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?

Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 4)

It's time for another quick story, about the highs and lows... Who am I kidding, pretty much just the lows, of building custom motorcycles, specifically those with three wheels.

This is Buskilla, and the rear wheel in question is on the other side

I decided, whilst my current trike was being built, that what I wanted most in the world was a set of stainless steel, straight-thru, unbaffled, drag pipes.  Because I'm a badass, honest - Look, I prove it here... *

OK, for the non-exhaustophiles, those things that I describe up there are just really drainpipes that take the noise and noxious fumes away from the engine and deposit them into the radiator grille of the car behind me, or in the lungs of small children minding their own business by the side of the road.  There's no boxes like you'd have on a car that take the really poisonous stuff out or baffle the noise.

But, as generations of Badass motorcyclists have always said 'Loud Pipes Save Lives' - And there are many badges and stickers that you can actually buy in real shops that say this, so it must be true.

Anywho, I went to this custom exhaust fabricator guy, who, if I remember correctly, looked a bit like a skinny Thor.  He said that it was no problem, seemed simple enough and would probably only take him about week or two.  So I went home, enlisted the help of a mate who had a car with a towbar and a dolly (A contraption that allows you to tow something by lifting its front wheel off the ground - Not one of those inflatable things with three holes or the deluxe model with the real hair) and we trundled off down the road, the trike bobbing along behind us like an excited labrador puppy.

Before the next bit, I'd just like to point out that the rear tyres on the trike are 275/75-R15's so they're about 32" (81cm for the Frenchies etc.) in diameter and weigh the same as a medium sized child, or a couple of morbidly obese emperor penguins, or about a fifth of a juvenile Yak.

So, we were going down this hill, towards a mini-roundabout, my mate started to brake and there was a bit of a 'judder' - We both looked at the trike and it seemed fine, so he continued to brake, and as we came to a stop there was this crunch. We turned to look behind us again.  The trike was listing at about 30 degrees, so we assumed that one of the wheels had come off... I say assumed... Actually we knew that the wheel had come off because it had just bounced past the drivers side window and made its way down the road, bouncing higher and higher all the time.

By the time it made its way onto the island itself, It was bouncing higher than the cars - There was a lot of beeping of horns, I could sympathise I guess.  I'd beep my horn if something like a tractor tyre was flying at my face at 30mph.  It made it across the island and swerved into the oncoming traffic.  There were many twitching sphyncters on the A514 that afternoon I can tell you.  Then it encountered the bus and everything went a bit 'Slo-Mo'.  It bounced into the path of said bus, just as it was pulling up at the stop, so the driver slammed his anchors on and all the old ladies that had been waiting to get off were suddenly catapulted forwards and were flattened against the inside of the windscreen.  The tyre clipped the front 'wing' of the bus (If buses actually have wings that is) and slammed into the bus-stop.   Totally crushing the seating and cracking the glass in the windows.

We both made our way over, saying things like 'Blimey, I wonder who this belongs to?' and 'Well I never, tell you what, why don't I just get this huge wheel out of the way of you lovely people trying to get off this bus?' and 'Goodness Mrs, your nose isn't half flat., want to borrow a tissue?' Grabbed the wheel and had it away on our toes as fast as we could.

There's a nice new bus-stop there now, so I think what I did was actually a good thing for the community, in a way - Don't you?



* Please note: I'm not really a Badass... Well, not really

Confrontational? Moi? C'est ne pas Moi?

There's a lot of talk about this Download Festival thing at the moment.  It may surprise you to find out that a lot of the people I consider to be friends (to a greater or lesser extent) enjoy 'RAWK' music in all of its forms.  Many of them are currently camped out in a squalid, muddy field on the Derbyshire Leicestershire border, hanging around the VIP Entrance trying to get Bruce Dickinson's autograph.

In my day, Monsters of Rock, as it was still called way back then cost about £15 to get in, had seven or so bands on a Saturday afternoon, then some fireworks, then it was time to grab a fish supper, a refreshing ginger beer and wend your way home, discussing with your chums about what a splendid time you've had.

Nowadays though, these callow, ungrateful, youths get three days of debauchery, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO BANDS! (Some of which I have actually heard of) all spread between five stages... Admittedly, they do pay £200 which, depending on how you divide it up either bloody expensive, or tremendously expensive.

(Actually, if anyone gets to see Dir En Grey or Chthonic over the weekend, let me know what they're like live.. I've always wondered)

But oddly, this short Blog post isn't going to be about Download at all... Well, the first bit was, but it was kind of just a pre-amble that got away from me a bit.

-oOo-

I live about ten miles from Donington Park and drive straight past the main gate every day on my way to work.  I have an interest in motorcycles and rock music, so you'd think I'd be there every weekend wouldn't you?  Well, I can count the times I've been there on the fingers of one hand (If we momentarily forget about MOR, that is).  When I do go, there's always some kind of 'incident' though... I guess that I'm just one of those lucky people that dear old Fate often finds in her sights.

There was this one time, a mate of mine (Now sadly deceased) managed to score some free tickets for the Truck Racing.  Don't know if you've ever seen it, but pretty much it's a bunch of complete nutters, driving 20 ton, 12 litre, turbocharged tractor units around a racetrack at 100mph with their brakes on fire - very impressive, especially when the weather's a bit dull.

There were about a half-dozen of us, four blokes, two girls, and we'd had a great day.  A few beers, a few burgers, you know the drill.  Anywho, we started hearing repeated calls over the tannoy, for about an hour, that said something like 'Would the owner of a green Vauxhall Vectra registration number Dee one cee kay haitch three ay dee, please move it immediately, it is illegally parked.' we didn't take much notice at first, but as it was repeated over and over, it started to get a bit annoying.  We were all like, 'Why doesn't the d*ck just move his car?' and 'I'd just tow it away.' Eventually, on our way back to that parking area, we came across a young girl (steady!) who was sat on a wall, who had obviously be crying for quite some time.

Frank, one of our number, who was by far the nicest of us, went up to her and asked what was wrong - She pointed at her Renault 5 with the daisy painted on the side and said that she was a nurse and she was going to be late for a shift in casualty (or something, it was, like twenty years ago dudes - gimme a break) because someone had boxed her in with his car.  We looked, and, to our surprise, there was a green Vauxhall Vectra TurboLeatherSeatMassiveSpoilerAlloyWheelsCretinSpecialEditionGSI

We looked at each other and walked towards the car.  Another of us, Jock, who was the chap who'd gotten the tickets and was as huge and hairy as Frank was nice, turned to me and said 'Bounce?'

I nodded and replied 'Bounce.'

So, we took a wheel-arch each and started, gently at first, to bounce the car on its suspension.  To enable you to experience the scene with more detail, I would like to point out that I am over six feet tall and weigh in the region of two hundred and fifty pounds... I was, by quite a margin, the smallest male in the group.  The plan was to get the car bouncing just enough so that its wheels came off the floor and we could move it out of the way.

What actually happened is that we got somewhat carried away, I mean we moved the car out of the way first so the nurse could wander off and save some lives or whatever it was that she wanted to do, but we didn't stop there, we kept bouncing.  At one point the car was bouncing to what felt like waist height, and making some very interesting noises when it hit the ground.  It was then that we noticed him... He was wearing a silk suit and mirrored aviators, and his mouth was hanging open.  We were wearing leather jackets, with no arms, some with interesting embroidered patches on the back, beards and stupid grins.

Someone asked, 'This yours?'

He nodded, his mouth still hanging open.  As one, we gave the car one last bounce and then stood back.  The noise of the cars last, fatal, impact with the ground was drowned out by the rapturous applause of the crowd that had assembled during our display.  Jackets were straightened, sleeves were brushed, hands were waved at our appreciative audience and as we left, Jock turned to him and said, 'You really should me more careful where you park you know.' Which got us another cheer.

-oOo-

Another time, we were at some plastic-fantastic race weekend, I think it was sponsored by 'Fast Bike' or 'Superbikes' magazine and you can imagine the sort of people who were there.  Most of them were wearing one-piece racing leathers where only the right-side kneeslider was scuffed.

(Right, the non-bikers amongst the readership might need a bit of an explanation there... Kneesliders are those things you see stuck to roundey-roundey bike racers knees for when they lean their bikes at insane angles, at lunatic speed going round corners - They help you gauge how far you're leaning, and traditionally, the more scuffed they are the more 'hardcore' you are... If someone has only got a scuffed kneeslider on their right leg, it means that they've been going round and round the traffic island outside their local Sainsburys trying to get their knee down, rather than racing.)

Anywho, historically, riders of custom motorcycles and riders of sports motorcycles have not always seen eye to eye on, well, anything really.  Where one might find the exhilaration of speed to be important, the other may think that the look of the bike is more important than the handling.  So there was a small amount on tension to begin with, which multiplied during the evening with the repeated addition of alcohol.  It was decide that things were in danger of starting to turn ugly, so we all wandered back to our tents and broke out the crate of Newcastle Brown that we had thoughtfully brought with us.

Then it started... Something I've never really understood, that sportsbike rider seem to like to do when they get together (apart from wheelspinning until they blow their rear tires and doughnuts) is to sit revving their bikes higher and higher until they 'bounce off the rev limiter' - If you have never heard anyone do this, you are one of the luckiest people alive.  It's a sort of BwahBwahBwahBwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-BAh-BAh-BAuh-BAuh-BAuh-BAuh-BAuh! noise which usually turns into a competition.  It was the early hours of the morning, and this had been going on for about an hour, when Chris, one of our number, asked them very politely, via the medium of expletive filled yelling, to shut the actual flip up.  Their reply was of a similar nature, but concluded by an elongated bout of revving, during this,  Chris stood up, and with the mating call of the extremely sure of themselves - i.e. 'Hold me beer youth.' set off into the darkness of the campsite.

We could hear the sounds of an argument, a small amount of scuffling and, as we all jumped up to give him a helping hand, there was a noise that was loudly mechanical, brief, and utterly indescribable - followed by complete silence.  He came back into the circle of light from our tents, stuck his hand out for his beer and sat down.  It turns out that he'd asked them to stop, they'd decided that sadly, they were disinclined to acquiesce to his request.  At which point he'd picked up the first thing that came to hand and smashed the crank-case of the offending motorcycle to smithereens.

The first thing in this case being a three foot long King Dick Spanner, which he was still holding like Captain Caveman's club - going somewhere towards explaining why he hadn't been beaten to a pulp.  When we pointed it out to him, he looked at it, shrugged and threw it back across the campsite in their general direction.

The rest of the night was blissfully quiet, until we all started singing 'Bat out of Hell' at the top of our voices that is.

Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 2)

First, an apology

Well, yesterday's Blog was a bit of a bust wasn't it? Certainly not one of my best - But hey, if they were all brilliant, you wouldn't be able to recognise the real gems.

For those of you new to the Blog, the top five pages (as chosen by you, the readers) are:

Thermodynamics, it's the law! - My pigeon shattering Father.

Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 1) - Stories of three-wheeled motorcycle mayhem.

Second contact closing fast, bearing 076 - When I upset almost everyone on the M40 at once.

Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps - About shopping at Asda, not about breasts (Well, not a lot anyway).

An eye for an eye - Where my Mother tries to scar me for life, and probably succeeds.

You might want to give them a look if you missed them... Hell, read 'em all, there's only fifty or so posts, you'll be done by tea-time.

-oOo-

So, onto today's gibberings. As you probably figured out by the title (because you're all fabulously intelligent and tremendously physically attractive in your own, special ways) - This group of badly chosen words are yet more tales about three-wheeled motorcycles and the idiot that rides them... i.e. Me.

Remember the Reliant trike that tried to electrocute me into a premature Bisto* in part 1? Well, both of today's stories are about that very machine.

The young lady who owned the vehicle in question, once worked at (and then owned I think) a trailer manufacturing business, their workshops were based in an old yard, about fifty yards long with about a 15 degree slope from the sheds, past the office, to the road. I used to help out there occasionally, wiring things up and making trailer covers etc to earn a bit of beer money (Which was all reported to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs of course). On this particular day, clocking off time came around and I decided to be efficient and move the trike from the yard next door and park it outside the office.

I won't go into all the dicking about with opening huge wooden gates and getting out onto the main road, then shutting and locking gates - But it took a good ten minutes to get the trike into the main yard. I then thought that I'd turn her around so that she was facing the right way for a quick getaway. The yard was shaped like a backwards 'P', with a wider area at the top where you could just about turn a car around, so I rode up the slope, slowly turned around and started to head back down.

I had to stop halfway, as a customer had pulled into the yard and left his car outside the office, exactly where I was going to park. So I did what you would normally do on a bike, I knocked it into neutral, held it on the front brake, and put both my feet down (Remember that last bit, it's important) assuming that he wouldn't be very long, as it was closing time.

I was right, less than a minute later, he came out of the office, saw me, gave that embarrased grin and wave so beloved of people who've realised they parked like an idiot, and reversed out of the yard. I put the trike in gear, released the front brake and lifted my feet about an inch off the ground. They floated backwards slightly, as they sometimes do before you get 'em back on the footpegs. Unfortunately, my left foot hit the rear, left hand wheel and got dragged under - there was a loud and interesting crunchy-snappy noise.

So, if you'd just like to take a deep breath and let me describe the scene. I'm sat, almost upright on the trike, with my left foot, upside down, under the wheel - I was wearing para-boots (which probably stopped me having to have a shiney new foot fitted) and shouting for help. Luckily, there were no other bikers in the immediate area, so no-one was too busy laughing to respond. Long story short, the trike was moved off my foot and I was helped off and layed on the ground, my foot kind of 'sprung' back into place - which hurt probably about as much as when it had first snapped and caused one of the assembled workers to comment 'For a big bloke, 'e screams like a girl dunt 'e?'

One small X-Ray later the doctor comfirmed that I hadn't actually broken my ankle, what had happened was that it had completely dislocated, but one of my tendons had refused to snap and had pulled a 'plug' of bone out of the top of my foot. Once the ankle bones had been re-located, they had to 'manipulate' that plug back in before they could put it in a cast.

And yes, that bloody hurt too - But this time they gave me something to bite on, so I couldn't scream like a girl.

-oOo-

And finally (Cyril) a story about not concentrating and how pure, dumb, luck has been a major contributor to me continuing to breathe.

I used to work in Nuneaton, at the head office of large childrens' clothing store. Every morning I would ride through all the little villages between Derby and there, past Twycross Zoo, past Bosworth Battlefield, past all the little birdies cheeping happily in the trees. It was great, a wonderful ride - You should try it.

Just as I entered Nuneaton, I'd pull up at a garage just before the town centre and take off my helmet and replace it with a pair of wraparound shades. What with being a rufty-tufty biker and needing to look cooler than a polar bear's podules and everything.

Anyone who knows Nuneaton and has come in from the A5 side will know that there's a twiddly-bit where you need to turn left in the right-hand lane, then turn right, almost back on yourself and then go over the railway bridge (Well, there was about fifteen years ago, it's probably got a flyover or a Tesco's Knackers Yard there now.) Just after all this jiggery-pokery there was a little road on the left that took you past the sixth-form college... (what? There's nothing wrong with riding past a sixth-form college on your way to work every morning).

On this particular morning, I decided not to stop at the garage, but to carry on wearing my lid as I went to work. I did the twiddly bits and then turned left down the lane - Although, that makes it sound easier than it actually was, the road dropped away to the left and it was a fairly tight bend, especially if you're going slightly faster than is recommended for the prevailing road conditions. So, I suddenly found myself on two wheels, unfortunately, one of them was the front one.

I sped down the road, under minimal control if I'm being honest, until i clipped a car and took a small, unplanned excursion over the handlebars. I ended up in the front garden belonging to the guy whose car I'd hit, up against the wall, with my face on the ground and my legs in the air.

The guy came out and asked me if I was alright, and we made arrangements for me to sort out the damage to his car. Then I went to check the damage to the trike, it was about as beat up as you'd expect, but the oddest thing was the handlebars, it seems that I was so reluctant to let go, that I'd bent them virtually double as I'd gone over the top.

Seems I didn't know my own strength.


* Premature Bisto - Early Grave-y

Your name's not down, but your girlfriend can come in.

This may suprise a few of you - But I am actually a fully fledged, licensed and notarised 'Door Supervisor' (What we all used to call a Bouncer).

In the dim and distant past, probably about twenty years ago, as I'd done some freelance bailiffing work, I would occasionally get accosted by the bouncers of local biker bars and clubs (Whom I'd known previously, I mean these guys didn't just spy my rippling biceps and go - 'He looks like he'd fill a doorway') and asked if I'd like to 'watch the door' whilst they stepped away from their posts for a bio break or to *cough* check some young lady's ID *cough*. This slowly evolved into me becoming one of those people that everyone hates - 'The guy who gets into places for free'. You'd rock up at the door of your venue of choice, the bouncer would ask 'Working?', I'd reply, 'Can do, if you're busy' and then there'd be some fist-bumping or that fist-handshake thing and I'd go and get a bottle of Dog and sit down for the rest of the night. The only proviso was that if things did kick off, you were seen to be in the front row, handing out righteous judgement with whatever blunt instrument came most readily to hand.

This very seldom happened if I'm honest as, contrary to popular opinion, biker bars (in the UK certainly) tend to be self policing, and also, bikers in general are a pretty good natured bunch - Visit one, you'll love it, but it's probably best not to wear a tie unless you like people pointing at you and laughing. (This does not apply if you're female and dressed as a schoolgirl, feel free to wear a tie then, although in fairness, you'll probably still get pointed at - Although it's unlikely to be with a finger.)

However, it all tailed off as things got more and more regulated, you started to need certification, you had to have a 'Little Blue Badge' issued by the local authorities, then the SIA (Security Industry Authority) got involved and it all went to hell in a handcart... Bouncers became Doormen, then Door Supervisors, the bats and socks full of pennies got replaced by politeness and psychology and it became 'safe'... OK, let's qualify that bit, I mean it became safer for the punter. You were significantly less likely to wake up in a ditch, looking at a selection of your own bodily fluids, wondering why you could see the back of your own head. It was no safer for the guy in the monkey suit saying 'I'm sorry sir, not tonight, try again next week' as the local authorities had not seen fit to regulate the behaviour of drunks to the same extent, it was still quite acceptable for them to lash out with glasses and broken WKD bottles and whatever else they carried about their persons.

I thought myself to be well out of, for want of a better word, you could describe as 'A mug's game' and settled down to a life of comfort, videogames and beer. That is of course until my wife commented that I should probably 'Do something in my spare time', it seems that sitting, drinking beer and playing games aren't 'something' as far as the current Mrs Dandy is concerned. I took this to heart, and within a couple of months I was offered a place on a Door Supervisor training course - Spooky!

Our instructor was a little Scots fella, who had been invalided out from 3 Para after (IIRC) smashing both of his legs (or arms) to pieces after a faulty parachute deployment - And he was, without doubt, the most double-hard b*st*rd that I have ever had the honour to meet. He would merrily go through the official SIA Door Supervisors Training Handbook with us, then slam it shut and say 'Tammorae, I'll tich ya poufters whae ya rally need tae knae'

And he did... We learned what bits to poke, where to chop or twist, how fast, how hard and how long for - In fairness, he did preface every demonstration with 'An ya shoul' ne'er do thas, but ye'll nee' to knae how to defen agin it' - It was the first time I ever saw anyone use the 'sleeper hold' to it's natural conclusion and also the first time I saw a guy who was probably only 5'5" subdue a guy around a foot taller, one handed. (It should be noted that the big fellah wasn't just tall, he was probably about 300lbs and has once been sacked for knocking someone out with a live chicken - He works for the BBC now I think, or at least he did the last time I met him)

And he also HATED first aid training, don't get me wrong, he still taught it, and taught it well, but his opinion was that it made you soft and you'd worry about hurting someone if you thought you might have to fix them again afterwards. To this end, he organised a bit of 'role play' the day after the first aid training. He set the classroom up to mimic a darkened nightclub layout and slumped one of our number in the corner, then he let us in, one at a time and told us that it was the end of the night and the rest of the club was clear, 'Whad'ye dae?' Of course, we were all still in 'Helpful First Aider' mode, we checked for breathing and conciousness and stuff and went to help, whereupon the guy opened his eyes, brought an empty syringe from behind his back, and stabbed us in the neck, 'Yer deid, if ya lucky, it wae jus drogs, if ya wea onlucky it wea infected blod, if ya wae rilly onlucky it whuz jus' full o' air !' he cried, with more than a little glee - The only guy who passed this test was the one who he'd put in the sleeper hold - Maybe it focuses the mind?

I've used it a couple of times since, even done security for bands and suchlike. All in all, a pretty great experience, people who are interested in self defence should definately look into it - I've taught a lot of what I learned to my daughter, and will be doing the same when my son's a little older - So that's something for the next generation of bullies to look forward to.