Options most heinous!

Heinous, great word that is – Love it; It’s the sort of word that a lot of people have probably only heard in a Bill & Ted film… Let’s take a moment to look at its varied meanings…

Ohhh… Execrable – Doesn’t that word just make you shudder? Abhorrent! Not enough people use that in polite conversation in my opinion. Abhorrent, abhorrent, abhorrent... Lovely.   I might call my next pet something like that. Well, either that or ‘Unpardonable’ – I can imagine it now, I’ve attracted a new victim, sorry, *cough* willing visitor who would easily pass any drugs test you'd care to administer Your Honour, to Dandy Towers. Perhaps during one of Heckmondswyke’s, sadly under-attended fortnightly tofu and Cuprinol appreciation evenings? I can only assume that the conversation would go something like this:

[Visitor] Oh, look! Isn’t your Guinea Pig adorable? What’s his name?

[Moi] Unpardonable…

[Visitor, only slightly louder] I said… what’s… his… name..?

[Moi, putting the hatchet back] No… I…. Never mind, it’s Tim

Anyway, back to the heinousity (Which is a real word and you can’t prove otherwise) that you were originally promised in the title.

I’ve been approached by a selection of both attractive and mentally stable young ladies over the past month, who have actually stopped me in the street to tell me how much they enjoyed reading my books. Well, not in the street as such – I mean, I don’t frequent streets where ladies tend to congregate… Not since the cuckoo-clock incident in Leipzig.  Some of the descriptive phrases they used, included:

‘Now can't carry on reading “Mumblings” because I'm laughing so much I'm crying’, ‘Pissed my pants, I did!’, ‘Seriously, there are parts that I fell to pieces laughing!’, ‘the author's a bit of a knob-end’, ‘ I sounded like my nan, Alice. I was whooping so much’, ‘I can't stop laughing! It's like reading the inside of my brain!’, ‘Love this book so much! Thank you for enabling its existence!’, ‘I've gone all purple and sweaty’

Actually, at least one of those might have been me… But the rest are 100% Gen-you-wine things that real people have said.

You were still looking for the heinous bit weren’t you? I’ve dragged you here, by the scruff of the neck, like a lonely three-nosed halibut purely by the medium of clickbait and you’re worried that I won’t deliver – Well, I can tell you that I am about to deliver, just like I tell Mrs. Dandy on those very few occasions when she’d much rather be watching something interesting on the shopping channel than submitting herself to my fumbling ministrations. So, here goes.

This weekend, from Friday the 2nd. of September until Monday the 5th. of September I have decided, purely because of the warm, glittery feeling that I have in the bodily area where that snake bit me once and I had to have the poison sucked out by a native bearer in the rear entrance to the food hall of Fortnum & Masons in Magaluf, to offer the Kindle version of my ‘Pangolin’ books for the once in a lifetime price of…

Free and no money… between those dates they will be delivered to your choice of Kindle-enabled devices from those wonderful full tax-paying people at Amazon, gratis!

The three titles available in this offer include:

Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin – Volume 1 - Seventy-Five stories representing nearly a year of irreverent writing, on such various themes as Polar Bears, Motorcycling, Lego, Physical Injuries to Myself, and The Paranormal (woOoOOOooOo)

The Pangolin Yodels – Volume 2 - Still a number of frankly idiotic stories, including the one where he sets an angry goose on a famous sporting personality. But on the whole, it's all a little more considered.

The Collected Children’s Pangolin Primer – a collection of the previous two books but with a lot of the more ‘unclean’ references removed – I think there is still one usage of the word ‘bugger’, but used as an expletive, not a verb.

‘Buy’ them (for free), have them delivered to you almost instantly via the aether (also free), laugh yourself into some kind of debilitating aneurysm or embarrassing moistness episode, then leave a glowing review on Amazon that will make you feel like some kind of Warren Buffettesque philanthropist.

Total cost = Not a farthing – Enjoy them please, tell your family… Addict your friends… You never know, there might even be another Pangolin book in the offing!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

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.