Carry me back, baby, where I come from.

Well yes, as Messers Page & Plant might say, 'It's been a long time' (See what I did there?)

But what's been a long time?

It's been a long time (been a long time, been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time) since we've had a 'State of the Dandy Nation' speech.

So, what's happened in the last... Erm... four months maybe?

I'll start with the top ten posts ever. There are a few changes, certainly, but the most noticable thing is that there's a joint number one - Two posts have had exactly the same number of views as each other - Which is so unlikely that it's prompted me to have a go on the lottery this weekend.  (I'm not going to be giving it the whole Smashie & Nicey 'And straight in at number 10' business because I haven't been keeping track of the movement - Yes, this is bad, and I feel bad.)

-oOo-

10 - Our least best post, if that makes sense, is: And then I killed Bobby Davro - The story of a trip I took to one of our great country's theme parks.  Where there was screaming, rending, and the enforced fighting (probably to the death) between two innocent wild animals.

9 - A NSFW Tweet about a time in my life when I used to see live bands on a regular basis, this particular live band were pretty much all naked, and performed repeated coitus with a member of the crowd - \m/ Rockbitch are so NSFW that it's not even funny \m/

8 - Now, this one's deeply personal to me, which I why I shared it with a thousand people who I don't know on The Internet.  It's the story of my Father's death from Cancer.  It doesn't contain many belly laughs, but I've received a few messages to say it's helped people in similar situations, which is nice - Today, my Dad died

7 - You leave me bent and broken by the roadside - The story of the final days of the MK I Dandymobile. And it's repeated, abortive, trips to the car spares shop.

6 - This post is my finest moment, it is because of this that I realised that I'd become one of the true Twitterati, a God amongst men, a harvestman scything my way through a field, reeling in the sheaves of my devoted followers (Oh, and it also got re-tweeted by Rufus Hound and favourited by Al Murray, so I win the Internet, Ner!) - Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young

5 - Oh blimey, more Death... I guess I'm just of that age where people I know are shuffling off this mortal coil with increasing regularity. - Sabian, the Token Yank - Describes my relationship with one of the nicest colonials anyone could ever possibly hope to meet, except you can't... Because, you know, he's no longer with us.  Holds the record for the most comments from people I don't strictly know, including his family.

4 - Learn to govern yourself, be gentle and patient - Is a 'Steampunked' description, of the workings of the very real Brookwood Cemetery, and British Funerary custom in the 19th Century (The title is a lyric from the glorious The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing's song 'Etiquette' - Which you should all rush off and listen to immediately.)

3 - I still don't get this one, - No, it is not a 'Slow News Day' - This particular post is very similar to this particular post... No, hang on, I mean that it's just the same as the post you're reading now.  It's a 'State of the Dandy Nation post' from September 2013.  You guys are seriously weird.

=1- The first of out two top posts, with more than a hundred more views than any other (Except the one below, obvs) is - You get me closer to God - Which is a no-holds-barred, blow-by-blow account of the events leading up to, and including, then entry of my Son, The MicroDandy, into the Kingdom of God via the medium of Baptism - If you're hugely fundamentalist, you might not want to read this, it does poke a little bit of fun at Mother Church, and the people who only go there once a year.

=1- The second of our first place entries is about Facebook, especially the people who blindly share sob-stories without checking their facts.  You know, those people who send you things with pictures of fly-covered children who will get a life-saving operation if the post gets 100,000 likes - There's one born every minute - Got a comment on this one from an irate, but anonymous American, which is worth a read on its own - He was very angry, I think he needs to eat less protein.

So, if you want a quick introduction to the sort of piffle I write, you could do worse than taking a look at those (Bear in mind that those are the best as voted for by you, the public, and you're notoriously fickle.)

-oOo-

We now come to the ever-popular 'What have people Googled to find the blog?' section... Depressingly, not as much as usual - I'm putting this down to more of my adoring fans bookmarking me, but popular search terms in the last quarter have included:

Dzit Dit Gaii - Which managed to find my post about Denver International Airport

Tiswas David McKellar - This pointed the seacher towards my review of the 40th anniversary party for TISWAS in Birmingham which I was honoured enough to attend.

-oOo-

As far as hits on the blog goes, in the previous quarter, we had 6,066, bringing our total up to 40,331 at the last count.

Which, as I'm not pretty, don't get my boobs out, don't advertise, don't provide a cogent service of any kind and am just really a fat, bald, bloke who's only just on the right side of 50, isn't that bad.

Nope, not bad at all.

Easing myself in gently

Right then, my first Post in two weeks...

I'm going to jump back into it with both feet and an easy hit.  The state of the Dandy Nation for the first bit of 2014.

Hmm... Dandy Nation, the more I say that, the more I like it - Maybe there could be a T-Shirt line in there somewhere... A bit like (or, you might say stolen from) the 1972 David Pelham cover for 'A Clockwork Orange'

Like this:

Feel free to steal this image and post it every-flipping-where

Hasn't this year just flown past? it only seems like seconds seconds that I was was telling the younger members of the Dandy family things like 'No, I'm sorry, we've run out of that size of battery.' and 'Well, if the dog's eaten your Pokemon then you're going to have to wait until it evolves its way out.'

But we're in February already, beset by floods and snow and sinkholes and we're rushing headlong towards Easter and the chocolate coma that we could so easily all drop into, having not fully recovered from eating that entire tin of Roses or Quality Street to ourselves on Boxing Day.

Here we go:

Since the 1st of January, the Blog has had 2,757 views, which is a little down on average, but I guess that I've not posted anything in February at all.  This takes our total pageviews, as of today, the 12th February 2014, to 29,048

(Oh yeah, whilst I remember, a pet peeve of mine... The name of this month is pronounced 'Feh-Brew-Ehry' not 'Feb-You-Ehry'.  And also, You know the sticky black sweet, liquorice? that's pronounced 'Lick-O-Ris' not 'Lick-Er-Rish', just so as you know.)

It's been another world-wide month, with our popularity rising again in Russia.  We seem to be getting popular in The Ukraine now too, in fact after the UK, USA and Russia, they're our number 4 most populace readers, then comes Australia, Canada & Germany, followed by Brazil, France and the plucky little Isle of Man.  We're also starting to get hits from Denmark, Kenya and Hong Kong, which is nice.

-oOo-

The 'Things people have searched for on Google and found the Blog' list has a couple of surprises.  Apart from the normal 'thechimpingdandy.blogspot.com' type things, there's been a distinct upsurge of queries involving some of the following words 'Gunzmore, shooting, 14, stepfather, Facebook, rape and virus.' Which, for those who haven't read the post, will be explained later. 'Dzit Dit Gaii translation' is also enjoying a resurgence.  But our newest Google query (In that it's one I've not seen before) is: 'british masturbation blogs/ dandy' - Your guess is as good as mine...

-oOo-

And here's the current Top-Ten chart of Blog posts:

10: You like it when I do what? - This is a 'State of the Dandy Nation' post from October 2013.  Which, as well as detailing the top ten posts, also ruthlessly pimps my last book - Which you can buy from Amazon here *cough* - You could buy the Kindle version instead if you wanted, but that wouldn't help my kids go to University.

9: Like a firm, ripe, peach - A slightly salacious post about 'Mooning', the act of baring one's buttocks in the direction of another person to show a general lack of respect (Caution, includes a description of an event that involves the buttocks of young boys - But I have never, at any time, been a Radio 1 DJ)

8: Priorities - An unusually serious post for The Chimping Dandy that describes the way that my Father told me that he was suffering with inoperable cancer.

7: Today, My Dad died - You can probably get what this one's about from the title - Had some good comments about this one.  Although you should probably know that what I call a good comment, would be something like 'That was difficult to read.'

6: Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young - I'm so glad that this is still in the Top 10 - Although I understand that that might be because I pimp it every time someone mentions that they like beards on Twitter.

5: Learn to govern yourself, be gentle and patient - This is one of my personal favourites, it details some of the things closest to my heart, anachronism, Radio Four between 18:30 - 19:15, steampunk, bodily fluids and Victorian burial procedures

4: There's one born every minute - This post is the reason for all the Google searches involving the name 'Gunzmore' - It's about those people who share the 'If you like this post, Bill Gates will donate $1 to help this Polar Bear cub to get the plastic surgery he so richly deserves' posts on Facebook, despite knowing full well that it's complete balderdash.

3: Sabian, the Token Yank - More death here I'm afraid... But this time of a long-time friend, rather than a family member.  It does hold the current records for comments though, and bizarrely, it's the only post so far that I've had to delete an offensive comment from.

2: No, it is not a 'Slow News Day' - Now, I don't get this one in the slightest.  This is another 'State of the Dandy Nation' post, this time from September 2013 - There's a top-ten, a list of Google Searches like you'd expect... The only difference is that it gives you details about how you cam get hold of Chimping Dandy 'Merch' from the great people at HashTogs - They're on Facebook if you're interested... Please be interested... It'll make me feel that this isn't all for nothing.

And here we go.

The Blockbuster, the most popular post ever in the history of the Universe!

Destined to stay at number 1 for the foreseeable future:

1: You get me closer to God - Even though I ruthlessly stole the title of this post from the Nine Inch Nails, it's actually a story set in Church, about the time The Micro-Dandy got baptised - This is in the lead by, like, 100 pageviews - People seem to really like this stuff, and I'm not going to complain.  Even I think it's pretty good, and I wrote it.

-oOo-

So, there you go for another month (at least) - Please bear with us, normal service will be resumed in the near future - Maybe I'll do something about James Blunt (Blount) next.

P.S. if you want a higher-resolution version of the 'Dandy Nation' logo to make some stickers to stick on your nearest lamp-post or whatever, drop me an email, and I'll send you one

Please note: sticking anything on lamp-posts could be seen as defacement of property and you might get into trouble - So make sure you do it when it's dark