140 Fragile little worms

Twitter... What's this Twitter thing all about then?

Twitter is a social network that tries to emulate the early days of text messaging, where you were only allowed a small number of characters in each message.  The main difference is that you can send your message to anyone who has an account - Whether that person knows you, is in a different country, speaks a different language, isn't particularly interested in seeing a blurry photo of you that you took in the toilet of your nearest Burger King, or - And this is the one I want to concentrate on today, famous.

A vast proportion of famous people have twitter accounts, many of them are run by a P.R. Company and say uninteresting things like 'Mr Douglas will be in Palm Springs playing the part of Darren/Ophelia in Gay: The Musical - Tickets are still available.'

But, the interesting ones run the accounts themselves, and you can tell in a lot of cases, because they 'tweet' photographs of their lunch, or complain that they can't fit the kettle in the sink of their dressing rooms.  It's these people I like to send messages to, they don't often reply, I mean, they probably get a kajillion messages a day from actual fans, why would they take the time to reply to a bald, fat chancer, who lives to make himself giggle like an incontinent schoolgirl?

I present you with a selection of my favourite Twitter moments, along with a list of people who didn't see fit to reply, and who can blame them?

There was Shelley D'Inferno, popular Alternative model and Clothing Designer (and sometime fan of the Blog)

And I blamed writer and actor Steve Edge for one of the MiniDandy's emotional outbursts

And then of course there's my all time personal greatest, TV's Mr Nice, Martyr to getting stuff in his eye and having to have a bit of a lie-down: Mr Nick Knowles.

(I think I may have said that he looked like a badly looked after leather suitcase)

-oOo-

As well as plain old 'replying' there are three other ways you can feel good about yourself - If someone who is a 'someone' follows you...

-oOo-

If that someone 'Favourites' a tweet, which I guess is what you do instead of pressing 'Like' on Facebook

 

-oOo-

And then there's the Re-Tweet - What Twitter's really all about, it's the equivalent of a 'Share' on Facebook

-oOo-

I didn't get a reply from these guys though, and it was a crime...

(I think the restraining order went to my old address...)

And Mulder & Scully should be interviewing this baker in the near future:

This did not get me a bye through the selection procedure for MasterChef UK

(it was THIS recipe by the way)

-oOo-

People who have never replied also include, but are not limited to:

Russell Brand (@RustyRockets) - I accused him of trying to have sex with a character from Mad Max,
Jack Whitehall (jackwhitehall) - Comedian - I warned him against using The Chimping Dandy as his Superhero name.
James May (@MrJamesMay) - Top Gear presenter and model train enthusiast - poked at him many times,
Jeri Ryan (@JeriLRyan) Seven of Nine from Star Trek - It was about chocolate covered babies heads and whether she wore a corset under her costume,
Charlie Brooker (@CharltonBrooker) - Told him how much of a Fanboi I was for Black Mirror
Omid Djalilli (@omid9) - The worlds greatest Persian comedian - I offered to be his scriptwriter, I think he made the right decision,
Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) - I think I may have drunkenly referred to him as 'Da Man' *ashamed*
Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) - I asked him if he minded me comparing Barney Stinson to a Pangolin,
Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) - genius comedian/actor - Gave him some tattoo moving ideas using a cheesegrater.
The Pope (@Pontifex) - Although i was arguing the case for my ex-communication - No, really, I was
Professor Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) - Cosmic Scientist and Disco Keyboardist - Many futile attempts,
Peter Serafinowicz (@serafinowicz) - The voice of Darth Maul - I asked if he would rather have a French waiter with a small or large penis,
Davina McCall (@ThisIsDavina) - General TV Personality and worrier - I tried to organise a petition to get her manky shoes shown on television,
Sir Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) - THE Captain Picard - I asked him if he was going to guest star in Sons of Anarchy
Pollyanna Woodward (@PollyannaWW) - Ex Gadget Show, May have got drunk and told her I was wearing my wife's pants,
Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) - BBC's Top Gear etc. - Although I'm fairly sure that he's read the Blog entry about Top Gear
William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) Captain Kirk from Star Trek - And he answers everyone... *sniff*

No, it is not a 'Slow News Day'

So, it's time for a roundup of what's happening with everyone's favourite Immaculately Dressed, Time Stopping, Random CaPiTaliSinG, Super-Villain's Blog.

Well, apart from some cretin in a Black Range-Rover HSE Sport trying to permanently 86 me on the way into work this morning.

(To the gentleman in question, If you were as important as you think you are with your shiny-clean offroader and your personalised plates, you wouldn't need to rush everywhere and cut people up without indicating - Unless of course the post office had put one of those cards through your door telling you that you'd missed delivery of your new penis pump - I can understand your hurry in that case - I mean, it looked like you were sat on a stack of cushions already as you turned right off the island from the left hand lane... And no, the handsignals I made weren't me miming defrosting a frozen stiff snake through vigorous application of friction, they were indicating that I believe you constantly enjoy solitary sexual pleasures, seemingly whilst driving...)

Ahem...

Anyway...

Occasionally, as you know, people occasionally find the Blog whilst looking for something else.  Often they're looking for pornography - After all, that was what the Internet was created for - If you look at early photos of Tim Berners-Lee, the Inventor of the World-Wide-Web, (Before Photoshopping was so popular) you'll see that he has a right fore-arm like Popeye's, so much so that he often goes to Fancy Dress parties as a fiddler crab.

This month has been fairly quiet in that respect, I means, we've had a couple of people - Or possibly the same person twice, finding us by Googling 'Martin Shaw Nude' and someone asked the question 'What happens to the skin with too...' Unfortunately, that's where the report cut off I'm afraid - So I suggest we all take a minute to think what the rest of that entry might be.

Google suggests that they were probably asking 'too dry' or 'too much soda', or my personal favourite 'too many carrots' - But I'm sure it was something cool like 'too much exposure to Gamma Radiation' or 'too many cheap hookers' (I can answer that last one for you, if that was in fact the question... The answer involves the word 'pustules' though, so maybe not at lunchtime.)

We've had a couple of inoffensive ones too 'fruit bat in tree' made me smile, as did 'Patrick McDonald Dandy Wiki' (If you've never heard of Mr McDonald - And there's no reason why should have - Give him a quick Google, he has great cheekbones and dresses Faaaaabulously.)  Someone asked 'dandy (Terrier breed) crossword clue' (I think the word they were looking for was 'Dinmont') and 'Chibs Sons of Anarchy' has raised its big, biker, head again, what with Season 6 due to start at the end of this week.  Of course, we had the ever present instances of people Googling 'TheChimpingDandy.blogspot.com' - I Love you guys, you're all great... nuts, but great.

As far as Geography goes, omitting the hits from the US and the UK, we've had a bucketload of pageviews from Poland, Russia, France and China - And a big Dandy welcome to all of you.  We also seem to have a peak from the Ukraine and the Philippines this week, Ласкаво просимо and maligayang pagdating! to you wonderful people... Please stick with us, sometimes I can be funny and everything - It's not all ranting and spitting into the wind.

it's been just over a month since The Chimping Dandy's Facebook page came online and it's going pretty well - Which is completely down to you guys - There's been a marked increase in traffic, I'm guessing because more people can wangle their way through Facebook than are willing to traverse the Blogosphere on foot with only a bent twig and a water buffalo for company - But it's great, give it a look, give it a like,  It's got all the Blog posts there, with a description of what you can expect to find if you read each one.

Also, there's Merchandising you can buy now, the great people at Hash Togs have kindly done us a deal on shirts and mugs and phone backs and keyrings and stuff,  You can contact them via Facebook or Twitter and I believe that there's a 'Real Website' in the offing, but you'd have to ask them about that - Anywho, the 'Merch' (as I understand the cool kids call it nowadays), involves Seedy the Pangolin, Mascot of the Chimping Dandy - and some words, probably - Feel free to have it personalised to your heart's content.

Please note, I'd appreciate it if the words weren't 'I Hate' or 'Smells of rotting garbage' but any advertising is good advertising I guess.

-oOo-

OK, a quick rundown of the current Top Ten, as chosen by you, you wonderful and freakishly good looking people:

No 10: But it says here... - A bit of a fun poke at those people who think that the words that get said whilst you're worshiping your God of choice are more important that the good things you do every day for everyday people - And why they might be a bit wrong.

No 9: Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps - My ever popular (And the cause of most people who are looking for porn accidentally finding my Blog) post about my Torrid love affair with ASDA / Walmart - WARNING: May contain some mild references to Mrs Dandy's Chesticular area.

No 8: So good to be Viviparous - A Docu-Drama treatment of some leaked documents that may (or may not) have come into my possession about the birth of the most recent Royal Offspring

No 7: Then I posed, and he took my picture - A completely true account of the time, when I was younger, more muscular and slightly more deviant, when I found myself in a room full of photographers - Who spoke a foreign language and asked me to do some... Questionable things.

No 6: Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 1) - Some anecdotes from my times trying to kill myself with motorcycles, not intentionally, but through sheer ineptitude.

No 5: One more rusty nail - A strangely serious one for me. A call for calm after the senseless murder of Drummer Lee Rigby

No 4: It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen - A contender for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for longest Blog Post title in the history of Blogs penned by people who take their pen-names from unsavoury deviant sexual acts.  A quick trip down memory lane, fondly remembering years of being a younger sibling.

No 3: Thermodynamics, it's the law! - For a long time, this was a lot of people's favourite post.  It features my Dad and his somewhat free and easy take on animal corpses and the sanctity of the fragile human mind - The only thing that stops me calling it a Legend is that it is (for the most part) completely true - I may have embellished the last line slightly, maybe the last two lines, tops.

No 2: Priorities - Not going to do a funny description for this one.  All I will say is that without question, this is the one post that I have received more comments, emails and tweets about, both with offers of help and thanks from people who are in similar circumstances.  It's the description of the feelings I had, when my Father told me that he had inoperable cancer.

No 1: Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young. - No one was more surprised than me when this particular post went viral / meteoric and possibly both.  It's a simple premise, I just happen to believe that men with beards are infinitely more masculine than those that aren't.  Every right thinking woman in the world would agree (and if fairness, most of them did, and those that don't have a tendency to wear dungarees and badges with rainbows on them) - Retweeted by Rufus Hound, Favourited by Al Murray, quoted as the 'Best Blog Post Ever!' by popular Blogger Tattooed Mummy - This one post makes up 3.5% of all the traffic on the Blog ever - And it's only been up for two months! (But it does involve a topless picture of me holding a Baby - Maybe that's it? - From now on, every post will contain a naked picture of someone holding something, probably)

-oOo-

So, that's the roundup for this month kids.

Keep reading

Keep sharing

And P.S. I've just started translating popular words and phrases into Circular Gallifreyan, so if you want anything inexpertly writing out, give me a nod.

See you all later.

Steve the Hedge

Kids are great, aren't they though? I like kids so much that I went and got some of my own.  I decided to get one of each, you know, so I could experience both sides of the coin as it were.

I know that a few of you out there in the Blogosphere have children. I mean, I've accidentally read... Oh, I don't know... Literally tens of Blogs that say things like:

'And this is little Clinton taking his first steps, we bought a new deep-pile carpet for the whole house in case he falls over.'

'Jocasta looks absolutely scrummy in this Anne Geddes original Bumblebee costume that I bought from Fortnum & Mason (in the sale, Tarquin tells me that he's not made of money, hahahaha!)'

'We took the BMW so that Phillipe and Hermione could have enough room for all of their imaginary friends'

And I suppose I can sympathise to a degree, net-savvy Yummy-Mummies spending their time between glasses of Veuve Clicquot filling the empty void left in their lives after they gave up their full time job as a Business Analyst or Advertising Executive to be a real woman, just like their own Mothers', by telling their equally vacuous friends how their offspring regularly exceeds the targets that some book or other has set for them, whilst they're trying to re-invent the non-existant neon coloured school satchel market in their spare time.

But for every one of those, I have five, or maybe ten people who I follow via Twitter or Facebook that regularly say things like:

'Oh for God's sake, my idiot offspring has crapped in the bath... AGAIN! And he's NINE!'

'Well, I'd told her not to lick her fingers and put them in the socket, then there was the bang, but I knew she was OK because she was crying.'

'So, I got a call from the school and this very nice lady told me that HellChild had said "That's not a willy... THIS is a willy!" which it seems is frowned upon in a mixed ability PSHE lesson nowadays.'

See if you can guess which of the people I count amongst my friends? I'll give you two guesses, but the first one doesn't count.

Anywho, back to my own little bundles of joy... As I said, there are two of them.  The MiniDandy is a teenager, who writes a Blog (very) occasionally, that some of you even follow.  She's the thinly veiled heroine of the Edward Teach stories and is quite odd, in an individualistic, original way.  She gets her sense of humour, irony, fair play and indignation from me.  Her mood swings, irrational behaviour, clothes sense and general female-ality are all from her dear Mother.

My Son, who despises being referred to as The MicroDandy, so I won't, except just then, which he won't see so it doesn't matter.  Is a completely different tray of spiced giraffe tongues.  He's also odd, don't get me wrong, sometimes supremely odd.  I mean, you'll often wake up after having a bit of a snooze on the couch and he'll be standing there, staring at you, just about breaking a smile, then turn around and walk out of the room.  He's got a mind like a steel trap, and can find a hole in any argument faster than a Teflon stoat in a greasy Swiss cheese factory.

He's logical, calculating and almost autistically anal about things.  Which is great if you need him to remember something, I mean, he can quite honestly quote chapter and verse things that he finds interesting that have happened over the past five years.  But ask him what he had for lunch of course and he looks at you as if you're an idiot and says 'Can't remember.'  He's also the basis for the Ice-Demon killing, Pig Exploding hero, Mal Ak'hai the Hunter

But he's not one for whimsy, which can be a bit of a handicap in the Dandy household... Or at least he wasn't, until last night... He came into the living room and said,

'Dad, I've written a story, do you want to hear it?'

Being a kind and loving parent, I ignored the obvious, intuitive answer and replied;

'Yes, I'd love to hear your story.' And you know, I'm glad that I did - It's a gem.  I present it below, I have taken the liberty of correcting his spelling and punctuation, for clarity's sake.

Steve the hedge lives in fire hydrant land.
Steve is always watered, because of the fire hydrants.
But if you dig a trench, from the lake to Steve, it would make Steve very happy.

It's a thing of beauty, I'm sure you'll all agree.  It's got everything, whimsy, abstraction, nonsense, descriptiveness, at the end - fatalism bordering on the Dadaist.  I loved it. I've had it framed and I keep it on my desk.

(And yes, for the eagle eyed, that is a whiteboard with a picture of a squid on it behind the frame - What of it?)

I was slightly worried about him, in a John Wyndham, Midwich Cuckoos kinda way, but now I'm not.  He's one of the Firm now, definitely  100% on target to be a gen-u-wine, solid gold, stone cold, thousand yard staring, klaxon blaring, Dandy of the old skool...

Maybe of the new school...

Maybe that's even better...

But more likely, very much worse! - MuahahahahahaahahahahahahHAHAHAAHAHhahah!

I think we should all beware, just in case, start stocking up on tins, maybe dig a fallout shelter.  Because if either of the smaller Dandies ever makes a bid for global domination, the chances are that it's going to be him.

Yet another reason I'm sinking all of my spare cash into the space program.

Why you little!...

Right then, today's topic is swearing...

Who here can honestly say that they don't feel better after a good old fashioned profanity session. I don't mean saying 'Cock' under your breath when you accidentally tread on a slug. I mean the lengthy stream of invective that you yell when you, for instance, hit yourself in the shin with a lump hammer.

The type of thing that when you've finished yelling, you're breathing heavily and looking at the floor, your blood's pumping, your ears are ringing, and the Jehova's Witnesses that have wandered into your front room because the door was open have spontaneously combusted and turned into a small pile of ash on top of a very nice and shiny briefcase.

I like to start with the word 'You' and then try to, where possible, alternate between swearing and totally unrelated words, so it would go something like:

'You **** sucking, **** strangling, **** wiper... I will **** your **** juggling, **** eater of a **** guzzling, **** faced, **** Mother... After that, I will **** all over her **** flinging, **** and **** around your, **** kneading **** of a **** house that you only got in the ****ing first place because you are a **** who can **** the **** from a **** goat who **** the **** of the **** down the **** road, who **** his own **** of a sister!'

OK, that might be a bit strong... I'd save that for shouting at a book that had just given me a papercut or something... You should hear what I said to the dog after he knocked a mug of tea over me!

(This actually happened a couple of days ago, whilst I was watching 'Paul' on Sky Movies - causing me to have to watch the rest of the film naked and sticky - I tweeted @simonpegg and told him, but he was as strangely uninterested as you'd expect a big, Hollywood star to be... Maybe I should have tried @nickjfrost he seems a lot more down to Earth)

Actually, have you seen Paul? great film, lots of very creative swearing in there, mostly from Ruth Buggs (Played by the lovely Kristen Wiig - Did you know she was in Ice Age - Dawn of the Dinosaurs, playinga character called 'Pudgy Beaver Mom' - There's something I never thought that I'd find myself typing in the daytime), Google it beeyatches - I ain't filthying up my Blogs with any innapropriate language an' shizzle just to get more page hits.

Although... Thinking about it... That might just work...

Anyway, sweariness... It really bugs me when people say "You only swear because you have a weak, limited, vocabulary!" So I usually either reply with something like... Oh, I don't know... 'Vos habent faciem et odorem mortuus porcus' or, more likely, I'll poke them in the eye and run off giggling whilst flipping them the bird with both hands. Although, oddly, I agree with them, at least about the people who are all:

'F'ing that, F'ing this, F'ing everything'

That shows no creativity, no sparkle, no wit, no grasp of the beauty of a well constructed feacal epithet... Or as they used to say when I was a lad, 'It's not big, and it's not clever.' But it can be a wonderful way of dealing with stress if you do it properly. It can create shock and awe, it can establish you as one of those people who 'tells it like it is!'

But do it wrong, even once, to the wrong person or in an inappropriate place, like Church or during a boring PowerPoint presentation at a customer's office, and you'll be marked as an insufferable cock for the rest of your natural life, and will be shunned by the nice people that you were trying to impress with your knowledge of 8th Century Anglo-Saxon cursing.

On the other hand, If you're very good at it, you can make a name for yourself, and get a huge following on Twitter. People love being sweared at on Twitter, as all of the followers of people like @MissProfanity and her friends will attest to (N.B. Please do not follow Miss Profanity, or Sweary Mary as she is sometimes called, if you are under 18, easily offended, or in fact, if you've been offended by anything ever, especially if you don't like the liberal use of the 'C' word and being told to 'go forth and multiply'.) I personally think She's bloody funny - Although I am only 13 years old on the inside.

So, go and bring sweariness to the world, my little **** faced *** swiggers!

I'm like an attention whore, innit?

... An' I ain't even lying though Brah!

You know those people who say 'It's a small world'? Don't you just want to smack them in their gurning, platitude espousing, pie slots? No? Then maybe I'm just over-reacting.

It's not, really - If you wanted to walk around the equator, you're gonna need a few pairs of boots... It's about 25,000 miles, which is only a 10th of the distance to the Moon! - It's got a surface area (both wet and dry before the nit-pickers start) of about 197,000,000 square miles. (I am so hot for Wolfram Alpha right now!)

I know that that isn't what they mean, I know they're probably talking about Globalisation and the Transglobal Information Superhighway and High Speed point to point air travel, but while it still takes me two hours to drive the 55 miles to work, my view is that the world's pretty bloody massive.

OK, I can feel myself calming down now, I've had my second coffee and some chocolate.

This wasn't even going to be a full post, I was just going to document my Internet footprint so that those of you who only follow my Twitter can look at my DeviantArt, or my Facebook friends can subscribe to my Twitter, or suchlike and wherefore.

So, where can you find me?

Well, here, obviously... The Chimping Dandy Blog - The place that I put stuff that serves to both make me sound clever and to make you smile. You can comment on this, it is allowed - I'd quite like it in fact.

Via eMail: thechimpingdandy@hotmail.co.uk
You can email me here should you wish to ask a question that you feel is too intimate for the comments section, or if'n you're plain shy.

On DeviantArt Occasionally the mood takes me to scribble uncontrollably with pens & pencils on paper - Some of which isn't completely unrecognisable, I sometimes post my stuff here, feel free to comment. I also do tattoo flash, which I really should start charging for, as its popularity is increasing (I am very shallow... The price will depend on how well I know you and/or how pretty you are).
 
On Twitter: Follow me at @Chimping_Dandy

(Aaaarghhh - No wonder no-one follows me.. I forgot the Underscore!)

A lot of what i post is drivel - No, seriously, you have been warned. I'm a great believer that Jack & Noah are collecting all the 'Stream of Conciousness' type tweets, feeding them into a giant robot in the shape of Godzilla wearing a sombrero and a 'SkyNet' T-Shirt and waiting for the day when it becomes self-aware. Of course, rather than destorying Tokyo, it will more likely travelling the world discussing Kerouac and telling people what its favourite flavour of crisp is.

If you're a real stalker, you'll be able to find my Facebook page, it (currently) has the donor image that my Blog & Twitter avatar were cloned from as the Profile Picture - I'm not going to post the URL here - If you really want to know the 'real' me, then feel free to mail me and I'll drop a link to you.

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I am also more than happy to be a guest contributor to other people's blogs, why anyone would want me to be is a source of constant wonderment to me, but if you're interested in that, then let me know. Here's one I did earlier for James Josiah's Flash Fiction Blog, which you should follow if you're not squeamish:
T-Minus 4 Minutes

It doesn't have to be fiction, I can rant about most things given enough time.

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Normal service will be resumed tomorrow, I was thinking of something on 'The Whit and Whisdom of Nickleback' - To be read in the voice of Stewie Griffin.



P.S. For those of you who are interested in such things - This Blog was originally going to be called 'The Digital Orgone Accumulator'. But I decided that:

a) It made me sound like Dave Brock's Hipster brother

b) My good friend Pete came up with a much better name - for which I am eternally grateful.

P.P.S. The name has nothing to do with digital cameras...