooler than the other side of the pillow.‘I don’t know whether to be insulted by the accusation,’ Blunt puzzles, scratching his stubble backstage at an Austrian arena as he prepares to play his 1. I genuinely don’t know how to respond.‘I probably suffered from over- play of over- emotional songs,’ he says of his years in the uncool wilderness. ‘I found in my writing that I could express emotions that as an everyday person I have no interest in expressing. These strange things that girls talk about called feelings.’Good mates: James has struck up a relationship with Prince Harry, both men having served in the same regimen. He is dressed in a T- shirt, jeans and thick- soled trainers. ‘I’m a fairly unaffected human being,’ he muses. I’m easy to talk to, I hope. I’m not too bothered about the clothes I’m wearing. I’ve been misquoted in interviews as to appear earnest. Which I am not.’Blunt is far from earnest. He regularly cracks self- deprecating jokes, often about his own diminutive build. No one takes the rise out of Blunt quite as well as Blunt does himself. ‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ he sighs.‘Do people actually like James Blunt again? Like, seriously?’ asked Emma on Twitter. Don’t panic,’ Blunt tweeted. It’s just a glitch in the Matrix.’I look at Blunt’s eyes – pale- blue, level gaze – and wonder what they have seen. You're beautiful! Casual James Blunt is joined by stunning wife Alexandra ‘Sofia’ Wellesley as they hit the beach in Ibiza. By Jason Chester for MailOnline. Possibly the most popular collection of English slang available online, now listing over 4000 words and phrases. I'm alarmed by the number of gun owners who don't carry their firearm on a regular basis. Even among those who have gone to the effort of applying for a concealed. The Geert Wilders Effect The Islam-hating provocateur isn't going to be the next prime minister of the Netherlands. But he's already won. By James Traub. The Texarkana Gazette is the premier source for local news and sports in Texarkana and the surrounding Arklatex areas. Lyrics to 'Carry You Home' by James Blunt: If she had wings she would fly away And another day god will give her some. Watch free 600 Free Live TV Channels. See 45000 Complimentary movies TV shows and documentaries. Record Local TV zero cost. View Horror Movies at no charge!Before his pop career, he served in the Army for six years, working as an armoured reconnaissance officer in the Nato deployment in Kosovo on the Madedonia/Yugoslavian border in 1. The day we speak, British troops leave Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, ending a 1. The legacy of Afghanistan and Iraq’, Blunt says, ‘which we don’t seem to be touching upon at the moment, is we talk about the number of deaths: 4. And while that is devastating to each family concerned, we’re not talking about the number who lost limbs, and that is in the thousands.’It was while in Kosovo that Blunt wrote the intensely moving No Bravery. Many anti- war songs have been written but few from within a war itself. ‘It was incredibly easy to write,’ he recalls. Because it just describes what was around us at the time. It took no imagination. 'The things that were in front of me were absolutely abhorrent. What struck me most about that time is the imagination with which human beings can murder each other. It’s a tragedy.’High life: James and Petra Nemcova at 2. MTV Video Music Awards. Before settling down he gained a reputation for attracting glamorous women‘People want to ask: “How many people did you kill?” he said in 2. And it’s desperately offensive. We saved thousands of lives in what I considered to be a just war. I think people are intrigued purely for the gore factor.’Like many soldiers, he finds war hard to discuss. ‘It’s hard to explain,’ he stresses, ‘without making it sound inhumane or unempathetic.‘Kosovo is definitely not at the forefront of my thinking every day. Enough has happened to me. I did go back [in 2. In some places it definitely had, and in other places – where I know that we had invested so much of our energy and time – the benefits were non- existent. The point and the purpose had been to save lives. To stand between two people who were trying to murder each other and say: “Enough.”’At which point are you most frightened as a soldier? ‘When politics gets involved and decisions are no longer based on what is happening on the ground. There was the experience I had in Pristina airport when [US Nato Commander] Wesley Clark told us to overrun and overpower 2. Russians because they’d beaten us to the airport,’ he remembers. ‘Fortunately, General Mike Jackson told us that was not necessary. The consequences of overpowering 2. Russians seemed fairly clear.’ Jackson, Blunt recalls, famously closed the discussion by saying that his men were ‘not going to start the Third World War’ for General Clark. Blunt, who was at the head of a column of 3. Russians. His former colleagues remember Captain Blunt as ‘a bloody good soldier’. ‘Well, I would say they’re very loyal,’ he acknowledges modestly. And now of course we have the Syria question. ‘I don’t think I’m qualified to say much,’ Blunt warns, ‘but there is a massive humanitarian crisis going on, and as with all wars it is the civilians who suffer. We can’t ignore the civilian problem and for that I think we have to get involved.’Happy couple: Since 2. James has settled down with Sofia Wellesley. Blunt and Sofia married in September with lavish ceremonies in Majorca and London. In complete contrast, and possibly as a reaction to the horrific world of war, Blunt’s civilian social life has become the stuff of legend. He has a nightclub called Blunty’s in the garden of his Ibiza villa where he cheerily out- parties all- comers. He has struck up a relationship with Prince Harry, both men having served in the same regiment. Harry popped up at Blunt’s show in Notting Hill last year with his cousin Princess Beatrice. They have shared interests and many mutual friends, but are the young Royals fans of Blunt’s music?‘You’d have to ask them,’ he offers diplomatically. They’ve definitely asked me to perform before and they’ve come to a couple of gigs – that might mean nothing! And Harry got me to play at the Invictus Games recently.’At the Games’ closing ceremony in London, Blunt touchingly dedicated You’re Beautiful to his friend: ‘This song is for someone very special who organised this event, Prince Harry.’How, you wonder, does such an arrangement work? Does Harry call Blunty and say, ‘Can you help me out here, mate?’ or do his people call yours?‘A bit of both,’ says Blunt. He’s put a lot of time and energy into those events and that’s something that means a lot to me, the same as it does to him.’Blunt, who is ten years older than the Prince, has noted with amusement that if the two soldiers had been in the military at the same time, Harry would have been required to call Blunt ‘sir’. James Hillier Blount (he dropped the ‘o’ for ease of pronunciation) had such a classic Army- brat upbringing that it is difficult to read his timeline in anything but clipped military tones. Born Tidworth, Wiltshire in a military hospital. Educated at Harrow School, then Bristol University to read sociology. Trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Signed up for the British Army, serving in Canada, Kosovo and London. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Life Guards, a unit of the Household Cavalry, rose to the rank of Captain. Left the Army in 2. Became Britain’s least likely pop phenomenon. The image of Blunt during the Kosovo conflict, driving a tank with his guitar lashed to the outside flank, sums up perfectly the incongruity of his two career choices. Service: Before his pop career, James served in the Army for six years, working as an armoured reconnaissance officer in the Nato deployment in Kosovo on the Macedonia/Yugoslavian border in 1. Obviously I wanted to put it inside the vehicle but I was unable to strap the soldiers to the outside,’ he deadpans. ‘Space is tight inside a tank. Very close confines and you’re permanently banging. Like in Brad Pitt’s new movie Fury – the clanking of metal is all you hear. 'My guitar survived Kosovo then I went to visit a record company back in London and fell off my motorbike with it on my back, smashing it to bits. I was travelling at two miles per hour.’After the Army, Blunt played ‘any dive that would have me’. He was spotted by U. S. songwriter Linda Perry and signed to her label Custard. He recorded Back To Bedlam while lodging at actress Carrie Fisher’s home in LA. Initially, the album received negligible acclaim then, in 2. You’re Beautiful, was released and everything changed. The song stayed at No 1 for five weeks, Back To Bedlam went on to shift 1. US and more than three million in the UK, entering Guinness World Records as the fastest- selling album in a one- year period. Three subsequent albums, three world tours, five Grammy nods (plus Brits, and further Ivor Novello and MTV awards), resulted in more than 2. Not bad for a man ‘who sings like his willy is being stood on’. A charge levelled at Blunt in his early days of tweeting. He responded. ‘Damned thing is always getting caught under my feet.’)Blunt plainly relishes the parry and thrust of the interview situation, dispatching seemingly trivial questions like a seasoned media pro. Have you ever taken ecstasy? ‘It’s a good question.
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