Well, I suppose you could call it blasphemy

So, chaps and chapesses, it's the time of the month where I go all sexist and parochial.

It's the first Saturday of the month tomorrow, and regular readers will know what that means...

Tomorrow, from 10:00am till 12:00, there will be our monthly 'Dads and Kids' Totally Religion Free Super Adventure Style Saturday... (That's overselling it totally, but, you know me, I sometimes get a a bit over excited)

If you are of the male persuasion, and have a child (legally I mean, I don't suggest you pick one off the street, people aren't so forgiving of that sort of thing nowadays) or two and are within travelling distance of Derby (UK) then you should definitely come and help me eat like, a couple of pigloads of bacon.

There's loads of nice, quiet activities for the kids, Jenga, Extreme table tennis, Might be a Wii, will more than likely be a generic car racing game similar to, but not exactly the same as Scalextric, books, soft-play stuff for kids that still put random stuff in their mouths and giggle when a dog licks their faces, and all sorts of other things if we manage to dig them out.

Refreshment-wise there's toast and jam and Nutella and bacon and chilli sauce, limitless coffee, probably tea too, I'm not really sure, but it's all FREE!

FREEEEEEEEE! 

And how many things can you say that about nowadays?

So, if you have nothing better to do, drop in and help us celebrate.... Actually, we don't really celebrate stuff... We mostly just try to grab all the bacon before the kids get hold of it, which is a game in itself.  You could celebrate something if you want, we won't judge.

And you can also come if you're of the female persuasion, but you will have to wear a fake beard... No, Dudettes, seriously, no whiskers, no entry.  (This does not apply to the Dudes, I understand Bros, not all of you can grow facial hair as awesome as mine... For mine is the beard, the power and the glory... For ever and ever... Amen!  You should still totally come though, it's bitchin'.)

So, at 10:00am on Saturday, 7th December 2013, you should be opening the side door (They won't let us use the main door any more after that incident with the Llama and the eggwhisk... Totally the owner's fault man, I mean who brings a cuckoo clock to an eggwhisk fight?)

Side Door (You'll have to open it yourself, mind my antique studs, they're totally pointy)
St Mary's Church
Boulton Lane,
Alvaston,
Derby.
DE24 0GE

You can't miss it, it looks like a big Church.

This month, we are introducing a new game, called:

See how many times you can get tutted at... 

You see, our Dad's 'n' Kids day this month coincides with the day where the Church traditionally gets decorated ready for Christmas, so there will be people wandering around the place putting up tinsel and decorations and trees and suchlike...  I've a feeling that they're going to want to listen to festive Christmas tunes whilst they're doing it, and they're not going to enjoy constantly stepping over car-racing tracks or being hit in the ear by an Table Tennis ball (I got clipped on the back of the head last month and almost got knocked into the font - We don't call it extreme for nothing)  And that's going to be a pity, because our musical stylings are a little more 'RAWK!' and our Table Tennis is EXTREME!

So, keep score of how many times you get tutted at, bring it to me towards the end, and if you've got the highest score, you get a free cup of coffee, or some bacon if we have any left.

We literally have everything... Except a rug, which is a pity, because it would really tie the room together.

-oOo-

On a different note, I notice that there's an awful lot of things being said about Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela on T'Internet at the moment - Both good and bad, which you'd kind of expect I guess.  But you know, for every one of him, there are a thousand other people who deserve your praise and thanks.  People who've actually done things that have touched you personally without you ever knowing them.

This is one of those people.

Henrietta Lacks 1920-1951

The chances are that you've probably never heard of Henrietta, She was a tobacco farmer in Virginia who developed cancer of the cervix and died shortly afterwards of kidney failure.  Nothing special really, didn't write any sonnets, didn't blow up any electricity pylons, didn't perform any milestone achievement in Human Rights or anything.

However, during her autopsy, some of her cancer cells were sent away and used for research, they were found to have an incredible ability.  They were immortal, and they could be easily grown.

What this meant was they could be used for the development and testing of vaccines and treatments for some of the most aggressive diseases that have ever effected mankind.  If you've been immunised against Polio, that vaccine was tested on her cells, if you know anyone who had been treated chemically for Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Parkinsons, Allergic Sensitivity, Leukemia, Hemophilia, Radiation or Toxic Poisoning, a female that's ever had a PAP test, or had a dog that's been vaccinated against distemper, then none of those treatments could have been developed without the specific qualities of her cells.

Her cells were the first to be cloned, opening up an entirely new field of scientific investigation, which has changed the way we currently think about 'life'  There are over 60,000 scientific papers published about the uses of her cells with around 11,000 patents filed for processes that were tested using them.

In the past sixty years, over twenty tons of her immortal cells have been produced.

The number of people that she's personally helped is literally uncountable... And we've never heard of her.

You get me closer to God

I've noticed a trend recently,  the Blog seems to have drifted from 'Funny and painful things what have happened in the Dandy family' to 'My personal opinion on things that don't seem to bother anyone else'

Well, it's time for that to change... For today at least, try not to have your atheism rocked to it's very foundations whilst I recount the story that I like to call:

The Micro-Dandy takes his first step towards the Kingdom of Heaven!

(No, he's not died, you can all relax)

Regular readers will know that, despite all... Well, most of us, attending church pretty much every Sunday, only 50% of the clan are actually rabid Religionites.  They are the very worshipful Mrs Dandy and the aforementioned Micro-Dandy himself.  Myself and the Mini-Dandy... Well, not so much.  She thinks that she'd probably go to church more often if it actually happened when she was awake... Possibly late on Sunday afternoon, and I just think that a lot of the dogma, waving your hands around and having to be a member of a special club gets in the way of the whole 'having faith' thing, which is a bit of a shame.

So, anywho, a couple of months ago he came to his Mother and said, 'Mother dearest, I should very much like to Baptised, please and thank-you.'  One thing I think we should probably clear up at this point.  He's eight years old and we've always promoted the thought that if you want to make an important decision that only affects you, you should be free to make that decision for yourself when you're old enough.  That's why he wasn't baptised as a baby, we wanted to wait until he made his own decision.

I don't mean things like him suddenly deciding. 'Oh, I'd love to know what it feels like to be run over by a car, I'll just jump in front of this speeding Subaru.' We're flexible and forward thinking, not bloody stupid.

So a date was arranged, and it just happened to fall on our local Vicar's last day at the church we attend, which was handy, because he'd already organised a buffet, which saved us a fortune on the catering alone.
Then some truly wonderful Godparents were found and we all went to a practice.

Oh yes, you need to practice a Christening service.  (Note: the difference between Christening and Baptism is the same as Wedding and Marriage... You get married at a Wedding, and baptised at a Christening, so now you know.)  You have to know where to stand and which bits to read off your cue-cards and when and everything - There's even a DVD to watch, not sure what it was about, I was sat with the Mini-Dandy at the back of the church wishing we'd brought some Korn to play on the soundsystem and discussing the best way to dispose of the bodyparts of the first unsuitable boyfriend that she decided to let us meet without leaving any forensic evidence.

Then everyone trouped over to the font, and Tim, the Vicar, went through a dry run... Because the font was empty... Dry run? no water in the font? Nevermind. Gods, you guys are difficult to please sometimes.

Everyone got their go at being the proud parent, handing their non existing children to the Vicar, who would mime sprinkling them with his special Holy Water and handing them back quickly before they urinated down his cassock.  Even Mrs Dandy, although the Micro-Dandy was actually there, the Vicar still mimed the whole sprinkling of Holy Water thing.  Then he asked if there were any questions.

The only hand to go up was from my dear Son, 'What do you do with the books that you record the baptism in?' He asked.  Everyone laughed, but the Vicar said that actually, that was a very good question, and then went on to explain that when they were full, they go to the County Records Office, so that people who were researching their family trees could use them.  Then the Vicar asked if there were any more questions, and only my spawn's hand went up again, there was a ripple of nervous laughter, then a sigh, and the Vicar turned questioningly to him. 'How long do you keep the books for?'  He explained that it took a number of months to fill the book, then when it was full, the Records Office kept it for ever.  My son took a breath and the Vicar added a caveat about there probably being a digital record in case the Office burned down, or there was an asteroid impact or something, because he has met my Son before.

On the way home, I explained that 'on the day' if the Vicar asked if anyone had any questions, his answer should be a very quiet 'No, thank you.'

So, last Sunday... Or yesterday if you're reading this today... As long as your particular 'today' is the 18th November 2013, was, as they say, the day.

And the families and friends of the five kids being baptised filled the church right up to the rafters... No, really, we had to load the latecomers in with pitchfoks and mallets.  I mean, there were a lot of people there to start with, what with the free buffet and everything.  But when the various families came in, it was pretty much shoulder to shoulder... Although Health and Safety regulations won't let you stand them too close together, as a lot of the 'posh' clothes that some of the people were wearing had quite a high polyester content, and if they rubbed together too much, there would have been a massive electrical discharge that could have very well killed us all.

Still, I bet the local Primark's profits went up significantly the day before. *cough*

I'm going to gloss over the people who talked all the way through the service, the people who were live-tweeting blow by blow descriptions of what everyone was wearing and the people who you just knew did the whole 'I might burst into flames if I go in there' joke to their mates before taking their seats and then giggled at the people who are there every Sunday without fail and put their hearts and souls into their own particular style of worship.  Mainly because I can see myself crossing the boundary of good taste, and getting personal, which I try not to do.

The service proceeded pretty much how the practice had done, baby was plucked from Mother's very breast, splashed with water and then carried into the Nave and shown to the congregation like Rafiki in the Lion King, there was a smattering of applause for each one in turn.

(Actually, here's another fun Church fact... You know how brides traditionally 'Walk up the aisle'? Well, actually they don't.  The aisles are the bits that are off to each side of the main set of pews, separated from the nave by a row of pillars - The proper name for it is 'the Central Passageway' - So when you get married, the bride is, for all intents and purposes, being taken up the central passageway...[Editors note: Insert comedy trombone noise here please])

When the Vicar came to the Micro-Dandy, he splashed him around the face with the old Aquam Benedictum and said, laughingly, 'Don't worry, I won't be carrying you out there and holding you up.'  To which my son replied, sharp as a razor, 'Why not? you did it for everyone else?'

(Did I mention the Vicar was mic'd up? Ah, the Vicar was mic'd up, and my son knows that in order to be heard, you must speak loudly and clearly into the mic, which he did.)

For a split second, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, until the Vicar came into the Nave, carrying my eight year old son, and held him up to the congregation.  There was an uproarious cheer and pretty much a standing ovation.  It was great, and of course he spent those few seconds mugging uncontrollably to the crowd.

Afterwards, everyone said their goodbyes and started to filter out and the Vicar came up to me, shaking his head.  He put his hands on my shoulders and said something along the lines of, 'Gold... Absolute Baptismal comedy Gold!' and wandered off, chuckling to himself.

He got some pretty good presents too, an 'Action Bible' graphic novel, drawn in the style of a Marvel comic, a journal, for him to write his innermost thoughts in... Which will no doubt be full of Mincraft seeds and his passwords to a panoply of websites by the end of the week, and a couple of really quite splendid Nerf guns, which his new God-Parents let him shoot at their priceless ornaments with later that afternoon... Told you that they were truly wonderful didn't I?

-oOo-

As it's my Blog, and you can't stop me, I'd like to use the tail-end of this post to say a fond goodbye to Vicar Tim and his family, I've known these people for about thirteen years now and they're great... Should you ever bump into them you should say 'Hi' and 'Would you like a coffee? I'll pay!' - This is them, below - Just so as you recognise them.

Tim and Elaine, with their children John*, Paul**,  George*** and Ringo****

* Tom

** Ben

*** Actually called George

**** Doesn't technically exist - But still might have taken the photograph

No, no, no, no, no, no, Yes!

Yes, alright, I appreciate that it's late... Had a small cock-up on the parking front this morning and have only just arrived at work.

Welcome to the 100th Chimping Dandy Blog, I was going to tell you more stories about my Dad, seeing as the last one I told turned out to be the most popular post ever, by a huge margin, but something happened to me yesterday that, had there been some kind of cake, it would quite happily have taken it.

A few of you may know that in my spare time, as well as the writing, and the drawing, and the motorcycling, I am a live sound engineer.  I practice this particular type of witchcraft at my local Church, the one where we hold the free bacon-sandwich-a-thons that I'm always banging on about.

Now, even it you're not a Religionite, you'll know that Easter is a pretty important time in the Christian calendar, lots of flowers about the place, talking about hairy fellows coming back from the dead and rolling stones away from sepulchers and what have you.

Not so many rabbits or chocolate eggs to be fair, which I think is a bit of a missed trick on their part, I think they'd get a lot more bums on seats if they gave away creme eggs and planted a bloody great plywood Easter Bunny in the graveyard, He could maybe carry a basket of eggs and one of them could be a hole, where you put your head through and had your picture taken... OK, so there's the chance that it could also look like he was carrying a truckle of severed heads, but I think most people'd get the gist.

Anyway, staying on track for a second, Yesterday was Quasimodo Sunday (No, really, that's what it's called) which, although it isn't as 'sexy' as Easter Sunday, still holds a certain reverence, what with the whole St. Thomas thing and the sticking of fingers into holes in wrists made by nails (I am so waiting for the movie version of the Bible stories directed by Dario Argento - It would rock like a hurricane, as Klaus Meine might say).  The Church wasn't particularly full, probably because it was the middle weekend of the local schools Easter holidays and lots of people with kids were away.

Unfortunately, on Sunday, this also included the Vicar and 95% of the music group.  So really, there wasn't a great deal for me to mix - Easy gig, I thought... But it turned out not to be quite like that.

This is our mixing desk:

It's great, it does all kinds of cool things, and with all my knobs, faders and flangers I can make Gods-awful crap sound a little less Gods-awful.  What it can't do is make the proverbial silk purse magically appear from a female porcine's aural cavity.  I knew I was going to have to get a bit creative, when the young lady who was to deliver the semon came up to me and said,

'We're going to have some songs, but from a CD'

'OK,' I replied, waiting for the other boot to drop.

'But I've been told that our main CD player is a bit... erm... temperamental?'

And she was right, the CD player that had come with the desk was actually a DVD recorder, with no screen attached, so you've got no way of knowing what track is currently playing, this important piece of information is the only thing that the little LED display doesn't show.  And it keeps things very exciting.

'So, how would you like to do it?' I asked, genuinely interested.

'Well, I thought we could play it on a portable CD player, and put one of the music-group's microphones close to the speaker.'

'Do you have someone to select the track and press play and things,'

'Yes, that's all taken care of.'

'Great, should be a piece of cake.'

To assist in making everyone feel like one, big, Anglican family there's a laptop with a projector that puts the words to whatever song is currently being played, so you can sing along, on a 10' square screen at the front of the Church... So far, so believable, right?

Now, let's add a few more levels of oddity shall we?  The young chap who was operating the CD player was wearing a camo-pattern onesie.

Yes, you read that right...

A onesie...

Camo pattern...

Completely unironically...

And the couple who were operating the laptop, with the words, for the songs, that everyone was going to sing, on a Powerpoint presentation, kept displaying random pages of lyrics from other songs that the parishoners would be singing throughout the service, as opposed to the strictly next... next... next... procedure that was required of them.  Don't get me wrong, they're lovely people, she writes poetry, but they were just a touch technically inept on the day.

The person giving the sermon was helping them out, and at one point there seemed to be a bit of a scuffle for control of the remote, which ended in a lot of scowling and finger-pointing.

Then the chap in the onesie faded the song out halfway through (Which is something he continued to do throughout the service).  But with true Dunkirk spirit, we soldiered on.  Someone delivered a reading, cleverly ignoring all the radio mics that had been setup for that very use and relied solely on her own voice projection ability, so she had the air of a codfish on a sandy beach, you could see the panic in her eyes and her mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out.  This went on for a minute or so until the person giving the sermon pointed her lapel mic at her and audio was restored.

This was followed by a slightly longed reading about some cannibals, which I didn't really see the point of, followed by another song, this one had everything, the combat onesie, the muffled audio, the complete lack of cogent lyrics, but we actually added two new levels of frisson... The person delivering the reading didn't turn off her mic whilst she sang along (and her singing is characterised more by it's power, than by the accuracy of the notes), and the CD player started skipping.

Now, if I'd been any kind of real sound engineer, I would have ran to the front, taken the CD out, cleaned it and started it off again before anyone noticed...

Instead I chose to hide behind the mixing desk, alternating between laughing uncontrollably and trying to slash my wrists with a stiff piece of A4 paper.

I kept looking around for the TV cameras and waiting for Dawn French to appear and thank us all for taking part in the Vicar of Dibley Easter special.

But no... It wasn't a dream either...

Please join me tomorrow for another helping of Steampunk - I have had to promise to write more, as people actually have bated breath and everything

La-piss Laloozy is how it's pronounced

Well, I hope you all had a good Eoster, ate lots of chocolate eggs, prayed to Ishtar or clipped your local church in traditional style, whatever you heathens get up to in your time off.

I didn't do much myself, a quiet few days with the family, spent a few hours in casualty with Mrs Dandy on Sunday after she managed to blow the meniscus in her right knee after throwing some ill-advised, but still quite impressive, Old Skool breakdancing shapes at a party on Saturday night.

I tried to pace myself over the four days, tried not to peak too soon, watched all the episodes of Sons of Anarchy, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Bones and stuff that we'd Sky+'d. But mostly, I played Minecraft.

I don't know how many of you have experienced the joy that is Minecraft. For those of you that haven't, in it's simplist form, it's Lego, you use 3' blocks of different materials like dirt or rock or iron to make 'stuff'. You can dig into the ground to find precious gems or to quarry more stone to build more things, you can make improbable looking buildings as the laws of physics only apply to yourself and certain other substances, like sand, water and gravel. I personally have many buildings that 'float' in midair, connected to their neighbours only by a three-foot square block of loose cobblestones, proudly sticking two fingers up at Sir Isaac Newton and reminding one and all that gravity is just a theory involving apples.

You can go on pretty indefinately, I'm a noob and my current house, or base, or shelter, is made up of a seven storey tower, which gets significantly wider as it goes up. Completely unsupported bridges going from the third and fourth floors to the nearest village (populated by people who look like Gonzo from the Muppets wearing a dress), my stone quarry, my coal, iron, diamond and lapis lazuli (Which The Micro-Dandy insists on pronouncing La-piss Laloozy) mine and to my recently discovered island that is entirely populated by pigs and the nearby shallow seas are rich with oddly angular squid... I have named this 'Piggy-Squid Island' because I am so gorram original.

My outpost is surrounded by a 12' high 6' thick, medieval style crenellated stone wall 180' long on each side, I have also, in an effort to appease whichever Gods are passing by at the time, built a 36' high Meso-American / Egyptian carved sandstone pyramid (which started out as a spoil heap for all the dirt I found myself digging up, you can only conceal a certain amount in your trouser legs after all, even if you put drawstrings on the leg holes.) and a fully functioning Anglican Church, complete with bell tower and jaunty yellow and blue striped carpets. And I also have a potting shed, overlooking my carrot, potato and melon fields.

That makes it seem very straightforward... but there are a number of steps involved in doing everything, to make a blue carpet (I say carpet, it's actually a 'block' of blue wool) you have to shear a sheep to get the wool, and mine some La-piss Laloozy to colour it blue. But to be able to shear the sheep, you'll obviously need shears, which are made from iron, which you have to dig out and smelt. To dig out your first bit of iron ore, you need a stone pick, which you have to quarry stone to make, for which you need a wooden pick, which you will need to chop down a tree for which, luckily, you can do with your bare hands.

So, you make a wooden pick, quarry some stone, make a stone pick, mine some iron ore, make a furnace out of some of the stone you've quarried, smelt the iron into ingots (using some coal that you dug out of your mine whilst you were looking for iron ore), make the ingots into shears, find a sheep, shear it and then colour the wool blue... with the La-piss Laloozy that can only be found in the deepest, darkest corners of certain mines. Oh yes, and most of the tools you use are susceptable to 'wear', the more you use them, the more they'll break - So it's going to take you at least a good half-dozen iron picks to get enough blue dye for a whole carpet.

So why would you bother? I don't know, I really don't - It sort of just sucks you in. It's like World of Warcraft without the quests. You're presented with a random(ish) canvas and the game engine sort of just goes 'Off you go then chap, have a little play, I'll check up on you just before you die of dehydration'

But it never does, you can say 'I'll just put another layer of stone on this wall, to defend myself from the bad guys before I go to work,' Then you realise that you're too weak to move and it's the Thursday after next and they've given your job to a Romanian immigrant.

You see, I went and mentioned bad guys there didn't I? There are a number of 'mobs' in the game that do their level best to make you wake up injured and/or dead. There are zombies, skeletons with bows and creepers that explode to name but a few. They spawn in low light situations, so at night (They mostly come at night... Mostly) or in areas that you haven't lit with torches. There's nothing scarier, well, I mean, obviously, there are a plethora of scarier things, mostly involving rotating knives or finding a used condom at the bottom of a jar of Aldi mayonnaise, but it's pretty scary, being in a darkened mine, with no coal to make torches, and hearing a Creeper moving around behind you just before hearing him explode, and your family hearing the string of Anglo-Saxon investive as the contents of your inventory, along with your pixellated liver and other vital organs, are scattered to the four winds.

As I've said, I'm just a n00b at this game, there's a huge amount of stuff to discover, there're electrified railways, mob generating contraptions that you can use to 'farm' certain bad guys, traps, pistons, even an endgame where you have to travel to a different dimension and kill a Dragon Boss. I'm not even a bajillionth of the way through it yet, and it already eats all of my spare time, or at least it would if I let it. I do have some self-control, contrary to popular belief.

Download the Pocket Edition onto your tablet for free, have a play then spend the £18 on the full version - But before you do, write a note to your nearest and dearest saying goodbye, and explaining that it's not them, it's you.

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!

'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.)

Dads 'n' Kids Advert

Origianlly posted on Facebook 9/6/12

PLEASE NOTE - This was an advert that I put on Facebook for a Dads 'n' Kids group that I (sort of) help out at, run from my local Church in Derby - It runs every 1st Saturday AFTER the 1st Thursday of every month - It's still running if anyone would like to come. (TCD)


So, it'll soon be time for another 'Dads 'n' Kids' morning - in about three hours in fact...

Come listen to good music, eat bacon, read newspapers, eat bacon, play on the Wii, eat bacon, watch cartoons, eat bacon, drink coffee, eat bacon and possibly decorate cakes...

There was a rumour about cake decorating, I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Open to any male parent, carer or owner-operator of children - Must bring a child (or bacon) to gain admittance, if you do not have a child, we have a number of spares that can be provided on a first come, first served basis.

Anywho - St Mary's Church - Boulton Lane, Alvaston, Derby - 10ish 'til 12ish (No religiousness whatsoever, unless you bring it yourself in a resealable box)

In fact, the only vaguely religious thing that ever happens is that the local vicar often arrives and performs the "Miracle of the disappearing bacon sandwiches" - I think his current record is seven - If that doesn't make him worthy of Canonisation, I don't know what does.

Be there... It's great!... Well... it's pretty good... I mean, it's not Star Wars on Ice or anything... I'll be there... That's gotta count for something... There'll be other people who are cool too... Probably...