This is not the state of the nation

I’m aware that I haven’t done a ‘State of the Dandy Nation’ post for a while. In fact, it’s been so long that there are probably people reading this who don’t even know what that means.

Every month, when this blog was new, and fresh, and throbbing, I would let you wonderful people into some of the stats from the previous month (or however long it had been since the previous time that I’d done it) – I’d include things like the top-ten all-time posts and what countries had checked the blog out more than any other, or what strange and odd things people had typed into Google to find us.

I like thinking of us as us you know… You the reader, me the purveyor of lurid scoria, the people who visit the blog purely because I very often slip a word into the Metadata that people often use when searching for pornography – It helps to foster inclusion, and it makes me giggle uncontrollably.

Did I tell you about the time when I got confused for a busty, red-headed camgirl model, for like six months or something? People were googling “IsHotMyself Dandy” (Which was the name of a site she was featured on) But were being pointed to my page, explaining about the wonderful day when I shot myself… Easy mistake to make I suppose, I’m hoping that at least some of them stayed (If you are one of those people, please leave a message in the comments… I’ll buy a red wig and post a topless photo of myself as a treat for you… Might even sign it) - I was going to post a picture of the young lady concerned... But, I couldn't really find one that was 'appropriate' - You could try the search yourself, just not a work, OK?

Anywho, nowadays, if you want to know the all-time top-ten posts, I post them on the right-hand side of the main page, so you can take a look yourself. As far as our audience goes – It’s mostly the USA, followed by Russia, the UK, then the Ukraine… With a load of European countries making up the rest of the top ten. To be honest, the only thing people have googled to find us, other than the name of the blog, are the words ‘Dzit Dit Gaii’ (Which is Navajo for ‘The Mountain that is White’) – and only goes to show that the Internet is still full of conspiracy theorists. And that they’re coming to me for answers – The poor confused lambs.

-oOo-

Anyway, I wanted to do something different this time, if you follow me on Twitter (@Chimping_Dandy) you’ll know that I occasionally post phrases, in the style of Redtop headlines that, when typed into Google – Show search results where this blog (in general, not this post in particular) is the first result. I thought that I might share a few of them with you… In the vain hope that you might find them funny, or odd, or a cry for help from a fat, bald man whose readership figures aren’t what they were when he was posting every day instead of having a lunch-break.

I’ll start with the most recent one…

• Colin Firth makes an example of lesbian weasels using cutlery – Takes you HERE
• Alvaston Nazi hunter finds pizza from 1953 – Takes you HERE
• Stickleback tin helmet brain lesion made Benedict Cumberbatch try breast feeding – Takes you HERE
• A drunk moorhen on its gap-year wears teenage student underwear – Takes you HERE
• Christmas blindness blamed on primrose cannabis vodka – Takes you HERE

You know, if you get a spare minute, maybe you'd want to try this for yourself, it'll probably waste a few minutes, it might even be fun - If you find a good one, send it in - I'll say thanks and everything... Probably

He said Baby, Baby, Baby, Who?

Pretty quick one today, probably, About a fishing trip.

Now, I'm not one for your actual fishing, I mean, I can see the appeal of sitting by the side of a picturesque lake, in the sunshine, with a bucket full of cold cans and a bacon sandwich, but the whole stabbing worms and having a mouthfull of maggots has never appealed to me, jus' nah ma t'ing Brah!

Anywho...

I read a news report this morning about a certain Mr Justin Bieber, who, on a recent visit to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam left a message in the guestbook stating:

"Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

OK, so it was ill advised, probably a spur of the moment thing. Who amongst us can say that the nineteen year old versions of ourselves have never done anything stupid? I know I can't... I really, really can't.

Effectively, if I was feeling charitable, I'd imagine he was saying, 'I hope she'd have liked my music, or my personality.'

Uncharitably, I'd be thinking, in the back of my mind, that he meant 'Hey grrrl, the whole dying in Belsen thing musta been real whack, and I don't really know your story, but you musta been fly as they gave you your own museum. You'da liked me, I'm da shizznit'

What I think might be MY personal problem with him hoping that she'd have been a Belieber is that there are a vocal hardcore who viciously dive on anything anti-Bieber and tear it apart with their rabid, pre-pubescent fangs. There's an even smaller, even harder-core sect of Belieberdom that does the same to people who have stood next to, kissed, looked at, or even breathed the same air as La Bieber - How would the world have been changed if Anne Frank, generally seen as the very personification of persecuted youth, had joined those hallowed ranks?

Now, I know it's against the laws of the Internet to invoke the name of a certain Austro-Hungarian born fellah with a toothbrush moustache and side-parting, but I am quite fond of using the word Nazi as you may have noticed in previous posts. One of the first traits that people think of when you say the word 'Nazi' is fanaticism. (Along with the whole 'Aren't those Hugo Boss designed SS uniforms darkly fashionable' thing.) And fanaticism is something that Bieber's fans are keen to show in spades. You only have to look at the replies that Drake Bell, popular Nickelodian actor, guitarist and Belieber troll got when he suggested that Mr Bieber might not write all of his own material, or possibly could benefit from guitar lessons.

Not only were aspersions cast on his sexuality, musical talent, sanity and relationship status, but there were honest to goodness, actual death threats. With one young lady going to the lengths of tweeting 'live' threat updates as she got her Dad to drive her to the airport where Mr Bell had 'challenged' the irate Superfans to meet him and air their grievences in public.

Seemingly, when it came down to it, there was little 'carrying through' of threats, but some generally good natured banter ensued.

You have to worry if stuff like that is just advertising hype though, designed to raise their profiles. I hope it's not, I currently quite like this Bell chap, (my Daughter was a great fan of 'Drake & Josh'), and would hate to have my regard for his integrity dented by the foul mistress that is the Hollywood fame machine.

So, I thought I'd conduct a completely non-scientific media experiment.

This morning, I tweeted the following message:

So, #Bieber thinks Anne Frank would be a #Belieber, strange, when she spent her life hiding from death threats, not issuing them.

Complete with hashtags designed to ensure that the most bottom-feederish, hardcore, Belieberettes would rise from the murky depths like fame-addled sturgeon hunting for frozen peas.  Just to see if they turn their spindly hate-antennae towards me, or just concentrate on the famous Hollywood types.

So far I've been re-tweeted by someone called Justin Bieber - I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's not the real songstrel himself, or even a real person, as the Twitter ID of this person is @JustinBCookie, but they do have 3,462 followers, which is a start.

But we'll see what happens when the USA starts to wake up in a few hours - I'll keep you in the loop.

Wish me luck fellow citizens of the Blogosphere, but the chances are I won't need it.

When the map was pink

So, tell me this cyberspace... Where does being a proud member of your country end and being a racist Nazi begin?

(I've used the word, Nazi, quite a lot recently haven't I? Loads of times yesterday, about flying disks and suchlike... Great word, so many possible uses - Did you know it's a contraction of 'Nationalsozialismus' or the National Socialist Party? That sounds much more fluffy doesn't it, something you could really get behind?)

Anyway, back to the question in hand, I'm an anachronistic kind of guy, I like hats, I wear a beard and sideburns completely unironically, I wear silk waistcoats and regularly use a pocketwatch... You'd be quite within your rights to think that I live in the past.

In fact, you'd probably be right. Why do I do this? Well, it's obviously because the past was a better place. There was clean air and long summer days playing in the woods, you could make a bow and arrow and your Mum knew how to make jam. It wasn't all great obviously, there was slavery and quite a lot of syphilis, but that was a small price to pay for being able to go to exciting new countries and expect everyone you met once you got off the ship to be able to speak English.

Ah, there you go - You see the first warning sign right there, the expectation that we had (and still have to a large extent) that Johnny Foreigner will speeka-da-English. At the height of its 450 year history, the British Empire covered a quarter of the world and comprised a fifth of the total planetary population, the Sun quite literally, never set on it. We sailed to foreign parts, planted a flag, claimed the land for the King or Queen (delete as applicable) of the time, enslaved the natives (but we taught them English and Christianity, so technically they still owe us), spread a light smattering of syphilis and cholera, exported all their food, rinsed and repeated.

We invented stuff though, and built things. Everywhere you went there were huge copper and brass steam engines, pumping water and mining coal to keep massive copper and brass steam engines running so that they could pump water and mine coal, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera as Yul Brynner might say. There was cast iron and battleship chain and mass produced bone china - You might counter that with 'Yeah, but five year old children were being seriously maimed in woolen mills, and young boys were catching scrotum cancer from sweeping chimneys for fourteen hours a day.' And I'd look at you funny, because no-one likes to hear the words 'scrotum' and 'cancer' in the same sentance. But honestly, wouldn't you rather see children sweeping chimneys than hanging around on streetcorners with their jeans around their knees, stabbing old ladies for an out of date tin of catfood? (And by children, I mean other people's children, obviously)

We had a Navy which ruled the waves (Which there's a song about, so it must be true) and an Army which kicked ass pretty much everywhere it went, especially when their cannons and muskets were turned on people armed with sticks and lengths of rope. We didn't have all the supply problems and the 'But I'm suing the Government because my Kevin had to buy his own body armour off of eBay and it came from China and it was made of papier mache' nonesense that we have today because we would take what we needed without a second thought... Without a first thought in some cases.

Sorry? What was that you said? Rape? do you mean of the indigenous populace or the country? Both? Well, yes, I suppose there might have been a small amount of that sort of thing here and there, I mean you get a few bad apples in any expeditionary force don't you? It's not like we exterminated anybody is it? No native tribes ever got wiped out because they were a bit close to places where we could mine copper, or diamonds, or pitchblende... *cough*

The women of the Empire (which, even to me, sounds like badly written Star Wars fan-fic) were proper women, with the big hats and skirts and parasols. Demure and cosseted, they ate bon-bons from silver trays, brought to them at 3:00pm sharp by Philip, the nice dusky gentleman that they'd had brought in from Bechuanaland especially for this purpose. Most importantly, they knew their place, which was atop a pedestal, being showered with gifts and the only thing they had to do on a daily basis was to look pretty whilst their husbands got on with the very real and worthwile job of being a good Captain of Industry and not getting gout... Or syphilis...

Wouldn't it be easier if things were how they used to be? The UK being the only real world power and thus guaranteeing no global war ever again? Children gainfully employed rather than roaming the streets like feral weasles? Women being sedate and wonderful and pretty and domesticated? Johnny Foreigner doing all the simple hard work in the hotter climates? Worthy but expendable lower-class people doing all the skilled hard work in Blighty?

You know it would, deep in your heart of hearts - A better time, a more rewarding existence for all... Well all the important people like us at least. But it'd still be best to keep a few ampules of Doxycycline about your person just in case.

　

I'd like to finish with a few definitions, see if you can guess where they fit in:

anachronism (əˈnækrəˌnɪzəm)

— n

1. the representation of an event, person, or thing in a historical context in which it could not have occurred or existed

2. a person or thing that belongs or seems to belong to another time: she regards the Church as an anachronism

　

satire (ˈsætaɪə)

— n

1. a novel, play, entertainment, etc, in which topical issues, folly, or evil are held up to scorn by means of ridicule and irony

2. the genre constituted by such works

3. the use of ridicule, irony, etc, to create such an effect

　

irony <sup>1 (ˈaɪrənɪ)

— n , pl -nies

1. the humorous or mildly sarcastic use of words to imply the opposite of what they normally mean

2. an instance of this, used to draw attention to some incongruity or irrationality

3. incongruity between what is expected to be and what actually is, or a situation or result showing such incongruity</sup>

If only Lock & Co made tinfoil hats.

A lot of the regulars out there will know that I'm pretty odd... Actually, who am I kidding, you've only got to read any of my posts that involve the words 'Haddock' or 'Spoon' or 'Transvestite Poundshop Christmas' to realise that I'm a purveyour of the rum and uncanny...

I actively enjoy the unusual. Normal, vanilla people and situations bore me senseless. I like it when OAPs tell me that they like hardcore Jungle music, or when quiet, unassuming office girls have one too many WKDs and say 'I make ferrets wear traditional Romanian gypsy dresses and film them dancing the polka'

That doesn't happen as much as I'd like, to be honest, but the opportunity's always there.

My favourite kind of people in all the world are conspiracy theorists... They're great, mad as badgers, every man-jack of them, but great. You usually find that they're very earnest people who strongly believe in something that they have no way of proving (trying desperately not to compare them with rabid fundamentalist Religionites here) Usually involving the Government, Aliens, Aliens in the Government, Government by Aliens or Aliens, in the Government, trying to keep the fact that we are being governed by Aliens, secret.

-oOo-

Every heard of Vril? Well, there are them that say that it's a type of energy, ('Them' in this instance being 'crazy people') described in a book written in the late 19th Century (as a novel originally, in fairness, but soon turned into cold, hard fact, a bit like the DaVinci Code I guess), that the Nazi's used to power their flying disk aircraft that they had all over the place between the two world wars... I know, right, I can't find a photo of the sky, taken between 1912 an 1944 that isn't choc full of Nazi flying saucers - They actually have to Photoshop them out of footage of battles you know. The Roswell Crash? that wasn't aliens, it was a Nazi flying saucer, powered by Vril.

In 1947-1948, a (strangely heavily armed) flotilla of US Navy ships, Commanded by one Admiral Richard E. Byrd were sent to the Antarctic on a 'routine survey mission' and were beaten back by a strong force of Nazi soldiers, backed up by flying disks. Huge cover up, tears before bedtime and everything.

Perhaps even more strange is the fact that the popular Beef Extract foodstuff Bovril (Made by giant chemical company Unilever) Gets its name from the words 'Bovine' and 'Vril' being cleverly portmanteu'd.

-oOo-

HAARP is a word you will have stumbled across if you've spent any time on the Internet at all. It stands for High (f)requency Active Auroral Research Project - Cleverly the 'F' of frequency has been omitted from the acronym as No-one could say HFAARP! without sniggering. HAARP does everything, it can trigger environmental disasters, down planes, burn the sky (or, at least make it look like the sky is burning, to possibly confuse our reptillian overlords), flip the North and South poles, and last, but by no means least... Control people's minds!

OK, so it does actually exist, there are vast arrays of strangely shaped antenna in Gakona, Alaska that shoot signals into the upper atmosphere to do strange and interesting experiments. There are certainly some odd things about it, it's run by the military and they freely admit that it can, sometimes heat the sky up a little bit... Can that be good? I don't know, I'm not a scientist - Google it, you'll have loads of fun trawling through all the 'HAARP ate my hamster' stuff.

-oOo-

Secret Societies are a VERY popular talking point too. Everything we see, do or feel is supposedly controlled by these trans-global mega think tanks. Be they Illuminati, Opus Dei, The Bilderberg Group, various Banking Clans such as The Rothschilds and, my personal favourite, The Freemasons. Whilst it would be stupid to say that the Hyper-rich can't also be the Hyper-powerful, some of the things attributed to these groups are - Is far fetched the right word? For instance,

The Illuminati - based on a group of German free-thinkers in the late 18th Century, have joined with the Communists to infiltrate Hollywood to pave the way for The New World Order (That's another one to Google on your own time - Ain't nobody got time for dat amount of explainin').

Opus Dei, a group within the Catholic Church, mostly comprised of lay-people, are said to have death squads throughout the world (again, an idea popularised in The DaVinci Code but now taken as 'fact')

The Bilderberg Group is an invitation only, annual meeting, of some of the most powerful men in North America and Western Europe who sit around and have a good old chat about the problems that the World is facing - They're definitely not deciding future global policy and the fact that there are no members from Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa or South America is only because those people are traditionally no very good at golf... Probably.

The Rothschilds have used their financial power to fix the outcomes of wars over the past few hundred years for their own financial gain.

The Freemasons... Ah, the lovely, lovely, Freemasons... I should probably admit that I know quite a few Masons, but I am not one myself. In my personal experience they're a great bunch of guys who really know how to party.

But to the pencils up the nose, pants on the head types, they've done everything from assisting the Illuminati and the Knights Templar in various plots to take over the world, worshiping their own personal God (called Jahbulon, for those who like to pigeonhole your deities), constructing the streets of Washington DC (and probably any other city that will stand still long enough) to strict numerological and Masonic algorythms and assassinating JFK.

Oh yeah, and according to David Icke, they're part of the reptilian alien conspiracy too - As if the rest of it wasn't mad enough.

-oOo-

Just to finish, I'd like to say that I bear no ill-will towards people who believe any of this stuff. Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, who am I to judge? I just thought it might be a nice thing for people to trawl through the Internet for, maybe give people ideas for short stories?  The worst thing that could possibly happen is that they all turn out to be right...

Sleep tight my friends - But watch out for the communist, kitten eating, Nazi, reptile, bank owner under your bed, slipping into your dreams and sucking out all of your positive energies.

-oOo-

And finally, for those of you who don't understand the title of today's post, Lock & Co are the oldest, and arguably best, Hatter in the country... Possibly the world. They are credited with the invention of the Bowler/Coke hat (or Derby, if you are of a Collonial persuasion) much favoured by our own resident brick-wizard and Flash-Fictioneer, James Josiah.

Their customer list contains the great, the good and the Royal and I have received word that popular comedian Al Murray has just invested in one of their luxuriant head-coverings.

If you should ever find yourself in London, with the spare time and money, you should pop into their premises at 6. St. James' Street SW1 and make yourself a better person, well, certainly a better dressed person - which, for all intents and purposes is the same thing.

And if anyone from Lock's is reading this, and they feel like posting a new hat to Dandy Towers (for purely review purposes of course) Maybe something in a 'Stovepipe' or 'Fez', or even a linen cap as Summer is allegedly on its way, well, that would just be spiffing!

You're not going to eat that, are you?

So, It's Mardis Gras!

Doesn't feel much like it to me, there's still snow on the ground, the sky's 50 different shades of grey, and no-one that I've exposed my chest to so far has given me any beads, maybe I should have shaved it?

It's much more like some kind of Shrove Tuesday, yeah, that fits better... Shrrroooooooove Tuuuuuuuuuesdaaaaaay! - How typically, boringly British.

Hmmm... How can I make, what is probably the most boring holiday of the year (other than in N'Orleans, obviously) even remotely interesting?

Nope... I got nothin'

We could do a bit of etymology I suppose, that's always good for a giggle *cough*

The 'Shrove' of Shrove Tuesday is the past tense of 'Shrive' which means, I believe, to confess, or to hear someone's confession - So, not only do you not get to eat any nice fatty, sugary food for the next forty days, you have to tell someone what a bad boy you've been first - Seriously? And they wonder why religious observance is on the decrease!

Mardis Gras is literally 'Fat Tuesday' in French, again all to do with the not eating of comfort food for the next six weeks or so. Which is decidedly un-French (I mean, they invented Foie Gras (Fat Liver), Creme Brulee AND collaborating with the Nazis)

The word Carnival (and in all honesty, I hadn't heard this before today) is believed, by some to come from the Italian phrase 'Carne Levare' meaning 'To remove the meat' (Stop giggling at the back) - again, all about giving stuff up for Lent.

There's another thing, I don't know if any of you know any observing Religionites, but I've noticed that very few of them actually give up traditional things for Lent, instead of not eating fatty foods (Unless they were planning to diet anyway) they'll often plump for (sorry, couldn't help myself) significantly easier things, like Sky Sports, chocolate biscuits, boiled sweets, beer (but not stout) or saying the word Brobdingnag in polite conversation.

Surely if you're going to re-create The Quadragesima, you should be out in the desert living off cactus and hamsters or it doesn't count? And what's all this about getting Sundays off? - It seems that Sundays aren't classified as your actual Lent anymore, which presumably why McDonalds tends to look suspiciously full on Sundays between Mid-February and April.

People just aren't as devout as they used to be are they?

Except the Fillipinos of course, I mean, they still crucify themselves on Good Friday - with nails and everything. Another place filed in the 'Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there' folder.

See you tomorrow kiddies, when I'll probably tell you how tasty my (made from scratch) pancakes were.