One small para-diddle for a man…

OK, so a thing happened. I was entrapped in a chain of events that would probably have rendered a lesser man allergic to freeze-dried food for the rest of his natural life.  But it was good – I’m probably over-reacting… I mean I interact with famous people quite regularly on Twitter and sometimes on Facebook, and even less often face to face, what with the various restraining orders and suchlike… But this was something different… Anyway – It happened like this, and you’ll have to pay attention.

I listen to BBC Radio 2 almost every morning on my drive to work… I’m sat in the car for about 90 minutes between 07:15 and 08:45, listening to Chris Evans and his team bang on about stuff… I mean I turn over whenever the sports reports come on obviously, because sports are totally not my bag – But for the most part, you could certainly class me as a listener.

Yesterday (Here’s where is starts get all self-referential and cyclic, so ecoutez-la attentivement.) They played a song from back in the days of my youth, ‘Senses working Overtime’ by the band XTC – Now, this was originally released back in 1982, when I was fourteen. (OK, I’ll give you a hint here, use that information to work out my year of birth… I was 14 in 1982) and it’s great, you should give it a listen, it’s full of angst and 12-string guitars, you’ll love it... I know what kind of stuff you like – Trust me.

So, I got into work and searched for the track on YouTube (Other streaming sites are available) so that I may listen to it whilst reading my emails.  I found the song pretty easily, but also found a cover-version by one of my favourite bands of the time… Marillion.  Now, Marillion had provided the soundtrack of my own personal 80s journey… And I’d never really heard them play a cover before (Unless you count 1983’s Margaret, which is sort of a cover of the traditional “The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond” but with a modern twist) – Anywho, in the late 80’s the lead singer, Derek ‘Fish’ Dick left due to stress and management pressure.  In my opinion at the time, as a petulant teenager, and still today, as a petulant adult, that signalled the band’s demise. A lot of people deny this, but then a lot of people voted for Trump. (As it turned out… I may have been wrong)

The cover of ‘Senses working Overtime’ was by post-Fish Marillion, when the band was fronted by Steve Hogarth… whom I’d never heard of, and I still think looks a bit like a cross between Barry Humphries and Michael Hutchence – If I’m being honest I thought it was quite good, and went in search of other covers by the band.  I found several and posted them on Facebook one after the other.  Some were better than others, as you would expect – But the defining part of all the covers, and of Marillion in total, was the guitaring of Steve Rothery, who had been one of the founding members of the band, and he’s not too bad as hairy plank-spankers go.

Now, I’ve got a mate called Nathan, who I’ve mentioned on several occasions before… And amongst all of his other odd hobbies, is his seeming need to collect drummers as friends on Facebook – So it wasn’t long before he said to me, “Hey Dandy, let me introduce you to my mate Leon Parr, the sometimes drummer with Marillion and The Steve Rothery Band – Late of Mosque and he knows the Verve.”  Well, on any normal day, this would have exploded my kittens, but I played it cool – We had a nice chat and he said that he might be touring next year, and they’d probably end up playing some of the ‘Fish’ era Marillion stuff, so I should probably try and get hold of some tickets for that.

Now, great story right? – Famous people – Professional musicians… Talking to a member of a band whose lyrics I can remember word-for-word despite it being thirty years ago that I last bought an album (it was on vinyl too)

But no, that’s not where it ends… A new person started to comment on my post, a friend of Leon the drummer… He was hugely knowledgeable about Marillion and was seemingly at a lot, if not all, of the venues when these covers were being performed.  I didn’t know the gentleman in question but a very quick google search showed that he was a massive Marillion fan and the sometime live guitarist with ‘Edison’s Children’ the band that Marillion’s bassist, Pete Trewavas formed in 2011.

His name was Eric ‘Rick’ Armstrong who oddly knows another Facebook friend of mine, Simon Kregar Jr. - Who lives in the US and paints space-related paintings. He strikes me as a pretty nice guy who’s used to people being starstruck around him. His Dad’s name was Neil, and when I was a mere 1 year old – Neil Armstrong did a pretty cool thing that I really shouldn’t have to explain to you (Unless you didn’t work out that I was born in 1968)

Rick Armstrong talked to me on Facebook… Would any of you like to touch me? There will, of course, be a small charge - Which I may give to some charity or other.

It's all Tripe!

Some of you might remember that back in April (2015) I had the great fortune to win in the Alternative Blog Awards – I think I might have mentioned it in passing once, maybe twice tops?

I didn’t win the entire thing, obviously, but I did win in one of the categories that I was nominated in (Which yet again, is something that I don’t have in common with Leonardo Dicaprio) – It seems that you lot, or at least those of you who felt empowered enough to vote, thought I was the ‘Wordiest Blogger’ in the whole wide… Actually, I’m not sure if it was a global competition… It may have just been country-wide – Or perhaps just in my own fevered imagination – But for now, I’m going to go with World-wide, because you lot can’t prove otherwise, and my version of the truth is pretty much anything that you can’t disprove without some effort (Something I do have in common with the Conservative Party).

A lot of people asked what I had won, apart from the undying love of many, many loyal fans and the respect of my peers.  Those same people looked at me a little oddly when I told them that I’d received lifetime membership of ‘The Tripe Club’ – Which is sort of the fun, social-media savvy, young and sexy arm of the UK based Tripe Marketing Board.

(If a board can, in fact, have young and sexy arms)

What is tripe? I hear you ask, somewhat tentatively – With a screwed up nose, because you think you already know.  Well, it’s the stomach lining of an animal, most often a cow, that’s been removed (obviously) then bleached and part-cooked, before being sold to you, the consumer to... erm… cook again, and then consume, often with boiled onions, white sauce and mashed potato (which makes it look more like the 1950’s as you are actually eating a meal in black and white), or just pepper and vinegar possibly – I don’t know, you’re a funny old lot when it comes down to it. 

I must admit that I thought, when I first won the award (Did you know I won an award? – I’m an award-winner you know, Like Michael Winner and/or Stephen Fry – For those interested in plaudits, I once briefly but simultaneously held the top three places in Amazon’s Best-seller list with my three books, in the humour essays subdivision anyways. So, award-winning, best-seller would probably be a better epithet for me methinks.) that it was all a bit Framley Examiner, a bit The Onion – After all, it’s patron is David “Bumble” Lloyd, Ex-England Cricketer and fellow left-hander, and the Honorary President is the hugely famous Opera Singer and BBC Radio personality Martin McEvoy (I am sadly unsure as to his handedness)

It’s Chairman? For as you know every Board requires a Chairman, is none other than LA Times Interviewee and friend of the downtrodden, Sir Norman Wrassle. He’s a stern but fair Chairman who bears a passing resemblance to a dead Swedish Politician in a certain light, with a following wind.  And he follows me on Twitter, because he is the epitome of class and good sense…

Obviously, I am now convinced that this salubrious institution is completely serious and above-board and you should all immediately become members.  Membership is available via Their website, or by contacting them on Twitter, or for you Londoners, you can attend the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on the Evening of 7th September and join them in person – I am in two minds whether to go to this no-doubt fabulous and star-studded affair, as it’s a bit expensive to get a train down to the Smoke, and it’s a long time until payday.

Sadly, the membership number you will be issued will be higher than mine… Do you know why?

Muhahahahahaha!

If you would like any more information, or if you have been effected by any of the issues discussed in this blog, please leave a message in the comments and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can… I’d have thought

As the Tripe Marketing Board say themselves – 

TRIPE. YESTERDAY’S FOOD. TODAY.

Men stare at boobs – FACT!

Yes, of course the title of today’s blog is Clickbait – I used the word ‘boobs’ which is a trigger word for both sexually-active males and ladies with relaxed gender roles.

However, it also ‘kinda-sorta’ fits with what I wanted to talk about because it’s about an experience I had, in the company of my adoring and supportive wife, which made me think about the plight of ladies. Specifically those ladies with breasts, and even more specifically, ladies whose breasts are on display save for a t-shirt or low-cut blouse for instance.

[Dons tin helmet to avoid damage from brick-throwing people yelling ‘Misogynist!’]

Let me just say that I feel breasts (I was toying with finishing the sentence there, but I quickly thought better of it) are completely the property of the people that they’re attached to.  You can do with them as you will… Cover them up, get them out, paint them to look like comedy animals… Whatevs! – They’re yours – Gods, you can probably even feed babies with them if you want (as long as you cover yourself over with a blanket whilst you’re doing so and try not to offend anyone that is - wouldn’t want anyone using them for their designed purpose when there’s erotic flaunting to be done.)

Anyway, back to the point in hand (f’narr f’narr) – I bought myself some T-Shirts last week, they had slogans on them, as many T-Shirts do.  I wore one of them during an impromptu trip to my local shopping centre on Sunday – This is the T-Shirt.

As some of you will know, this is a quote from the BBC UK Television series ‘Sherlock’ starring Martin Freeman and Stickleback Bumberclart.

For the record, many-many people stared at my chest… And being the dirty-whoer that I am, I quite enjoyed the attention.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I’d get tired of it after a while… And this is why I find myself suddenly sympathising with ladies whose upper chestal area is worthy of notice. 

(This is a blatant lie – As with most men, we are all a shot of Tequila away from being a male peacock – I would say that 90% of the people staring at my chest were women and the law of averages says that 50% of them would be attractive – to me, by my shallow personal standards – And yes, I still have my helmet on so you’re wasting your time throwing those things – All men are pigs, we pretend to agree with feminist issues so that you will eventually sleep with us – That’s another fact. We’d much rather that you made us a sandwich, and be naked whilst you do it, if possible)

But if we push boobs to one side for a moment (This stuff just writes itself, sorry) – What actually is the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath? – Even a High-functioning one?

Well, they do say that both conditions are what is known as an ‘Antisocial Personality Disorder’ – So they’re not hugely dissimilar when it comes down to it.   The first real difference is that Psychopaths tend to be ‘Born’ possibly with some kind of brain lesion, and Sociopaths are ‘Made’ by their environment – A real case of Nature Vs Nurture here.  Psychopaths can form massively complex social relationships based entirely on fiction, purely to benefit themselves – Sociopaths won’t bother, you’re below them… Really quite a way below them.

Even their attitudes to criminality are totally different – Your garden variety Psychopath will plan and plan in the finest detail and there’s a very good chance that you will never discover that a crime has been committed (Unless you’re the one who’s dead, buried in an oil-drum, with your thumbs removed and sewn up your bum).  A Sociopath won’t plan at all - If they feel like committing a crime, they’ll do it there and then.  They firmly believe that the laws don’t exist for them – that laws are just for the common people

As a rule, Psychopaths feel no fear and have no sense of right or wrong, whereas Sociopaths do – But they’ll have their own ideas of what they class as ‘moral’ behaviour which might not go along with those of the general populace.  On the whole, Sociopaths are less dangerous… One might kill you if you were to make them angry enough.

But a Psychopath will kill you to death with a rusty spoon because you look like their Mum’s old milkman.

So, which one are you do you think?

You know how the smallest thing can trigger a memory?

I was driving to work this morning, thinking how lucky I was that it only takes an hour and a half and that it’s payday tomorrow. When Status Quo came on Radio 2 (I listen to Radio 2 because I am old, and bald, and fat – and because one day, Chris Evans might make reference to the two books that I sent for him and the team to have a read of – But I shan’t be holding my breath, because: implied advertising / BBC / not in this day and age / Oh blimey no, more than my job’s worth.)

And it certainly wouldn’t happen this week (or next week) as he’s currently off and Sara Cox is filling in for him – And it’s his Birthday today (1/4/15 – April Fool’s day… Figures)– Happy Birthday Chap

So, got hit a bit with the tangent-bat there didn’t we?  Back to The Quo.  Now, I can’t actually remember which track it was that they played.  It wasn’t Caroline, or Rocking all over the World and in fairness it doesn’t matter as my vision did the whole ‘biddle-biddle-biddle’ thing and I was transported back to 1985 and a sticky-floored nightclub in Derby called…

The Rockhouse…

Now, I’ve spoken about The Rockhouse before, if you remember it’s where those nice, friendly ladies, Rockbitch, played and my gibbon-armed colleague managed to investigate their anatomy quite closely a few times. In the late 80’s – early 90’s. It was pretty much my second home.  I had a lot of ‘experiences' there, but the one that came to mind in this particular instance was one that happened most weekends (if a particular instance can happen repeatedly that is)

You know a particular song that has a dance routine?  I’m thinking of things like The Macarena and suchlike.  Or how in any given Hollywood film that features a dance-number there’s a bit where all the ‘normal’ extras clear off and are replaced by ‘super-pretty’ extras who launch into a spectacularly choreographed routine featuring a song that the leading man has only just written?

There’d be a time when the DJ would play Status Quo… Any Status Quo track would do*, and two lines of greasy biker/rocker/grebo types would line up facing each other like the chorus line of Mad-Max the musical and ‘spread’ – Now you’ve probably seen this dance even if you’ve not known what it is, it happens a lot at birthday discos for 40 & 50 somethings and wedding receptions where the just-pre-elderly enjoy embarrassing the youngsters. It consists of a number of people (Well, I suppose one person can spread, but it’s probably the saddest sight in the world) standing, facing each other and then sort of moving the top half of their bodies, forcefully, left and right with the beat whilst leaving their bottom halves immobile.

I’m not describing this hugely well am I?

But you know what I mean right?  Believe it or not, there was a hierarchy of ‘spreaders’…

Right at the bottom were the ‘swayers’ – The people who really didn’t know what was going on and just wanted to be part of something larger than themselves. They would look, nervously, along the spreading line whilst flopping about whilst repeatedly falling out of time with everyone else.  They were often felled by impromptu accidental head-butts.  I guess that you’d call them n00bs nowadays.

Then you had the ‘loopers’ – The ones who put their thumbs in the belt-loops of their jeans as they had seen on Top of the Pops the week before… This was a common misunderstanding by ‘trendies’ and this was a dance more associated with the bands The Bay City Rollers & Mudd in the previous decade.  This is the style you’d mostly see at parties.

Then, above the ‘loopers’ by quite a large amount, were the ‘punchers’. These were the first rank of ‘real’ spreaders.  The dance itself was very simple, you twisted to the right for two beats, looking down, then moved your head/hands to the upper left for a beat, then to the upper right for a beat, then down and left for two beats (Repeat ad nauseum – sometimes quite literally) – A ‘puncher’ is identified by a punching motion during the upper two beats, often with the opposite hand.  Occasionally, people stood next to punchers were rendered unconscious due to standing too close… More often than not, during a guitar solo.

Right at the top of the tree you have the ‘Ninjas’ or ‘Aces’ – These people are the elite.  They’ve been spreading to Status Quo songs since before Frank & Ricky were touring in Frank’s Dad’s Ice-Cream van singing about Matchstick men.  Their bodies move like heated quicksilver, they watch with impunity as the people next to them in line fall to the floor in exhaustion.  Where ‘punchers’ punched the air, the ‘ninjas’ would use an open hand in such graceful movements as ‘clearing away the mystic wind’ and the ever popular ‘if you only touch it gently, it’s not technically masturbation’.  There was no sweating from them, no heavy breathing, and no excuses.  And you could tell who they were even if they weren’t dancing for two easily spotted tell-tale features:

1. 1)      They wore crowns and ermine capes – A bit like Freddie Mercury’s
2. 2)      They had ‘trap’ muscles (the ones that join your head to your shoulders) like a steroid-addled cardassian weight-lifter from all of the forcefull bobbing about

I’m proud to say I was eventually one of their number, it took me years to work my way from being a humble ‘swayer’ through the ranks of myriad ‘punchers’ to the heady heights of ‘Ninja’dom. 

What did it earn me, other than the undying respect of my peers? you ask.

Well I'll tell you...

I could legally ask one of the lower ranked customers to give me a piggy-back across the 18” of flooded gents’ toilet.  And they told me who could turn off the security cameras whilst I became ‘better acquainted’ with various young ladies on the fire escape outside, rather than televising it in HD on the stage projector.

(OK, so technically that only happened once, but it was a very long time ago. And it wasn't to me, honest.)

'They' say you should dance like no-one's watching.  I beg to differ, I say you should dance like everyone's watching, but that might be 'cos I'm a massive show-off - Or a bit of a cock.

Rock-on kids

*and possibly ‘Spirit in the Sky’ by Doctor & the Medics but not all the time. 

Are you more a Ben or a Socrates?

I was listening to BBC Local Radio on the way into work this morning, as I so often do - It stops me staring dejectedly out of the side window of the car into the bleak rain, like someone in a black and white Jimmy Somerville video that's just discovered his true sexuality and is running away from his closed-minded parents to the teeming Metropolis of Manchester, to live a brand-new life that involves many fabulous cushions, ostrich feathers and quite a lot of bumming.

Anywho, there was a 'Pest Control Executive' on there this morning, warning us all about the danger of a new breed of Super-Rat that was resistant to all of the commonly used poisons.  But he said that we should not worry, we should not all start looking on the Internet for contractors who will charge us our life-savings and then some, to rat-proof our homes because there is a miracle spray that we can use which discourages them.

Have you ever seen a discouraged rat? Me neither, but I assume that it looks a bit like this:

Note the drooping whiskers, the general hang-dog expression and the look of rodenty resignation.  He's either just had a good, hard, discouragement, or he's about to get killed to death with a shovel.  My money's on the latter.

Now, I think I may have missed the bit where it described whether you actually had to spray the stuff on the rat itself, like fly-spray, or whether it was a prophylactic (And no, I don't mean that it magically caused a little rat condom to appear out of thin air - And even it if did, I would suggest that you use tweezers to put it on the rat, at arms length - They're bitey little buggers,  I mean that you sprayed your worldly goods and it made them less attractive to rats.)

At one point, the interviewer asked his guest, 'So, am I right in saying that if you have decking, you've probably got rats?' to which his reply was, and I can only imagine that he did that thing we all do at Halloween, where you use a torch under your chin to uplight your face 'No, actually, if you have a shed, you've probably got rats.' - I mean, he didn't actually go 'MuhahahahahHAHAhahHha!' but you could tell by his voice that he really wanted to.

He did try to console the general populace by saying that rats don't often come in through your catflap though.

Let's just take a minute there... If you'd asked me yesterday whether having a rat coming in my catflap was a real worry, I'd have laughed like... Erm... I don't know... Like Christiano Ronaldo looking at my payslip, with the general absurdity of the question.

Now I'm having trouble thinking about anything else, and I haven't even got a catflap!

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not totally anti-rat.  I mean, they have a bit of a bad name, what with the whole Leptospirosis / Weil's Disease thing. Not to mention the small matter of that whole outbreak of Bubonic Plague in the 17th Century killing somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people in England depending on who you believe (Yes, I know that technically that was down to the fleas on the rats rather than the actual rats, but that's like saying that you actually get shot by a bullet rather than a gun. Saying things like this within earshot of me will normally result in you getting a thorough 'Belming', or a half-hearted 'Chinny Reckon' behind your back if you're bigger than me).

I mean, I remember many happy nights in the 1970's sitting outside my parents house and watching some fairly large rats run across the rooftops from house to house, it was the highlight of our Saturday nights.  There are even people who keep them as pets you know? And they will tell you that they're amazing, clean, intelligent creatures (That's the rats, not the people who keep them, obviously. They're just weirdos.) who can be taught to do complex tasks and do not just urinate everywhere, chew through your electrical wiring and get caught in your hair... Hang on, thinking about it, that might be bats though, not rats - They're pretty much the same animal when you get down to it aren't they?

They're as tough as old boots too, they're radiation resistant to the point where, after the big button gets pressed and we all disappear in a bright, nuclear (or New-cue-lar, for our Colonial readers) flash it'll be pretty much just rats and cockroaches as far as the eye can see.  They are also quite easy to muck about with on a genetic level, scientists have bred whole species of rats that are predisposed to obesity and / or diabetes so that they can be used in researching treatments.

I suppose that, when you think about it, it's a tough old life being a rat - Very few sane people like you, you're hunted to almost extinction, chased, trapped and exterminated wherever you may be, experimented upon, if you manage to live past your first few weeks after being born (which 95% don't, believe it or not.) Your average life span in the wild is about two years. You're even thought of as a delicacy in parts of Africa, China and South-East Asia - But don't tell the tourists OK?

And... there's the ever present danger of Toxoplasmotic Zombification.  We've all heard of Toxoplasmosis right? That thing that pregnant women use as an excuse for getting someone else to empty their cat's litter-tray (And let's face it, it's usually the women who decide to get a cat, right? If the choice of house-pet was left up to the men, we'd all have eagles and crocodiles and badgers running around the house wouldn't we?) - The disease is caused by a little parasite, made of a single cell, called Toxoplasma Gondii (Pron. Gone-dee-eye) which only really grows and reproduces in cats.  However, the way it gets into the cat is pretty odd.  It's a well known fact that rats eat pretty much anything up to and including steel - One of those things is cat poop (ewww, right?) If the poop is infected with the parasite, it rages through the rat, to it's little rodent brain and flips a switch, the one that normally says 'You really, really, don't like cats, avoid places that smell like cats, specifically places that smell like cat urine' so that it now says 'You know what you feel like right about now? some cat urine, find things that smell like cat urine and hang about in their general vicinity.'

So, what do you often find near cat urine? That's right, a cat's backside, which is often connected to a cat's frontside, which, ninety nine times out of a hundred, comes complete with a head, mouth, teeth and the sunny disposition of a wet ninja with hemorrhoids.

The rat's lifespan is then measured in femtoseconds, there's a squeak, a bit of a scuffle and it dies, but not without infecting the cat (which I suppose is a bit of a cold comfort for it, all things considered) and the magical circle of life continues on.

Poor, poor Ratty

But on the other hand, and who, other than some of my teenage girlfriends, knew I had so many hands? A rat did kill one of Mrs Dandy's cats once.  Not through any heroic beastial fight for its life, not by giving it some nasty parasite, not by causing a grand piano to fall on it in a Tom & Jerry stylee.  But by choking it to death.  I opened the back door one morning and saw one of the most pathetic, but at the same time blindingly funny things that I have seen before or since.  There was the cat, quite dead and stiff, lying on its side on the patio, with this huge rat's back end sticking out of her mouth.

She was old and didn't have any teeth you see, so she couldn't chew...

She'd attempted to swallow it whole...

She failed...

We gave her a viking funeral, it's what she would have wanted.

All Olympic'd out

Origianlly posted on Facebook 30/7/12

So I want to see the local news... I turn on BBC 1 just before the hour this morning, sit back and watch the Olympic Rowing quarter finals or something for ten minutes.

So I look on the TV Guide and realise that the BBC morning news is now the BBC morning olympics coverage. I go to the 'News' section of the TV guide, select 'BBC News'

And see the rowing again...

Now I'm probably being grumpy, and you might say that the olympics is a big thing and it's only once every four years - But I would much rather see Lord Coe et al on our brand new olympic-sized skating rink trying to get away from a gross of badly shaved rabid warthogs than have this namby-pamby runney-roundey, jumpey-uppey, throwey-stuffey, floppey-aboutey, timey-wimey, 'Oh! aren't we all so bloody athletic', spandex covered sausage fest thrust at me on every channel known to man or super-intelligent shade of the colour blue.

And yes, I spelled olympics with a lower-case 'o' on purpose - Hmph!