State of the nation 2016

You know when you're stuck in a rut? - When the tidal wave of fame that self-publishing a new book brings fades into the general background radiation of the Yuletide holidays.

(Christmas book-launches only seem to make sense if you have an unlimited advertising budget... Or indeed any advertising budget at all. Because people tend to spend their money on StayPlations and Microsfot Eggsboxes for their jammy-faced, unappreciative kids who'll be parents themselves by the time they're 15 - And don't give a second-hand fig about you. Because books are boring and old-fashioned and someone who gives a book for Christmas is second only to the Aunt who smells of urine and buys you socks or pants every year from the Pound-shop in the crappy relative stakes.)

But I digress... I was talking to someone today about my book.  I kept correcting her by adding a sibilant 'Ss' every time she said 'your book' - I thought it was a clever way of implying the plural, what with me actually publishing at least four books and appearing in many, many more short story collections and being the editor of a handful of books for other people... But she just looked at me funny, I think that she thought I was pretending to be a snake... Or that I had a slow leak - Both of which were technically true, So her concern was real.

But the one thing she said during our conversation that struck a chord was "I've looked at your blog and it's not been updated for ages." She didn't go as far as to say, "And you're an old, fat, man who obviously can't keep up the pace where the 21st Century in general, and social media in particular is concerned," but you could tell she was thinking it.

(Actually she wasn't, she's really nice and she has danced with Mrs. Dandy of her own free will on many separate occasions - It's best not to ask!)

That spurred me on to actually write something, hastily forgetting that I'm currently working on my ghost story for this coming Friday - It's called 'Box' by the way, the next self-published book 'The Morehouse Decoration' and Vol 2 of the Windspider Saga (or Chronicles or something) called 'Child of Space' - But anyway, here we go, one hastily thrown together blog post... Erm... 

Oh! Tell you what, We've not had a 'State of the Nation' thing for a while have we?  For those of you who can't remember the last one, it's a few facts and figures about what's happened to the blog in the past month... All these facts and figures are accurate at time of going to press...

This month has seen another one of our Soviet Invasions - You know the drill, when we get thousands (and I mean actual thousands) of pageviews from Russia, Georgia and the Ukraine etc... They bumped our all-time pageviews up to 66,365 - Which isn't bad for someone who has an over-inflated view of himself and seldom, if ever, does anything pornographic to entice views - I haven't got the thighs for it any more you see. - That two-page spread that I did for that German gay-porn magazine seems like such a long time ago now.

Anywho - Here are the ten most popular post this month... In no particular order... Feel free to play Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love' whilst you go through their titles - Feel free to keep it on whilst you're reading the posts too, but you'll need to have it on repeat and it turns into a bit of an ear-worm - Sorry about that

10 - 'Leg godt' as they say in Denmark - A deeply personal sojourn into my relationship with LEGO, detailing how it has effected my family. (And for long time fans, no, it's not the one with the mini-skirt, it's the other one)

09 - One small para-diddle for a man… - About the time I became one of the most starstruck people on the planet... And I didn't even talk to anyone who's actually that famous - Oh, and I talk about Marillion for a bit too.

08 - A shiny tuppence for everyone? - This was about popular ladies' hair-styles... But not the ones they have on their heads.

07 - Bikers can be fragile little flowers. - This is where I prove how nice a person I am by holding another man's penis for him with my own hands... Well, hand... Well, thumb and forefinger. And I looked away.

06 - Deconstruction Complete - Hey! The other LEGO post... Who'd have thunk that two posts about the same subject, written a year apart could be popular in the same month with Russians?

05 - Today is the first day of the rest of your life - This is a blatant advert for my new book, Forever Girl - You should totally read it. (The Post and the book - There are links to Amazon and everything - It really is the shiznit - Plus I'm using the profits to put my daughter through tattoo school)

04 - Women are brilliant! Literally, the sweetest thing - This is a discussion about me finding out that it's not only me that doesn't fully understand the modern, fashionable definitions of gender and its fluidity. (But it's funny too - Don't get me wrong)

03 - A discussion of pornography, do not read - Oh, I didn't realise quite how often I talk about sex and sexuality, there'd certainly something Freudian in there.  But this post sort of covers the difference between naked men and naked women (yes, I know, innies and outies, but... ) and erotica and pornography

02 - Ah'm with ye Jacky-Boy - A post about lovely, lovely Scotland and how I like to pretend I'm Scottish to fox the tourists in Scotland... I also like to wear a kilt, but that's another post all together.

01 - Public Toilets are not as much fun as I first thought - There's an outward theme of deviancy isn't there? It's not intentional, these post are the ones that you guys found popular and interesting.  I've written hundreds, but theses are the ones you chose to read. This ones about me and some urine belonging to someone else... And it's on me... And I'm not proud.

So, there you are, the ten posts that you odd people found popular this month - Give them a read and see what you think. Tell your friends. You should buy some of my books too, they're cheap and you can definitely get them for Christmas- They make great presents!

Until next time kids - If I don't see you before, the Christmas Ghost story should be going up on Friday

Otherwise - Merry Christmas!

Mrs Dandy & Myself being festively debauched

Oh, By the way, it wasn't just Russia, we had hits from France, Germany, Spain, India, Kenya, Cyprus, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico as well as the UK and the US - So by reading this you're making yourself part of a planetary gestalt... Just think about that for a second - Have you got a warm glow yet?

'Leg godt' as they say in Denmark

I went up to the attic this morning, to push a fresh plate of fish-heads under my Son's bedroom door, when I saw a huge box of something that helped me decide what I was going to do this weekend.

If there's one word guaranteed to make any sane man weak at the knees, make his mind race and his mouth go dry...

It's LEGO!

Some of you may have read before about my almost slavish devotion to Ole Kirk Christiansen's building blocks. I can't remember a time when I wasn't surrounded by the colourful little beggars (and neither can I remember a time when at least one of my parents wasn't shouting 'Oooyah! Damn your eyes! I've just trod on some Lego! Pick it up before I wear your bladder as mittens -And yes, both of my parents were pirates of the South Seas before you ask!)

There's just something about the absoute mutability of it all. You can pick up a couple of decent handfuls of shiney plastic and make virtually anything with it. There's no guarantee that it will look anything like what it's supposed to be anywhere outside your imagination, but that doesn't matter.

You CAN make a scale model of the Titanic with four 'eighters', two flat 'sixers', a wheel and a Darth Maul lightsaber.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect someone to recognise that what they see as a pile of clear red and blue 'fours' are a steampunk version of the Mona Lisa wearing a pirate hat and cuddling a weasel - (If they can't, then they're imaginatively inept - You should shun them - Shuuuuuun Theeeeeemmmmm!).

My dear Son (Gawd bless him and all who sail in him) - In whose name 50% of the Lego is bought, likes to make guns. He doesn't constrain himself to just using Lego, he'll use sticks, cardboard, geese, cheese, anything really - But when we gets the Lego out, all bets are off. It's like there's an arms race between Rube Goldberg and Rowland Emett - His guns become fragile things with cogs and flags, they often also have windows and/or teeth. The one thing that most of them have in common is a removable magazine of some sort, A stack of blocks that can be connected under the breech (Oooohh, get me and my firearm vernacular!)

I asked him once, when he'd made a multi-coloured contraption that looked like a 3D model of the London Underground system mixed with an Avocet.

'So, where's the magazine?'

'You mean the clip?'

'Yeah, clip, of course, silly me,'

'Here,' He replied, removing what looked like a horse-headed duck.

'Gotcha, it's good that it has one of those.'

'Well, if it didn't, there wouldn't be any bullets,' He switched to the tone of voice that adults used to address the mentally challenged or new-born babies, shook his head and continued, 'And that wouldn't be a very good gun would it?'

And then the end fell off and smashed into a zillion pieces...

For every Cutty Sark we've made, there's been a three-legged centipede, for every Statue of Liberty, there's been a purple, one eyed, banana with rocket engines and an umbrella. Don't think it's just me and the boy though, Oh no! The MiniDandy gets involved too, but her constructions tend to be significantly more identifiable, houses, gardens, lakes and icebergs - that sort of thing. Mrs Dandy occasionally takes a few minutes off from rocking backwards and forwards repeating 'Look at this mess, I'm not going to clear it up, it's not my mess.' to jam a few bricks together, from what I remember, she does a blinding small duck. (To clarify, not a small duck with a large spike coming out of the front of it - Although that would be perfectly possible, a small duck that is quite realistic - as far as one can be and still be made of Lego)

I could evangelise all day about Lego, I know for a fact that my Blog is read by at least two AFOLs (Adult Fans Of Lego) and one fully certifiable 'Brick Wizard' (He has a hat and a badge and everything, probably), and no, I don't mean certified.

But it comes down to this - Lego is the best toy that has ever been invented by man, It encourages thought, creativity, dentistry (as anyone who has ever tried to seperate two flat blocks of the same size with their teeth will attest to), co-operation and parallel thinking. It prepares the little blighters for their adult roles, teaches problem solving and introduces them to the joys of the National Health Service and new words like 'Forceps' and 'Hemostat' when the nice doctor is trying to retrieve an orally, nasally or anally inserted minifigure head.

I honestly believe, that if you have children that have gone past the 'put every gorram thing in their mouths or up their noses' stage and they are dextrous in any way, and you HAVEN'T bought them any Lego (or MegaBloks, or Kreo or whatevs, I'm not on the payroll - But Real Lego is bestest, obviously) Then you're a bad parent.

Baaaaaaaaaaad Parent!

We have a truly epic amount of Lego, most of it contained in a bedsheet, in a box that is about 24" x 18" x 18" - The horde of minifigures and associated accessories that we have fill another, slightly smaller, box - Which contains the instructions for many things that we will probably never build again.

My one problem... The only rattlesnake in the yoghurt... Is how do I stop the idiot puppy from eating it all when it's spread all over the floor? The little faeces factory is constantly hungry but doesn't take the time to check that what he's about to ingest is actually edible - I think he's had a good half a dozen Lego tyres already.

Ah well, I'm sure something will spring to mind - Maybe there's an opportunity there to solve the problem using the problem itself? An on demand puppy feeder... Made... of...

LEGO!

-oOo-

Have a good weekend guys, if any of my male readers (with children) fancy a free bacon sandwich and are near Derby on Saturday morning, between 10 and 12, Pop into St Mary's Church on Boulton Lane, Alvaston - And I'll sort you out...

Who knows, there might even be Lego!

(What there won't be is religion - seriously, there's just bread, bacon, newspapers, rock music and toys - The Vicar might turn up, but he's cool, he's just there for the meat.)

Waiting for God-Oh!

Now, without wanting to get all metaphysical on your collective asses, I'm a firm believer in evolution. But, (Gods how I hate that word!) there are so many weird, wonderful, badly designed animals out there that there must have been an over-arching designer involved, probably on a Friday night, on the way home from the pub, in some celestial Kebab shop somewhere, and I like to think the conversation may have gone a little like this:

-oOo-

God1: Dude, nice work on that hoppity thing you did, with the long tail and all the (mimes foxy boxing) stuff!

God2: With the pouch?

God1: It's got a pouch? Where Man? What for?

God2: Totally on its stomach, It puts the babies in there, I put the boobs in there and everything.

God1: Wait, what? you put boobs in a pouch?

God2: Yeah... Awesome!

God1: Aww man, I spent ages on boobs, took me weeks to get the shape just right - (Mimes squeezing imaginary boobs) Honk-honk! shame to hide 'em really, they rock! - (to kebab shop owner ) Yeah mate, two tandoori chicken / shish mixed, loads of chili, no onion.

Kebab Shop Owner: Chicken? we don't got chicken my friend, what chicken anyway? ees kind of fish or somefink? Got plenny fish!

God1: *Paff* And on the eighth day, I did create tandoori chicken, and saw that it was good (Bucket of tandoori chicken appears in a cloud of Dogma)

God2: LOL! But, seriously man, I'm having, like, major trauma with my new project?

God1: What you workin' on Brah?

God2: Well, the kid wanted something cute, on the same island I did the hoppity boxing thing on, you know to kinda like balance out all the bitey snakes and spiders and stuff.

God1: Man, you and your fangs and your venom... You gotta remember to get rid of those things before we let those naked two-leggedy things loose, got a feeling they might wander about a bit. So what did you do?

God2: You remember that wombat thing you did? Where you mucked up the guts and it ended up taking it like, two weeks to eat anything?

God1: Yeah, I should totally look at that when we release the next set of updates.

God2: True Dat! So, I took that, streamlined it, made it semi-aquatic and gave it poison spurs.

God1: Poison?... Spurs?... You make a little furry thing, supposed to be cute, then give it poison spurs, You're sick dude, LOL! Totally off the hook!

God2: I know, right! Anywho, I give it to Iesu, and He just looks at me like I'm an idiot, shouts 'More Cute!' and goes back to making towers out of his Lego.

God1: Man! Kids today, don't know they're created... Whaddya gonna do?

God2: I'm, like, totally outta ideas, tried making it furrier, but the damn thing just sank to the bottom every time I put it in water, had to get my ressurection freak on a few times that day, I can tell you!

God1: Ha! I would have paid good sheckles to see that (Mimes drowning animal) Bloop-Bloop Help Me! I'm melting!... LOL! Have you tried mixing it with animals that can float?

God2: What, like cows?

God1: Man, cows don't float, I mean like ducks or something.

God2: I am totally giving that beeyatch wings!

God1: You want flying aquatic wombats stinkin' up the place? Nah, I mean, like, waterproof feathers or some shizzle like dat.

God2: Feathers? s'a mammal dude, it's got nipples and stuff, you can't do feathers on mammals, s'against the law or something, probably... 'Member we tried that with those flying mice things, with the fangs and the Scooby-Doo eek-eek-eek noises? We got that memo saying we had to put the fur back on before we released 'em.

God1: Yeah, I remember, those skin wings gave me the heebie jeebies, I made the big ones eat fruit though, just to mess with their heads!

God2: Way to stick it to the man!

God1: Yah! (The two Gods high-five) Why don't you give it a beak?

God2: A beak?

God1: Ducks have beaks, and they float... Maybe it's that that does it, I don't really unnerstan' it completely, I'm not technical at all.

God2: Yeah, that might just work dude, what if it layed eggs too? An internal floatation device, eggs float, right?

God1: Probably, you'd have to test it I guess, try it on the spikey anteater thing that was in the newsletter last week.

God2: Do they swim?

God1: Not very well, that's what'd make it a good test.

God2: Right! Yeah, oh-Oh! I know, I'll give it a big-ass tail too, flat like a beaver's

God1: Hahahahhahaahahahaaahhahaha!

God2: Whut?

God1: Hahahhahahahah *sob* HahaHahaahaHAHAHahAha!

God2: Seriously dude what? Don't make me smite you.

God1: *sniff* You said beaver!

-oOo-

So there you go, the complete story about how the Duck-Billed Platypus got it's singular good looks. Just as possible as any other explanation I think you'll agree?


LOL

He said Beaver!


(Dedicated to Maurice and Heinkel, my imaginary doorstops)

　

Deconstruction Complete

I just love Charity Shops (Thrift Stores, for my legion of American readers) - They're a veritable Alladin's cave of dead people's stuff and broken toys. My local 'shopping centre' has about seven and every time I go out to buy the ingredients for an Ocelot Stew, or Sweet and Sour Crispy Peacock I try to pop into as many as I can. I don't neccessarily want to buy anything - It's kind of like a trip to the museum, but with added mothballs.

There is nothing you can't get (OK, there are a huge number of things that you can't get, just shuddup and go with it) and if you wait in the store long enough, you will see every single consumer item that has been sold in the past hundred years or so. I've seen everything from Hello Kitty Handbags to Victorian Violet Wands on those hallowed shelves (Before you ask, no, I didn't buy it, there was too much month left at the end of the money). We all need to support these places, they can't be allowed to die out.

Don't get me wrong, for me, it's nothing to do with the Charity, for all I care the money could go straight to Albanian gangsters who live only to wallpaper their houses with kittens' eyelids. It's the whole digging through the crap aspect of it that appeals to me, a bit like you guys must feel reading this Blog... Most of the time it's all odd shoes and canteens of cutlery with all the knives missing - But occasionally you'll find an original copy of Action Comics Number 1 - In A1 condition. OK, so someone's drawn a penis on the cover in sharpie, but still..

Anywho, I was in one a few months ago, digging through a tub of naked Action-Men (GI-Joes), odd Sticklebricks and Matchbox cars that had so few wheels between them that they'd only be completely at home in Back to the Future 2, when the very worthy lady behind the counter asked;

'Are you looking for anything in particular?'

Now, I froze, because I didn't want to say, 'No, I'm just pretending to be an archaeologist' - Which was the sad truth, so I replied with the first thing that came into my head, 'I don't suppose you have any Lego do you?'

She thought for a second, she actually did that thing where you tap your index finger on your lips and look up (which I know you're all doing now, so stop it!) then said,

'No, I don't think so, but if you give me your number, I'll give you a call if some comes in'

Ok, I mean she wasn't completely unattractive in a 'Person who works in a charity shop and probably has a part share in a rescued pony' kind of way, but I couldn't take the chance that she was hitting on me, after all, I'm a married man... So, in true tabloid style, I made my excuses and left.

A week or so later, I was walking past the same shop when I saw what I thought was a first edition StarScream in the window (It turns out it wasn't) - As I was deciding whether to in, the worthy lady's face appeared and mouthed 'OO-ee God, sumly Go!' (You're doing it again... stop it!). She beckoned me into the store like Morpheous asking Neo to show him Kung-Fu and said,

'It's just come in, you can have first look!' And then she did that excited stiff handclap thing.

It took me a good few seconds to figure out what the blinking-flip she was talking about, and I still didn't twig until she brought out a cardboard box with Lego in it.

'I'm afraid it's not all Lego, but feel free to sort out what you don't want.'

So, picture the scene, avid readers, I'm sat on the floor, in a busy-ish Charity shop, sorting out a box of mixed toys that was about 80% Lego, when she came up and said,

'Let me know when you've got that one sorted and I'll bring you the next one'

Now, I did that thing where you go all slittly-eyed and look from side to side (Again? Stop it!) and said, 'There's more?'

'Yeah, a couple of small ones'

So all in all there were three decent sized boxes of Lego and a box of assorted rubbish, which I kindly re-donated to them. Quite gingerly I asked, 'And how much would you like for all these?'

'Well, I'm sorry, but Lego's quite expensive to buy isn't it, I'm afraid I can't let it go for less than £20...'

I nearly pooped an actual kitten in my rush to get out my wallet.

'Tell, you what,' I said, 'It's all in a good cause isn't it? I'll give you £25.'

You know, I think she was genuinely touched, and I desperately tried not to blurt out 'But it's worth, like £200 Muhahahahaaha!' and twirl my moustache.

So, once I'd filled out the Gift-Aid certificate - It seemed the right thing to do. I picked up the three boxes of Lego and struggled out of the shop. Now, I didn't have the car with me because the shops are only about 10 minutes walk from my house. So I had the two open boxes balanced on top of each other in front of me, and a box, with what I thought was a fairly close-fitting lid, gripped with the spare fingers of my right hand... You can guess what happened, by my usage of 'what I thought was', right?

The lid came off the box, and spewed about a kilo of lego all over the pavement. Embarrassing enough you might think, but no, it chose to let go at a traffic island, on a three lane road, at rush hour, with halted traffic.

I don't think Bono got anywhere near that amount of applause when he anounced that he had single-handedly saved the entire African population from starvation - And to get the same amount of 'Woooo!'s I would have to have been wearing a severely short skirt and little else. My face actually felt like it was about to spontaneously combust.

Was it Karma? - Would it have happened if I'd offered what some people might say was a 'fair' price?

Yeah, it probably would... Because even though they say that Karma's a bitch, she's also got a bloody good sense of humour.