You leave me bent and broken by the roadside

As I've probably mentioned before, I drive to work.  I don't mean that I open the car door, sit down, start the engine and get to work before the heater's had time to get hot... I work in Coventry, but live in Derby.  So every day it's a 100 mile round trip, up to a couple of hours each way.  So I need a car.  I mean, I could walk, I've extolled the virtues of walking before, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time.

Keeping that in mind, imagine the sinking feeling that your friendly neighbourhood Pangolin wrangler gets when he notices a new noise coming from the Dandymobile.  Especially when that noise is that of a Briggs & Stratton powered rotary lawnmower.

'Aha!' I remember thinking, 'it seems that there is some kind of mechanical failure in the Flux Capacitor.' For I am a whiz with the old infernal combustion engine, and can identify the cause of many major failures using only my sense of smell and a bucket of goat entrails. After nursing the stricken vehicle to work and back (and noticing that the rate of petrol consumption had increased alarmingly).  I took a look under the bonnet and caressed my full and manly beard, for I have seen this done by professional engine gazers just before they have that Eureka moment.

I waited long enough for my supper to have gone cold, but nothing sprang to mind, so I returned to the warmth of my drawing room for a chocolate coated cigar and a glass of hand-squeezed weasel sherry, momentarily beaten.

I traveled to and from work for the rest of the week in a comedic 'poppety-bangity yes of course I can mow your lawn sir,' fashion until I could get to my local car spares emporium at the weekend (during the week I leave home before they are open, and get home after the inconsiderate buggers have closed you see) and requested of them a new set of sparking plugs, an air filter and some high-tension leads - Which as you know are my electrical nemesis.  The stout yeoman in the brown storekeeper's coat behind the counter asked me for my registration so that he could supply the correct parts, then tapped away at his keyboard and announced that I could have the plugs and filter now, but he'd have to order the leads and they would not be delivered until the Monday.  I sighed in resignation, took the parts I could and went home to fit them.

Problemo numero uno: The spark plugs for this particular car are the same as those used in matchbox cars, and as such require a special (for special, please substitute the words 'comically bloody tiny') spanner for their replacement, which of course I did not own.

So off we went, 'poppety-bangity-'poppety-bangity-'poppety-bangity down the road to my local purveyor of ironmongery.  Who did not carry the item.  I went to a professional seller of automotive toolery, who was out of stock, and I briefly considered going to Halfords, but I had run out of surplus internal organs to sell to raise the required money.  Eventually I remembered that there was a tool shop physically next door to where I had bought the parts... who, bless their little Chrome-Molybdenium hearts, had exactly the tool I needed, for the princely sum of £2.70.  I declared my undying love for the lady behind the counter, drove home and proceeded to change the spark plugs.

Now, luckily for me, I live less than two miles from the car-spares shop and there is pretty much one, long, straight road between them and the bijou mock-medieval mansion that is Dandy Towers... Bonus! I hear you cry.  However, there is a large, 135 year old, railway bridge on that road that is currently undergoing replacement - This is what it looks like:

Meaning that every time I need to buy a tool, or some parts, I need to go at least a mile out of my way, right past a police station driving a car that sounds like Satan's handblender and loses power going up even the mildest of inclines.

So, plugs replaced, there was no appreciable difference, but I had noticed that one was a different colour to the rest.  Three were a lovely, health brown colour and one was black and sooty and not quite right.

'Aha!' I thought again, 'that's the bugger right there.' Looking at the HT lead, I noticed a small crack. 'Hahaha! I have found the problem - I am a mechanical genius!' I declared to the Gods... (and to the bemused unwashed urchin who happened to be wandering past at the time - I shooed him away with an accurately thrown screwdriver) and made myself a celebratory mug of strong tea, as I believe is popular with the lower classes... Well, I say 'made myself', I actually requested the item from the Mehmsahib, I am still confused by the inner workings of the cookhouse, even after the extended time I campaigned in the Sudan and Rhodesia.

On the Tuesday evening, the car made another interesting noise on the way home.  I was just leaving the A50 dual carriageway when there was something of a 'clatter' I looked in the rear-view mirror, but could see nothing.  The clattering continued and I noticed bright flashes of light pluming from my rear end, much like the below picture.

As you can probably gather, my exhaust had become disconnected by all the chugging from the misfiring engine.  I secured the errant tubing with a selection of cable ties and booked it in to have it fixed.  I had the next day off work, whilst the garage fitted a new exhaust and then drove the car (still poppety-bangitying) all the way around the houses to the spares shop.

'I've come to pick up my leads.' I said to a different stout yeoman, and showed him my receipt.  He wandered around for a little while, went upstairs, then back down, then into the office, then asked everyone else if they'd seen them and came back out.

'I think we've sold them by accident.' He said - having the decency to look faintly sorry, and was not completely surprised when I slapped him across the face with my leather gloves, suggested that he re-order them and walked out without saying a further word, leaving the outside door open on purpose to reinforce my feeling of displeasure.

On the Saturday I called in twice, the first time them could not find the part still, but 'according to the computer' it was in stock... Somewhere.  Unfortunately on this occasion I had forgotten my gloves, so I had to console myself by pointing at them and suggesting that they buck their ideas up or face a sound thrashing.

The second time, I was presented with the leads in question and an apology, which I accepted in good grace.  Until I got home to find that they had supplied the wrong ones.  To say that I was upset may be an understatement.  Some of the words that I used are banned even by Somali Pirates and I managed to turn one of the birdfeeders in the garden inside-out purely by the ungentlemanly nature of my outburst.

A WEEK LATER, after 500 miles of poppety-bangity-poppety-bangity-poppety-bangity travel up and down the M42 I managed to secure the correct leads which, when fitted, seemed to cure the 'bangity' part, but left me with a surfeit of 'poppety' noises still, along with using 25% more petrol than normal.

I steeled myself and resolved to have the car looked at by an oily professional upon my next pay-day... But then a wonderful thing happened.

One of my headlights popped.  Now, I know to the untrained eye, that may seem like a bad thing, but no... In this particular case it was the golden syrup dripping down the cleavage of an unconscious burlesque dancer, the shiny rollerskates on my suede cloak wearing, yodeling, greyhound.  Whilst I was beavering away under the bonnet to try and see how easy (or otherwise) the bulbs were to change, I moved the induction hose (the tinfoil looking affair that takes fresh-air from the dual superchargers into the air filter) and realised that not only was it not connected at either end, but it had split in the middle.  A quick application of most of a £2 roll of Asda's own-brand duct tape and normal service was (sort of) restored.

All that was required now was replacement bulbs,  I drove the three miles to the spares shop, slowing down as I drove past the police station so that I could rev my engine with impunity in their general direction.  Quoted my registration number to the very professional looking gentleman who gave me the bulbs.

They were the wrong bulbs...

Bloody Mary? Extra Worcestershire sauce please.

Teeny Tiny McBloggington today, thought I'd give you a little thing to play with over the weekend.

Spurred on by the news reports of outrage over ASDA (Walmart) selling blood stained straightjackets and rubber meat cleavers as 'Mental Patient' Halloween costumes,   I had a bit of a Samhain themed tiptoe through the bowels of the Internet, and came up with someone explaining this jewel.

Now, I don't know if any of you have ever done this, but it was in all of the 'Interesting things for Good Children to do' books that I had as a child (You'll know the ones if you are 'of an age' - They have pen illustrations of young boys wearing shorts with brylcreme'd hair and little blonde girls with gingham dresses and all the Policemen drove Morris six's and still had whistles.) - It goes a little something like this

You will need:

A darkened room: (Like, proper dark, not curtains shut and Jeremy Kyle muted, but night-time dark, curtains closed)
A dressing table or similar sized mirror: This must be solid and stable enough not to move or fall over on its own (Because if it does, halfway through this experiment, you will poop yourself)
A candle: Preferably an inch wide 'natural coloured' candle, that has a good hour of burn left in it (See spluttering out and pooping as above).

At this point many of you will be going 'Oh, right, that old chestnut, Blah Blah Blah.. Kid's stuff.' or something in that vein, but bear with me and actually give it a try, if you've done it in the past and nothing's happened, your room's probably been too light or you haven't given it long enough.

Sit, comfortably (and that's really important) directly in front of the mirror, so that your face is right in the middle and there is a space about the same width as your face between the edge of your face and the frame of the mirror, same sort of space above your head too, but that's not as important.

Light the candle and put it out of your direct eyeline, behind you so that your face is only lit from its light being reflected in the mirror.  It needs to light your face AND be bright enough to just about light the wall behind you - This is the most difficult bit, you should be just about able to see the pattern on the wallpaper, but not be able to make out what it is. (You can trim the wick to reduce the amount of light)

Stare into your own eyes and wait - Please note, at no point have I said stare without blinking like a cocaine-addled alligator swimming in espresso, it's important that you relax and have a fairly blank expression.  But keep looking.

It could take a while. could be anywhere between two and fifteen minutes, but persevere.

Did your face start to melt? Did you age or grow younger? Did you see a relative, alive or dead? An animal perhaps a cat or a pig?

Well, be glad you're an informed citizen of the 21st. century - A few hundred years ago that would have had people screaming 'Witch' before having a tuberculotic coughing fit, falling over and setting their hovel on fire with the upended candle.

It's actually all to do with the way that your brain is connected to your eyes.  You remember that bit in Jurassic Park where Sam Neill tells the annoying kid not to move because the T-Rex's vision was based on movement?  Well, ours is too, kinda, because we were built to be hunters originally and hunters need to react quickly to catch prey, and prey animals have this nasty habit of buggering off sharpish in random directions at a moments notice.

When you concentrate on something visual, a little switch gets flipped in your lizard brain that says 'Okey-Dokey, monkey brain up there is concentrating on something, switch to super-secret-movement-o-vision.'

Stare at something that doesn't move now, doesn't matter what, notice how everything around what your looking at starts to blur and fade?  Well, that's your brain saying, 'None of these things are moving or brightly lit, so they must be not that important. let's forget about them until one of them turns out to be a rabbit or a giraffe.'

Couple that with your brain's insatiable need to see faces in everything, clouds, plants and horrible French wallpaper for instance, and you have the situation where you're staring into the eyes of a dimly lit face in the mirror, your brain 'forgets about' everything except the eyes, then realises that it might well be looking at some kind of face, but it's forgotten the details so, it sort of, makes them up.

An Italian psychologist called Giovanni Caputo did a series of experiments with this a few years ago, out of his 50 subjects, 66% saw their faces melt (or similar) 18% saw one of their own parents faces, 28% saw a face that they didn't recognise and a staggering 48% saw mythical or horrific creatures.

Which just goes to show that your brain's a bit of a dick about stuff like that, quite a lot of the time.

Give it a go, if nothing else, it'll pass some time whilst you're waiting for X-Factor to finish so that you can go back to watching the TV.

-oOo-

I leave you with a not completely disassociated optical illusion.  It's called the Troxeler effect - Stare at the cross in the middle for twenty or seconds - and watch my little pink balls disappear...

And, having writ, moved on...

Yadda - Yadda - Yadda... Authoring, Yadda - Yadda - Yadda... Empowerment, Yadda -Yadda - Yadda... Worthiness, Yadda - Yadda - Yadda... I'd like to thank the Academy... Boring Boring, Boring...

You get it by now, I'm sure - I bang on about it all the time, I consider myself a writer, not just because I am completely up myself, but because I write stuff.  Since November 2012 I've written this, my semi-daily funny / ranty Blog - Which attracts on average maybe 50 hits per day.  Not brilliant, but I don't think it's bad for one that doesn't have any particular theme, doesn't get asked to endorse anything and doesn't have (very many) naked pictures of the author and his friends (For which you should all be truly grateful, trust me... OK, I looked pretty hot in the Beard Blog, but other than that, you'd want your eyes bleaching afterwards.)

I'd just like to take a moment to apologise to some people who've found me accidentally via Google, especially those people who were trying to find the popular, and incredibly naked Cam-Girl 'Dandy' - on a website whose address involves the word/s 'Ishotmyself' and got a story about Me, The Dandy, shooting myself one day by accident.  And the many, many gentlemen (I presume) who were searching for the same lady, but were concentrating on her mammary protuberances, and accidentally loaded a page about my love of shopping at ASDA / WalMart.

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook, (And if you don't... I'd be genuinely interested to know how you got here - Unless You're Russian of course, then you'd have probably searched for 'The Internet Saying', 'I sit here on the verge' or 'The Doors Lock' - Leave a comment, we're all friends here, I'd really like to know.) then you'll have heard that since May 2013 I've been trying to write Britain's next, greatest, youngish brother / sister / male / female protagonists, aspirational, Airship Pirate novel of the 21st. Century - It's going pretty well, 40,000 words (as of 10/7/13 - That's 10th July, not 7th October for the unusualy colonial types).  It's had some good WiP reviews, it's been mercilessly torn to pieces by proofers and it's been re-written more times than a Conservative Party list of Election Promises.  I'm sure you'll all buy a copy if I ever manage to have a meaningful relationship with an agent / editor / publisher.  I might even sign it for you if you send me gifts of cake, or compromising pictures of yourself that I can use to blackmail you in the future, should you ever become even slightly famous.

Then there's my published work, perhaps the most currently meaningful part of my portfolio as far as serious writing is concerned.  At around the same time I started this Blog, I also started submitting Flash Fiction stories to the august institution that is The James Josiah Flash Project (This was the first one I ever had published)- You should all be visiting this site regularly.  Short stories that you can quite easily read which performing many kinds of bodily function. JJ has published a couple of anthologies too (Of which I am perpetually honoured to have a couple of my stories feature in each), which you can download for your Kindle - Go to Amazon, do a search for 'James Josiah' and you'll find both of them. Then buy them, because they're only 77p each - In fact, buy all three of his books - Right now! - 'Stories I Shouldn't Tell' will make you cry, and if it doesn't I'll happily kick you in the shins, repeatedly. (Oh, and should you REALLY be interested, I'm credited as the Illustrator for volume 2 of the Flash Fiction Anthology under my real name... Bit of insider knowledge for you there. *wink*)

We're even going on a kind of Project Outing on Saturday, Well, some of us are attending the 2nd (Hopefully) Annual Edge Lit Festival in Derby.  It's an opportunity for authors and lovers of SF, Fantasy & Horror to get together and have a bit of a mingle.  There are writing workshops, guest speakers, book sellers and competitions, you should definitely go... I mean, we'll be there and everything.  OK, it's £25 a ticket, but you could learn something - And you get to hang out with creative people (And probably some geeks, and maybe some fully grown people who still live with their parents  - But who are we to judge?) - I intend to enjoy it immensely, and take pictures (if such shenanigans are allowed) and bore you with them next week

So be warned.

-oOo-

So, as the Top Ten of most popular Posts has taken a bit of a beating recently, I thought I'd provide an updated countdown.  Remember, these are voted for by you, you only have yourselves to blame.


10: An eye for an eye - Tales of Horror, inflicted by my Mother (When she was still alive) on a small child, using her own false eye.

9: Second contact closing fast, bearing 076 - A story about the time when, working as a glorified delivery driver, I caused a lorry driver to spontaneously combust and a motorway to be closed.

8: A discussion of pornography, do not read - A treatise on sexism, erotica and the popularity of soft-core pornography.

7: Then I posed, and he took my picture - About the time I may have had accidentally posed for a photospread published in a German Gay porn / Fetish magazine.

6: I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle - A guide to the etiquette of fancy-dress parties and how to teach children to field-strip a .50AE Desert Eagle.

5: Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 1) - The first installment of my three-wheeled motorcycle memories.

4: Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps - It's not what you think... It's about My enduring love of shopping at ASDA / WalMart.

3: One more rusty nail - A serious one, (Apart from the farcical bit in the middle) about how many people confuse the word 'Muslim', 'Terrorist' and 'Psychopathic Madman'.

2: Thermodynamics, it's the law! - This little beauty had been at number 1, since it was written, back in January 2013 - This story involves my Father, a cryogenically frozen bird and the trapped, screaming spirit of a mentally compromised secretary.

1: Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young - The new number one, only a few days after it's publication, it had received three times as many hits as the last number one had ever had in it's sad little life.  Pimped by semi-professional Bloggers, promoted internationally by the real live famous and hooptiously wonderful comedians Rufus Hound and Al Murray - My diatribe on all things bearded and how you are more likely to be considered manly by a modern female if you can grow a luxuriant facefull of fluffy fly-catcher.

Have a read with a chocolate digestive, see what you think, let me know, ask me questions, pop in and say hello on Saturday, I'll be the one in the green kilt (If it doesn't need ironing)

Just to prove that I do actually, write a Blog

OK, some of you will know that I'm currently in the process of writing a book.

It's an extension of the Edward Teach stories that I occasionally regale you with - But don't let that put you off.

I've found that it's a scary old thing, writing a book... Along with the standard 'Can I actually write a book?' and 'Will I get bored and give up and hate myself until I drink myself to death in an old bathtub on that bit of waste ground down by the gasworks?' questions that you constantly beat yourself up with, you release a second level of torture on yourself, and that goes 'But what if I can't get an agent?' and 'What if I get an agent, but no-one likes it?'

You can literally (See what I did there?) worry yourself into a premature Bisto.  It's best to just shout 'Buggrit' and let the literature flow when it will (Now do you get what I did?).

It might be rubbish, it might be twaddle, it might be the sort of high-camp space opera that would have EE 'Doc' Smith running for the air-raid shelter with a cuttlefish in both ears - But I still think we should all have a go, including myself.

So, in my constant endeavours to improve the quality of service I give to you people (my adoring readership) I decided to join a real Writers Group.

Now, before we go any further, I'd just like to assure any members of the Group that may happen to be reading this, I am not going to make the group itself, or the members that I have so far met, the subject of a full Blog post... I don't 'Do' current affairs - I'm going to wait until I can give a more in-depth view once I've been to a few more meetings.

So, why did I mention it if I wasn't going to Blog about it?

Good question... Good, good, question.  As part of my introduction to the group I said,

'Hello, I'm the Dandy and I write a daily humour Blog'

And then realised that I hadn't written a Blog today, and that struck me as rude.  So, as I'm a bit strapped for ideas (Don't judge me I've written some Flash Fiction today AND I'm going to be chunking away at the book in a sec), I thought I'd fling together a quick Top 10 Most popular Blog posts ever, as voted for by you guys, list.

Enjoy!

-oOo-

Dropping three places, at Number 10 is - Waiting for God-Oh! - A fictitious treatment of a drunken, Kebab-shop conversation between two Gods about the initial construction of the Duck Billed Platypus - Caution, one of your number actually tweeted The Pope about this post (No, really, someone did... They asked for my immediate excommunication).

Straight in at Number 9 is - This is why I'm smiling, how about you? - This is quite an earnest post about making small changes in your life that have large consequences, your own, personal Butterfly Effect. (Not that bloody awful Ashton Kutcher thing - The Edward Lorenz thing)

Another new entry at Number 8 is a DogBlog - It was like the Somme, only with more protein - Four (IIRC) stories of how one of my lovable pets managed to sequester food from various sources, without the prior knowledge of it's previous owners, and all the hilarity that ensues.

Our previous Number 6, drops a place to Number 7 - An eye for an eye - Describes, in haunting detail about how my Mother (Before she died) tried to turn me into a gibbering wreck via the medium of the false eye... It is a wonder that I'm so well adjusted.

The Current Number 6 (or, more correctly, Equal Number 5) - Second contact closing fast, bearing 076 - Is a story of inclement weather, explosively defecating truck drivers, and the possible closure of the M40

Our other Equal Number 5 - A discussion of pornography, do not read - Is just that, a diatribe that explores the difference between erotica, pornography, page 3 girls, firemen and dusty old harridans.

The highest new entry, straight in at Number 4 is - Then I posed, and he took my picture - Where I 'accidentally' have a photoset published in a German Gay-porn / fetish magazine... Yes, you heard me right...

At Number 3 - Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps - Tales of my Hi-Jinks in Asda, including the internationally acclaimed 'Running down the aisle throwing a watermelon to myself' story.

The penultimate plethora of poorly phrased pulchritude is - Barnably Wilde (Pt. 1) - My first collection of my slapstick motorcycling memories.  A collection of reasons why I should never be allowed to ride a motorcycle, or be allowed out on my own, ever.

You all know what's at Number 1 right? It's been stuck there since the beginning of February and it's lead is fairly unassailable - Thermodynamics, it's the law! - The story of my Father and the descent of a young secretary into permanent mental distress, and a bird - Don't forget the bird.

Normal service should be resumed tomorrow... Yeah, everything should be back to normal by then... I should think... Probably

Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps

Soooooooo... It seems you enjoy hearing about my misfortunes! - Yesterday on the blog was the most popular so far, with over 100 hits and 72 of those on the 'Barnaby Wilde' page itself.

Thanks guys, you made a bald man very happy.

The idea for today's Blog was suggested by my dear Wife, in a 'Well, they liked that, so they'll probably like this too' kinda way - But it'll only be short.

I'm a confirmed Asda (Walmart) shopper - They're cheap, you often don't get food poisoning from their own-brand range and the opportunity for shenanigens is quite high. I mean, you try the sort of crap that you'd quite happily get away with in Asda in Sainsbury's and you're looking at being escorted from the premises quick-smart by a security guard with the peak of his hat so close to his face that he looks like a jobsworth Judge Dredd.

I quite enjoy just wandering around the place and looking at the people - I mean, don't get me wrong, it's no People of Walmart - But it gets pretty close on occasions, you get a few people in their pyjamas and crocs, who I just assume to be escaped mental patients, but most of the time things are pretty sensible.

That is, of course, until LARP season starts...

For those of you who have managed to live your lives without encountering LARP, it stands for Live Action Role Playing - Dungeons and Dragons but with a far higher incidence of personal injury - Rubber swords, people dressed as elves, the whole nine yards. Hundreds (literally) of people congregate in the grounds of the old Leper Hospital up the road and bash seven different kinds of poop out of each other with maces and swords and hammers made of sponge-foam and Duct-tape. It would be all too easy to dismiss these people as boobs, really, it would, but when you see the obvious time and work they put into their costumes and how seriously they take it, they demand a certain respect. Add a bit of cleavage, and a fair smattering of acne cream and shampoo and some of those guys could be classed as cosplayers. (I'm not going to explain that one too - You can't be on the Internet and not know what a Cosplayer is - look it up, it'll be educational) That is, right up until you see them in the cream cake aisle at lunchtime, with a basket full of sausage rolls, scotch eggs and chocolate flavour milk - The studded leather jerkins, ring-mail vest, thigh boots and studded flails lose a bit of their mystique under those circumstances.

But you didn't come hear to listen to me opine about people who choose a different entertainment lifestyle, you came to hear about things that caused my physical pain and/or embarassment.

-oOo-

I show off... A lot... I mean, give me an audience and I behave like a five year old. It's the main reason for this Blog. I'm constantly being told to grow up by my children and I often turn around after shower-juggling a couple of (full) wine bottles in any shop I've not previously been banned from, to be confronted with the rapidly retreating rear-ends of my family as they melt into the crowd slowly repeating their manta - 'He's Not With Us... He's Not With Us...'

One time, I performed a trick that I'd seen in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, where you run down a supermarket aisle throwing a watermelon to yourself. You know, that's when I found out that real-life physics and cartoon physics work slightly differently. I don't mean you can't do it, you can, the first three or four throws work perfectly, but as you gain speed, you have to throw the watermelon further and further ahead of yourself...

You've worked out what happens next already, right? I knew I could count on you.

Watermelons make an absolutely brilliant noise when they hit the floor from about 10' up, and the pieces go for miles - I think that I might have actually spread my arms wide, slowly spun around in a circle to the assembled audence and cried 'Tah-dahhhh!'. The look of horror on my wife and daughter's face was worth the price of entry alone. I'd never heard my wife growl before, and it's not a noise I care to get her to repeat.

'Pick... It... Up...' She growled,

'What?' I replied, as innocently as my ear to ear smirk would allow,

'The melon, Pick... It... Up... Now..."

'Yes Dear.'

Did you know: It's possible to fit an entire watermelon in one of those small plastic bags that come on a roll in the fruit and vegetable aisle? Providing you make the pieces small enough that is. The cashier, when we went to pay, was pretty confused too. She tried to put it through as melon slices rather than a whole watermelon.

My wife made me explain what had happened.

Then she made me apologise.

I felt very sorry for myself.

I have not been allowed to forget this momentary lapse of judgement since, as every time my wife meets someone new she introduces me thusly,

'This is my Husband, he likes to throw fruit at himself in Asda.'

I think it makes me sound mysterious and interesting.

-oOo-

Another Asda moment that has entered the annals of Dandy history started with an innocent trip to the shops to get the ingredients for a summer picnic. It was the middle of the kids summer holidays and the store was pretty busy. The weather was hot (well hot for the UK - Maybe 25 deg Celcius) and most of the clothing worn by the customers was of the shorts and t-shirt variety. In fact, some of the female customers were wearing less, with vests and the occasional bikini top on display.

Mrs Dandy had chosen to wear a somewhat structural top with what are called, I believe, spaghetti straps, which served to accentuate her more than ample feminine charms. I use the phrase 'served to accentuate' here as a synonym for the more vulgar 'struggled to contain', and obviously it was only so long before I resorted to childishness.

I waited until we were surrounded (mostly) by adults, turned to Mrs Dandy and... well... made the action with both of my hands that indicated that I thought my wifes... erm... jumper-lumps were some kind of squeaky-toy.

What happened at this precise time helped convince me of my Super-Villain status.

The 'Honk-Honk' noise actually sounded, in perfect time with the squeezing of my hands. I looked down at my hands as if looking at them for the very first time. The surrounding shoppers looked at me, at the rapidly reddening Mrs Dandy, at my hands, at her upper ladies area - all with their mouths hanging open.

I burst into raucous laughter, which, luckily proved infectious and of course I tried to do it again - But this time I was thwarted, it seemed that this particular Super-Power was a one time only deal.

It remains a mystery to this day, completely unexplained and unexplainable. We did see a guy dressed as a clown a little further around the store making baloon animals, and he did have one of those old-style car horns with the black rubber ball, but I don't think that had anything to do with it.

See you next week, Dandy-Fans