For too long the author of this blog has kept a secret.

In my defence I have kept it for reasons of (I kidded myself) friendship.

But now I must admit that I made a mistake. Matters of state hinge upon this.

Spanner must be unmasked!

This is Paul Crosier, of 11 Kirklee Terrace Lane, Glasgow, pictured outside his award-winning entertainment establishment.

Paul is, of course,  better known as notorious Internet troll @BrianSpanner1

As this blog has previously covered Spanner came to international attention because of his friendship with unduly famous anti-Scottish propaganda writer and enemy of freedom, J K Rowling.

Paul is happy to laugh and joke about those events.

Yeah, me and Julie [Rowling] go way back. We first met at a glam rock concert in the 70s, sharing a wrap of what later turned out to be Yorkshire Terrier dandruff behind a badly parked Vauxhall Viva.  We had a laugh, hit it off, I said “Boy, Wizzard are incredible”, and next time I saw her she owned a helicopter and Mull.

People say that she shouldn’t be friends with me because I’m a misogynist, but that’s nonsense.  At my club apart from me, Pete the barman and Dave who breaks legs all of the staff are female.  We tried men, but it changed the tone completely.

Paul, who says he’s married to his work – and also screwing other parts of his work, behind the back of the bit of his work that he’s married to – doesn’t see himself as a troll.

No, I don’t see myself as a troll.

And with his easy going nature, friendly laugh and half an eye on Dave who breaks legs it’s hard to be too critical of him. I asked him once if he was worried about personal or political retribution for the comments that he posts on-line.

It’s all a big pantomime, isn’t it?  I’m supposedly engaged in this epic on-line war with the ‘Cybernats’, but they’re all in on the joke as well.  We’re all just winding up this one bloke who sits in Southern England ranting about how great it is to be Scottish.

It’s an amazing laugh – he honestly thinks there’s dozens of people who support him. and that, eventually, he’s going to come up here and lead them in lynching me.

I’m really not bothered about politics; SNP, Labour, Conservatives, UKIP, Brown Shirts…they’re all basically the same, aren’t they?  I’m just looking for a bit of banter on Twitter and say whatever winds them up.  I don’t think I’ve even voted since ’79, when Thatcher got in. She was lovely, she was.

Last time we talked I mentioned, over the last of the Happy Shopper Ouzo, that I was getting nervous about keeping his identity secret and was thinking about ‘outing’ him.  He seemed unconcerned.

Honestly, mate, I’m thinking of packing in the Brian Spanner lark. The SNP have offered me one of their “unlimited expenses…wink, wink” jobs if I’ll go full-time writing an account that glosses over their failings, but attracts the same kind of high-profile punters as the Spanner account.  I know it sounds like selling out, but it’s 80 grand a year from an MP, a blind eye being turned to Paypal accounts being emptied and a 19 month head-start if the fraud squad gets involved.  I’d be an idiot to turn that all down.

Before going to press with this I phoned him on his premium rate number, told him about this blog and asked if he had any final comments.

I know a lot of people think there’s a ‘big name’ author or journalist behind Brian Spanner, and I think it will shock them to find out I’m just an average guy.  I apologise if they ever found me annoying, dishonest or misogynistic…I’m just a run-of-the-mill titty-bar owner with a receding hair-line, a £30/day doggy-dandruff habit, a warehouse full of ‘Skittish Resistance’ t-shirts and a Porsche Boxster that I got on a dodgy credit scam using a fake ID.  I’m no different to them, really.

Still, I guess this is the end for Spanner.

A leading cybernat, asked for a comment on Spanner’s retirement, tweeted only…

RIP, oaf! LOL