Bikers can be fragile little flowers.

No really, listen… ‘Fragile’ might not be the first word you think of, you might choose to think ‘Scary’ or ‘Smelly’ or ‘Fond of wholesale deviant sexual practices’ or ‘Annoying’ (especially when they filter past you whilst you’re stuck in a traffic jam – Which is perfectly legal BTW – And, whilst we’re on the subject, you’re not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.) And you’d be 100% right 95% of the time… Bikers can be all of these things, I know, I are one sometimes… I used to be one a lot more often, but I just don’t have the disposable income anymore – it can be an expensive way of life, especially if you have the mechanical aptitude of a dead sloth.

But ‘fragile’? Well, let’s take a minute to think, when they’re barreling past you on their back wheel with their hair on fire, it looks like all fun and games, right? But (and it’s usually a big, hairy butt) it all comes to a shattering halt when the pedophile in the long-wheelbase Transit van at the front of the traffic queue turns right without checking his mirror because he’s seen a schoolgirl.  And because our Barnaby* is minding his own business, tearing down the white lines, with his wrap-around shades and the bluebottles bouncing off his chin, whilst he hums Steppenwolf hits to himself. He doesn’t have time to do anything about it. There’s a banging noise, a biker shaped dent in the side of the van and the insurance brokers start circling the site like pinstriped vultures.

Which also explains why a lot of bikers limp, or have interesting scars or bits missing… Arms, legs, fingers, eyes, that sort of thing.  And it also explains why there are a lot of groups who exist to try and get bikers riding again after they’ve taken a sideway excursion along the Queen’s Highway, or through that ‘wire and post’ safety barrier that the Highways Agency are so fond of, or under a steamroller… Most of them are great, but some are just money making cons – and the one I used to be involved with was a mixture of the two (I found this out later, I’m not saying that I was knowingly conning the recently badly crippled in their time of need… Not on this particular occasion anyway)

There was this one time, about 20-25 years ago, that this group had organised to have a trade stand at the Scottish National Motorcycle show… And because I was all bouncy and keen and just nodded when people asked me to do things, and at the time, I had a girlfriend who had access to a big van, the decision was made to travel the 300-odd miles north, in what became the ‘Support van’… I say 300-odd miles, because we had arranged to take a torturous route, picking up members (easy Tiger) along  the way, who would either ride their own bikes, or cadge a lift in the van – We’d also arranged to take in a rally or two that were not completely out of our way.  I can’t remember any names… And as the story unfolds, you’ll understand that that’s probably for the best.

Our first pickup was fairly close to home. The young gentleman in question had a wheelchair, but wasn’t permanently wheelchair-bound and he was the proud own of a ‘Nippi’ which to the uninitiated, is sort of a three-wheeled scooter that you could load a wheelchair into… There should be a picture around here somewhere.

He decided, quite rightly, not to attempt the journey in that and we helped him up into the van – I’d never met him before, but he came across as a bit needy.  Which is something you don’t usually like to say about people with disabilities as obviously there are things that they can’t do, or have difficulty doing for themselves – it’s the nature of the beast. But he just struck me as, well, ‘high maintenance’ (You all hate me now, right? Just keep reading – I’m actually a hero - sort of)

The next pickup was a brilliant guy… Really liked him – He had some terrible degenerative bone disease and I understand that he’s no longer with us… But nothing was too much trouble for him, If you saw him out on the road, riding his silver Honda Goldwing (I think) you’d never know that he was any less able than you or me (well than you at least, I’m falling apart and will probably be shot next time I go to the vets for a checkup) – You’d only know that there was anything different about him when he stopped for petrol.  You see, he used to seize-up when he rode for over five minutes.  We all do that to an extent, us old people, but I’d say about half the time, he couldn’t get his feet down in time… And… Well, he used to topple-over.  His wife rode a similar bike, and she used to pull up next to him, until he got the feeling back in his legs and could get off and fill up… She didn’t make it every time though, or sometimes she’d lose her balance and go over too – And it never ceased to be funny. Especially as when I suggested that he get a trike... He replied that they were 'For girls'.

This is a Goldwing

One of the other members had a false arm (you literally cannot make this stuff up) and because he’d had his handlebar controls modified in a particular way, he used to wear a hook, rather than a prosthetic hand (it was a different time) And… He would occasionally help this guy pick his bike up off the ground… With his hook… Now, I don’t know whether my mind has filled in this memory, or it actually happened, but I’m fairly sure that during one such forecourt recovery at a motorway services, his arm came off… We couldn’t do anything for a good few minutes then… what with all the laughing and the needing the toilets as our bladders thawed.

Our first night away was spent in the van, at one of the rallies that I mentioned… Now, I don’t know how many of you have ever been to a biker rally, but it usually involves music and beer and assorted idiocy… Importantly, sometimes there are Portaloos, and sometimes there aren’t.  On this occasion, there were, but they seemed to be miles from where we’d parked the van.  At precisely stupid o’clock in the morning, I got shaken awake…

“Dandy? Dandy? Are you awake, I really need the toilet!” – Now, I was in the front of the van, and our sometime wheelchair using friend (for it was he) was in the back. 

I said, “Right, hang on, I’ll open the back doors.” So, I got out of the van, went around to the back and opened one of the doors. He moved to the doorway, and then looked back into the van – His wheelchair was covered in people, only some of whom I recognised… He looked at me like a kicked puppy,

“There’s no time, I’m desperate – You’ll have to carry me.” So I took a minute to compose myself, he put his arms around my neck and I lifted him out of the van.  We’d gone about 50 yards when he said, “I need to go now… Find me a bush!” – So, being the caring, inclusive beast of burden that I am, I carried him to the nearest hedge and set him down, unsteadily, on his feet. He just stood there looking at me.

I said “What?”

He replied, “My fingers are numb and I’m wearing leather jeans…”

I stood there for a minute opening and closing my mouth for a minute or so, before snapping it shut like a pelican at a Wagamama as I realised what mixed messages I must be giving out.

“You’re going to need to give me a hand, so I don’t get it all over me.”

Now, I’m going to leave the next couple of minutes to your imagination, but I did fall back on all my experience gained from de-gibleting a fresh chicken.  He managed to do himself up afterwards, and – truth be told, I needed to do a similar thing myself, but I had no intention of manually operating ‘Little Dandy’ without giving my hands a good, hot bleaching.  I carried him back to the van, and then sat and had a cry before ‘Blutoothing’ myself (I relieved myself in the same hedge, but did it handsfree, which is a trick you learn if you’re often slapdash with superglue when you're repairing a carb-rubber)

The rest of the trip to and back from Scotland was fairly uneventful, we picked up a Goldwing a couple of times and had to tighten the straps holding someone’s arm onto their body more times than I would do normally on an average weekend.  In fact, the only real item of interest came at our next overnight stop… Which was at our one-armed friend’s house.  We’d all had more Jack Daniels that was good for us and things were getting decidedly philosophical.  He’d removed his arm and smiled at me.

“So, did he get you to get it out for him?”

“What?”

“His d*ck? Did he get you to get it out for him so that he could…”

“Well, he was…”

“Having difficulty with his jeans? Was about to have an accident? Yeah, he does that – It’s like a rite of passage for people he’s just met.  He sees how far he can push them… He only does it to blokes though.” He saw that I was jumping to a conclusion about his sexual orientation, “Oh, no, nothing like that… We’ve just told him that we’d beat the crap out of him if he tried it with a girl. We warn them anyway, just in case he forgets.”

He touselled my hair as I sat there and then went off to bed, saying, “You’re one of the gang now!” with a huge grin on his face.

One of the gang? Maybe, but he didn’t think it was quite so funny when he woke up in the morning and tried to put his jogging-bottoms on… We’d sewn the feet holes up you see… he was hopping all over the landing with a hangover… Then he fell down the stairs…

If it taught me nothing else, it taught me that disabled people are just as likely to be little sh*ts as able-bodied people are.

*Barnaby Wilde – a fictitious ‘everyman’ biker – Like a ‘John Doe’ type character.

You'd think he's have known better, being a Grandfather

It's been a long time since we've had a story about my Dad isn't it?

And thinking about it, the last one wasn't hugely cheery was it? Popular, helpful to some, but not cheery by any means.

But these are better, these two are funnier - Well, I think they are anyway, but you might want to keep in mind that the people involved were 'of a different time' where political correctness was just a glimmer in some well-meaning politician's eye - They're not meant to offend, and if they do, I'm sorry.  He wouldn't be sorry, he'd tell you to 'Stop being so bloody sensitive!' and look at you funny - But like I said, different time.

They happened a number of years ago in Germany, where my Dad did his National Service, as described in more detail HERE (Warning, contains mild bloodshed, bodily injury and shenanigens)

He travelled to Germany at least once a year, with a bunch of reprobates who had served with the RAF both during and after WWII in the same area for both RAF Transport and Bomber Commands - Actually, that's a lie, most of them were ex-RAF, but at least one was ex-Luftwaffe - It's a long story.  But in general, if you imagine the patrons of the Cantina at Mos Eisley from Star Wars, but give them all whispy grey hair, you won't go far wrong.

-oOo-

The first, and possibly most offensive story concerns an outing, either on a cable car, or a funicular railway (The exact details of his stories often wavered with each telling).

There were thirteen people on this particular excusion, and they were busily queueing for their turn on the conveyance in question, when one of my Dad's colleagues turned to him and asked,

'Freddo, how long before our go, do you think?'

'No idea,' Dad looked at the length of the queue and saw that it wasn't moving very fast, 'fifteen or twenty minutes at least.'

'My feet hurt.'

'We've only just got here!'

'I know, but even so.' There was a silence that lasted as long as it took for the queue to shuffle forward a few feet. 'Do you know how much it is?'

'No, not exactly, I think it's five euros.'

'That seems expensive, Can you remember when it was marks, before the euro? I preferred that.  At least we still use pounds.'

'Yeah, pounds, lovely.' He tried to sound just disinterested enough to stop the old fellah talking, it didn't work.

'Is this five euros?' He shoved out a wrinkled hand that was full of change, 'It's all I've got.'

My Dad counted it and confirmed that there was more than enough, but said, 'Look, why don't you just go to the front and check the prices?'

Which is exactly what the old chap did.  He wandered with his walking stick to the front of the queue, making it plain that he wasn't intending to push in, studied the board and can back with a grin on his face.

'It's six euros.'

'Oh, right, you've still got enough though.'

'That's seventy-eight euros for all of us.'

'Yep.'

'But there's an offer on that will only cost us thirty-six euros!'

'Really?' (Now my Dad liked a bargain, so this interested him greatly)

'Yes, it says twelve plus one. thirty-six euros.  You can speak German, what does "behinderte" mean?'

His heart sank, 'It means disabled. That's the price for disabled people.'

'Well, can't we pretend?'

'To be disabled? Don't you think that's a bit dishonest?'

'But we're in Germany.' when my Dad looked at him blankly, he carried on, 'They're the bad guys.'

'Were! They were the bad guys, a long time ago. They've been nothing but kind to us since we've been here.'

'But, it saves us forty-two euros?' 

Which in fairness was all the convincing that was required, and why five minutes later my Dad was posing as the carer (Because he could speak German) of a group of people who displayed the entire panoply of disabilities that they could muster.  There were at least three completely fictional false legs, a couple of blind chaps who were suspiciously looking at people when they talked, and one chap who took his performance so seriously that he wet himself.  Although that might have been purely co-incidental.

There was a bit of too-ing and fro-ing with the girl in the booth who didn't speak any English, but finally they were let through at the reduced price - And almost all of them made it into the carriage before they started whooping and waving their walking sticks in the air shouting 'In your face Fritz!' and suchlike.

-oOo-

The second and last story (for today) will have more of an impact if you're a trekker.  It involves some knowledge of the episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles.' You should go and watch it now and see which bit you think I'm going to reference.  It also goes to show that old people can also be complete arses, just like everybody else.

Back?

Good.

This bit is set in Cologne, a German city that suffered heavy bombing by the RAF in 1942-1943, to the point where it's still a sore subject/item of embarrasment with combatants and their descendents from both sides.

It was during another visit (or possibly the same visit, I'm not hugely sure) that the group were sat in a small bar after an excursion.  the ladies had retired for the evening and the chaps were enjoying multiple steins of German beer (or foreign muck, as most of them termed it, not that this effected the amount they were drinking.) They were in what you might politely call 'High Spirits', when a middle-aged local man left his group of friends, wandered over and started a conversation.

(I won't do the comedy German Allo-Allo type accent - I'm walking a fine enogh line as it is) 

'Hallo! I couldn't help overhear that you're English!'

There was a generally positive murmur.

'I hope you are all enjoying yourselves?' (Now I figure that this guy knew exactly what was coming, so I have no sympathy for him)

'It's very nice, the people have been very friendly.' replied one of the group, my Dad was busily trying to fit his entire face into his beer, as he also knew what was coming.

'Nice? Yes, what do you think about our beautiful architecture?'

(Here it comes, be ready)

One of the assembled group was from No. 5 Bomber Group, who had taken part in the '1,000-bomber attack' on Cologne itself.  He replied, 'Well, it looks a damn sight better from 20,000 feet through a bombsite.'

As I understand it, this was when the first table got flipped over. and the 'ruckus' ensued.  So if you can recall the bar-fight scene from 'The Trouble with Tribbles', you should replace the Klingons with Octogenarian combat-trained, but very rusty, ex-RAF bruisers and the crew of the Enterprise with Middle-aged German types whose parents had probably lived through the bombing. (I was going to compare the Germans to the Klingons, but... When you think about it, they were really the injured party)

If you've not seen it, it's here:

The fight didn't last very long, but it did involve a number of cuts and bruises on both sides.  In fact, the only reason I found out about it at all was because my dear old Dad, who was still just about in his 70's at the time, had a huge black-eye when he came back to the UK.

I listened to his story and asked 'Well, who won?'

He looked at me as if to say 'I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer.' and then smiled one of the biggest smiles that I'd ever seen and said 'Fancy a pint?'

But that's not what it's for though, is it?

Misuse - Another one of those words that gets thrown around with gay abandon nowadays.

I read recently that people now misuse rather than abuse 'substances' and drugs, I suppose that's a step in the right direction... I once got arrested for telling a wrap of amphetamines that it was fat and smelled funny - I was definitely abusing it rather than misusing it (I was also completely off my melon on Cocaine and walking naked through a public library, thinking about it, that might have been the root cause of my arrest).  It seems you can misuse Facebook even!  I thought that it was solely invented for looking up people you've not seen for twenty years and whispering 'Good Gods, you got ugly' to yourself... Seems not, that's frowned upon too and may attract the attention of the Police, or the Daily Mail.

You can misuse research, and tailor the results to support whatever crackpot theory you want to put forth.  You can misuse your disabled parking badge, presumably by... Erm... Parking somewhere... Erm... OK, maybe that was a bad example, I've no idea how you'd misuse a parking badge, maybe you'd beat a dog with it... I'm not sure - Anyway, disabled people wouldn't do something like that would they? They're all great.  To suggest otherwise would be disablist or something, probably cause an uproar too. (See Daily Mail, above)

But what I'm talking about misusing today is a part of your house, or my house at least.  It's a room, and it has a specific purpose.  A lot of rooms do you know.  The Living Room is where you live, The Bedroom is where you go to bed, The Bathroom is where you have a bath, some people have Utility Rooms for doing washing and stuff and some people even have rooms, inside their house, where they put their cars.

They're called Garages, and they are designed for the sole purpose of keeping the second most expensive, and first most stealable thing you will ever buy, safe from people who wear 'snap-back' hats and talk like stylised American gang members... Bruv, innit? an' t'ing.

Every house I've ever had, since leaving the home of my birth has had one, but to my knowledge I've never actually stored a car in one.  Bikes and Trikes, yes. Golf Clubs, certainly. Dogs whilst they 'Think about what they've done', indubitably.  But Cars, never.

I seem to remember trying once, it was so long ago that I've forgotten what the car was.  It wasn't a big car, not a Range-Rover or a 42 tonne articulated unit, probably an Escort or something like that.  I measured it, by the tried and trusted method of spreading my arms, squinting and thinking 'That'll go in there.' then cleared the floor of woodscrews and nails and Japanese soldiers who hadn't realised that the war was over.  I threw the tent onto the front lawn, pulled out my golf clubs, moved a tea chest of old Honda parts and my prized (at the time) 750/4 was reverently wheeled into a sunny spot where it could bask as it slowly soiled itself into the gutter.  I then had a cup of tea and a slightly dry Jaffa Cake, as was the style at the time.

Girding my loins, I seated my broad, British buttocks on the slightly faded velour and started the engine.  I crawled at a sedate pace through the up-and-over door (after lifting it up and over, obviously... I'm not a complete cretin.) and nursed the jalopy into the space provided.

It was only then that I realised that I couldn't open the driver's door due to the sturdy workbench I had constructed the Summer previously.  So I gave up in disgust and reversed back out.

Since that day I have used the garage as both a depository of randomness and a way of ending uncomfortable conversations with Mrs Dandy... Conversations that start with, 'Dandy, can you take 3" off the end of this bit of wood?' and end with 'I would love to, but the saw's in the garage.' - To which her reply would be a knowing nod and a wandering off in the other direction.

Here is a picture of the garage in question.

Ok, so a lot of it is taken up by the trike, although if you work out the amount of floorspace, it probably only takes up about a quarter. Then there's one of those American style fridge-freezers (because our kitchen isn't big enough to house it), and a tumble dryer and a workbench (Which I can't use because it's covered in boxes).  There're a couple of sets of Golf-clubs, a guitar, a sack-truck and Mrs Dandy's pushbike with the suspension and the really comfy seat.  The entire left-hand side is shelves full of crap - odd bits of Dolls-house furniture and those socket timers that you use to turn the lights on and off when you go on holiday to stop the snap-backs nicking your telly (Open note to housebreakers: We do not ever go on holiday, and even if we did, we have nothing worth stealing. What we to have is a large dog with sharp teeth, a crippling venereal disease and the sexual morals of an alley cat - So, like, don't breaking in or nuffink, OK?).  The cardboard boxes on the right-hand side... Well, the contents of those are anyone's guess.  They're probably stuff that we still haven't unpacked from when we moved in, over three years ago - I'm scared to look.

Every once in a while, I'm moved to give it a bit of a tidy up,  I decide to drag everything out onto the drive and only put back in stuff I really need.  The stuff I leave on the drive just 'disappearing' as soon as I close the door (No, really, it does... We live smack-bang in the middle of Pikey-Town).  But what usually happens is that I drag a couple of things out and then I find something that I've not seen for years, and I spend the rest of the day playing with it, and look all guilty when Mrs' Dandy comes in to say that dinner's ready and I'm sat there playing with a model of Concord that only has one wing and there's a cardboard box of cables outside on the drive, and it's raining.  I suddenly feel like an eight year old who's been told to tidy his room, and she walks out of the garage shaking her head.  I 'fly' the Concord back into the box where I found it, making quiet 'Neeeyowwww' noises ashamedly, so that she can't hear me.

I understand that people without the luxury of a solidly built garage have to use sheds instead.  That sounds perfectly awful to me.  I mean, how are you supposed to nurse a battle-damaged Concorde onto an imaginary airfield in a soggy cardboard box with the constant worry of a spider wandering up your trouser leg and building a silky fort in your gentleman's area - Makes my collies wobble just thinking about it.

Are You Experienced?

What're the two most infuriating words that any parent will hear from their children ever, in their lifetime? I don't mean the really scary ones like 'I'm pregnant' or 'It's broken' or 'On fire'. I mean the ones that you hear every weekend and every school holiday and every advert break during an otherwise immensely exciting program?

Yes, that's right, 'I'm boooooored!'

The little cherub, who you not so long ago bought the entire collection of Moshi Monsters for? Who you queued for at 07:30am a week before release day to make sure she was the first of her friends to own the new One Direction CD that detailed not only their tour dates, but a scratch and sniff sampling of their underwear drawer? Who has demanded, and received, every type, style and colour of Nintendo games system past, present and future?

We must have spent the GNP of Lesotho on toys etc. for the Dandies, both Mini and Micro, over their respective lives. But both of them would much rather sit in front of a PC or Laptop or iPad and watch YouTube videos. If for some reason you temporarily take away this dubious privilege, say they've been zoned out for six hours solid, or you actually need to use the device yourself. You get a selection of sighs that could extinguish an Australian forest fire and the occasional theatrical flounce onto the sofa.

There are cries of 'I'm bored!',

To which my normal reply is, 'No, you're lazy!'

And then I go on to enumerate all the things that they could be doing instead, which in fairness gets more and more ridiculous every time - It'll start off as 'Play on the Wii, or the Playstation, watch a DVD, walk the dog, wash the pots, draw a picture...' and ends up with, 'Shave the cat, iron a herring, translate Harry Potter into Klingon, laminate a duck...' By this time they've usually stopped listening, wandered off or slipped into a narcoleptic coma - All of which, I consider to be a win.

But I realised recently that it's not just kids that do this, maybe it's my particular group of friends, but for evey Facebook update I see on my timeline that says 'Today I got up, felt great, walked the dog, took an artistic photo of a thing, made something tasty for lunch and did stuff with a person until my eyes rolled back in my head when I OD'd on the greatness of it all,' there's twenty seven that say, 'Aren't people rubbish, I'm staying in bed, there's nothing to do, it's raining, everybody stop picking on me, it's everybody else's fault, wah-wah-wah!'

For Gods' (yes, pedants, that apostrophe IS in the right place) sake people DO SOMETHING! If your life is crap, do something about it, find out what's wrong and change it. There's no situation that anyone is in that is insurmountable. Then again, you might counter with any or all of the below;

'But I've got depression!' To which I would reply 'Me too!' diagnosed and prescribed for, but the one thing I took to heart is what my Doctor said just before signing the green slip that I took to the pharmacist, 'Mr Dandy, this isn't a cure, this is just to make life easier for you whilst you figure out what's wrong and sort it out.' - Which is exactly what I did, and I'm proud of myself for doing it. I know it's often easier said than done, and I know that a lot of people's triggers are more difficult to sort out than mine, but you're never going to feel any better unless this happens. (P.S. if they offer you CBT, even if there's a long waiting list - Say 'Yes please' - I've seen this really work well... If you go to your CBT appointment and they ask if you need to borrow a helmet and gloves, don't panic, it just means they've booked you on Compulsory Basic Training, not Cognitive Behaviour Therapy - Just go with it, fewer people who can ride motorcycles are depressed - That's a fact... Probably.)

'But I'm missing a leg!' Life's harder with a disability, I truly appreciate that and I've not experienced it first-hand myself, so I'm not really qualified to judge. (Unless you count an inability to stop correcting people on their pronunciation as a disability - It seems the people who give out the Blue Disabled Parking badges don't... Fascists!) But you hear stories every day of people who have conquered seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve what their doctors said was impossible... Be one of those people. If you need a bit of a lift in this department, Google a guy called Taylor Morris, and then try keep a straight face whilst you tell the Dole Office that you can't make it to the shops because you've got a bit of a dicky ankle.

'But I'm thick!' Well, that's as may be, but you can't let lack of education hinder your dreams, book yourself on a course at your local school. Learn about something you're interested in to start with - just to get you back into it, then try learning something that might help you take the next step towards happiness. You never know, you might be lucky and those two things are one and the same. If you can't do this, due to having to look after your young or similar, become a member of your local library, borrow books and actually read them - There are, quite literally, worlds to discover.

'I'm in the middle of nowhere with no transportation!' Walk, no... seriously... walk. There's nowhere (OK, barring islands etc) on the mainland United Kingdom that isn't accessible by you leaving your house, locking the door behind you and walking in the right direction for long enough - It might take a while, you might need to take a snack and maybe a thermos with you but seriously, you can do it. We've only had the Infernal Combustion Engine for the past hundred and thirty years. What do you think people did before that? It wasn't bitch and moan and lie in their own filth watching repeats of Jeremy Kyle all day I can tell you.

'I'm broke!' Me too, again, sorry. I sit around all the time going, 'I could just eat a raisin and biscuit Yorkie, shame I'm broke!' I normally say this in my living room, surrounded by CDs I don't listen to and DVDs that I'll never watch again. If you can't afford to buy the stuff you need (not want, don't waste your money on things you want, spend it on stuff you need, you know, carrots rather than beer and stuff like that) then sell something that you don't need quite as much.

'But!' - This is, without doubt, the most invidious word in the English language, people usualy use it to explain why they're not going to do something. Examples include 'I'd take the dog for a walk, no problem, BUT I've got some some completely ficticious stuff that I've already arranged to do' and 'Yeah, I realise that this is a very important issue, BUT It doesn't effect me directly, so I don't care.' Do me a favour people, if you feel the need to use this word at all, use it in a positive way, as characterised by the axiomatic T-Shirt slogan 'I'm not a gynaecologist, BUT I'll take a look at it for you.' - Embrace the chance to do things, even if they're new, scary and have a medium to high risk of you getting slapped by a complete stranger. At least you'll be meeting new people.

I know that this has all been very flippant, because that's what I do, this is ostensibly a humour Blog after all. I do try and keep it light even when I rant.

And I understand that there are those people who are housebound due to circumstances beyond their control, for whom there is no available assistance, this was not directed at them in any way.

BUT, The rest of you, seriously, grab your life by the nuts and shake every single, solitary experience you can out of it - I'm fat, lazy, bald, not particularly attractive and don't have a huge circle of friends and even I've had enough experiences that I've thought are interesting enough that people would enjoy hearing about them here. (Rightly or wrongly).

Just imagine what things a svelte, vigourous, hirsute, beautiful person like yourself could get up to! - Don't hold yourself back with insecurity, propel yoursef forward with childishness and a blindness to your own inadequacies.

Just like I do!

If you do do this, feel free to tell me all about it via email and you never know, I might include your success story here, in these very pages.

That's NOT exacly what I meant, but...

'Change your material to fit your audience' they always say - Although they also say 'Cut your coat to suit your cloth' and 'Many a slip twixt cup and lip' and they may as well be Klingon for all the sense they make to me. One day, I shall hunt down these 'They' who say all these things and slap their nonsensical legs with a spikey deep-sea fish of some kind.

Anyway, material / audience... Right. There are some things you cannot say to some people - You can't say F**khead or W****r or S**t-eating Hobbit-faced slime-spewer who I would quite literally rather R*m-j*b a dead goat than talk to, to a small child who had just dropped their lollypop on the carpet.

You cannot say 'Race you!' and run off up a flight of stairs to someone suffering from a spinal injury and currently using a wheelchair (however temporarily) unless there is ample, high-speed, disabled access to the next floor up.

It is also frowned upon to call into question the cabling and electrical termination ability of our cousins from the Indian Subcontinent, unless you are a male member of the Royal family who can trace their recent parentage to the Hellenic areas.

However, the most fragile, the most pitfall strewn, the most likely vocal interaction to see you hung by the neck until you are dead is simply the one between an adult male and an adult female. There is not a single, solitary thing that one can say to the other that cannot be misconstrued as an attack on their masculinity/femininity/size/weight/length/sense of humo(u)r or general physiognomy.

Seemingly simple interrogatives such as 'Are you OK?' or 'Would you like me to do that?' are often misheard as 'What the hell's wrong with you this time, you petulant harridan' or 'For Jebus' sake will you stop fannying around with that and let someone significantly higher up the foodchain have a go'

You cannot comment that a member of the opposite sex is anything other than yoghurt-explodingly ugly unless you want your throw-away comment to be processed by your nearest and dearest's brain into the phrase 'Yes, they are a significantly more appealing sexual partner than you, and I would, should an opportunity present itself be up it (or on it) like a wombat on tepid custard'

I can virtually guarantee that everyone, male or female is nodding in agreement at this moment in time, apart from Mrs Dandy, who is thinking 'He's talking about me!' and hatching a plan to seperate me from parts of my anatomy that, which though sadly no longer functional, I still have a certain masculine attachment to.

Why do we do this? are we all so insecure? - You'll notice that I said WE there, I am just as likely to mishear 'And then Brian said...' as 'And whilst Brian was taking me roughly from behind, four other naked, priapic, men came in carrying a sign that said...' as anyone else, more so probably as my imagination is somewhat colourful compared to some.

Are we so eager to believe that our loved ones are evil that we constantly try to find the hidden meanings in what they say to us? Or is it that deep-down, we don't believe that we deserve to be loved?

Crap! we're all freaks - We should plan a yearly event, maybe one that lasts a whole month, where we take everything that anyone we supposedly trust says to us at face value. No second-guessing, no reading between the lines - We could call it, erm... Oh bugger, I don't know, something like Truthtember (only less gay-sounding) and celebrate it with cards that say things like 'Your Sister's good looking' and 'I work with someone whose shoulders are wider than yours'

I think it would be good for us all in the long run.