Last week it was the Glorious Twelfth, the start of the game – or more specifically, grouse – shooting season writes job-seeking blogger Henry Mackley.

Having cheerily advocated the murder of small cute animals in this column only two short weeks ago, you can only imagine my disappointment at not having been invited to go and join some earl in his butt* on a windswept moor in the north of England.

I must be attracting the wrong type of reader, or more likely the right type, what with this being a blog written by the unemployed for the unemployed.

Still, I shan’t get too hung up on it, although if any aristos with a grouse moor are reading this, I should let it be known that my father was a long-serving Freemason, and I once went out with a girl who shared a house with Prince William at university. Nudge nudge…

So, last week I did what a lot of unemployed people don’t do and applied for a few jobs, tweaked my CV a bit more and sent off a plaintive yet angry letter to Iain Duncan Smith.

I got so bored with speaking to the people at the Department of Work & Pensions that I thought I’d write to their boss instead and ask why the heck I’m not entitled to any sort of benefit.

Anyway, a fat lot of use that was. IDS got one of his flunkies to write to me explaining that Old Baldy was too busy to write to me himself.

Too busy? Don’t give me that.

He was in that earl’s butt up on the Yorkshire moors, killing dickie birds at the taxpayers’ expense. Well, that’s what I reckon anyway.

I did actually do some work last week too, and got paid for it. My wife gave me a little job to do and I haven’t mentioned it to the taxman. I probably won’t either unless one of you lot stitches me up.

We have this wooden box on our mantelpiece where we deposit loose change. Coppers, five pence bits, and even the odd ten and twenty. The box was full and I was given the job of emptying it and counting the cash.

Two hours it took me, but there was sixty-nine quid in that clever little box. I paid myself at a rate of £34.50 per hour. Not bad work if you can get it.

As an aside, something I’ve rather enjoyed about being unemployed is that I haven’t shaved for a week. It’s remarkably liberating and I strongly recommend it to both the unemployed men and women of this county.

I’ve always had jobs where a smooth face was de rigueur, and now I don’t. Now I love to roll out of bed at 11.00am, have a quick shower, and then glance at the razor and think, “I don’t need you today.” It’s a wonderful feeling.

*A “butt”, should any readers be unsure, or have a warped mind, is a camouflaged hide where the landed gentry and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions like to shoot grouse from.

• Henry blogs at This could be Ludlow or anywhere