Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise

Have you noticed that life, by its very nature, is linear.  There are some that say that it's more 'wibbley-wobbley' than that - But those people are often certifiable and you should shun them.   

But life, for the vast majority of us, bimbles from one thing to another like a heavily pregnant hamster, banging into things and generally biting jagged chunks out of the furniture with rodenty abandon.  You can look backwards sometimes and think "That was lucky" if... Erm... if you're lucky, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's pretty much 'Yesterday I went to the shops.', 'Today my dog stole all the Camembert out of my artisanally made and ethically sourced sourdough sandwich.'

But there are a few times, a few beautiful gems hidden amongst the razor-edged broken glass strewn highway of my daily life that shine like the very lighthouse of home port to an overworked and mimsy-hungry seaman (easy now)

Here is one such relatable saga, it ends the day before yesterday... But it started some weeks ago, during a bout of Norovirus-induced generic stomach-flu like illness. I had it for a week and I didn't eat during that entire time - I drank weak orange squash made with boiled water. I tried to eat a boiled sweet once, but that triggered a bout of 'stomach upset' that would have caused a Haddock to embrace Buddhism. It was awful - I lost a stone in weight (you need to remember this, it's important later on).

Another thing you need to bear in mind is that it's not my payday until next Friday... Very important, almost as important as the previous fact, in fact.

Ok, so knowing these facts, we can fast-forward to last week. The Dandymobile, my faultless steed, my surreptitious breeder of Marmosets, has a 'tell' to let you know that her battery will require replacement in the near future.  It's a buzzing noise that happens between turning on the ignition and starting the engine, something like a pump, or a fan under the bonnet somewhere probably, I know not what it is - This is where the more mechanically minded of my loyal readership should feel free to jump in with suggestions as to what this might be, and how they would like to mend it for me for free. But, for the time being, we should just agree that this is a 'thing' with a purpose - It's purpose in this case is to remind me to buy a new battery in the near future.  I had planned to buy a battery once I had been paid. I think you can follow my reasoning, right?

On Saturday I drove the Current Mrs. Dandy to the Post-Office to claim a package that required a signature, or was too wide for the letterbox or some-such tomfoolery.  Upon our return to the car, it refused to start, I figured that I'd touched one of the footpedals during the starting procedure (this sometimes causes the car to refuse to start for half an hour or so if the battery is in bad shape) so I walked the 500 yards to the nearest branch of a popular tyre and battery replacement company that are known for being 'Quite expensive'. They very cheerfully said that they would be more than happy to replace my battery for £100. (remember, it's not payday until next week and I still need to buy food and fuel).  I tried the motor factors across the road (the same motor factors as detailed in this story) and they quote me £70 just to supply the battery.  So, I figured that I'd go back to the car, wait for it to successfully start and drive it to get its battery replaced.

But it didn't start, not even after I'd waited for another hour... 

I'd suggested to Mrs Dandy that she get the bus home, as she had things to do, and that I would get the Dandymobile sorted 'somehow' on my own. She left and I sat there and thought, and thought, and thought. My first thought was that the car would magically just start if I closed my eyes and turned the key whilst asking it nicely... It didn't.  Then I thought that the only thing for it was to push the car, on my own, the 500 yards to get the battery replaced. But then I remembered that I would need both hands to push the Dandymobile - and, (this is where your memory gets tested) I realised that that would be problematic because I needed one hand to hold my trousers up - Remember that sickness bug and all the weight I lost? - Well, my belt was on the last hole and I couldn't get it tight enough to stop my trousers falling down whilst I was pushing the car... I was going to buy a new, smaller, belt once I'd been paid. This issue was compounded because, as you all know, I don't wear underwear of any kind, ever. Not even when I'm kilted.

So, my third and final thought was to phone the garage that normally does my MOTs and suchlike, to get them to recover me and replace the battery. So I called them and spoke to the owner, who's a great guy, and explained my problem. He said that the recovery truck was out currently, but I'd be their next call as I was such a good customer.  We've heard of this garage before too... It's where THE QUATTRO is usually tethered.

It was an hour before the truck arrived and on its arrival, the recovery driver suggested that he should use his special clip-on battery thing to see if he could scare the Dandymobile into life.  But it didn't work, so then he offered to bump her around the corner using the starter motor (you know how a car lurches forward if you start it in gear? that.) and winch her onto the back of the truck. The car jumped forward a couple of feet every time he turned the key and on the second such attempt, the engine started as if nothing had been wrong in the first place.

"I don't understand what happened there," He said. Well, I say 'he said' - he kind of buzzed, because he had some sort of electrolarynx because my life is on average 500% weirder in most ways than yours. Then he asked me if I'd like him to follow me to the garage just in case. but I said no, and that he was very kind, but as the Dandymobile started, she should be OK now. In hindsight, that strikes even me as foolish bravado now.

However, I drove to the garage without incident, parked up and turned off the ignition without thinking.  The owner was standing in the open doorway of the workshop and favoured me with a sliding facepalm with added headshaking finish, such as one you would give to an Ice-dancer who had performed a routine worthy of six perfect 10.0s before setting his tights on fire as a protest of some kind and sinking through the surface of the rink without a trace.

I opened the bonnet, and he looked at the battery. A confused scowl crossed his face... "Is this one of ours?" he asked. 

"Of course, you exclusively do all the work on all my cars." I lied in reply. He held up his index finger to silence my tirade of falsehood and rang his battery supplier.

"Well, it seems you're in luck - The battery is still just under warranty, so we'll replace it free of charge for you.  All I'd ask is that you make a cash donation to the 'We helped you out of a tight spot, so I'll contribute towards the cost of your Christmas Party benevolent fund.'" - So I gave him the cash I'd got out to pay the driver for recovering me. and an hour later, I was on my way.

Effectively, I saved a potload of money, the week before payday, because I'd been sick as a dog weeks earlier, and that meant I couldn't push my car to the garage for fear of my trousers falling down...

What are the chances?



Well, with me, probably 50/50 as it goes.

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.

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

And then, I shot myself

OK, here we go... I have yet again had the subject of today's Blog chosen for me. This time by my dear daughter, who told everyone on her Blog that I had once shot myself - And said that I would probably tell you all about it, as you seem to enjoy stories of my misfortunes.

Firstly, I'd like to take a few moments to look at the whole 'accidentally shooting yourself' issue.

Weaponry is a lot more widespread and more easily available over the pond, and as a large proportion (over 25%) of the visitors to this site hail from the Grande Olde US of A, I am expecting all kinds of safety advice is going through their heads right about now, and they're just itching to post it. I'll save some of them the trouble:

1. Never play with a loaded weapon.
2. Always make sure the weapon is unable to fire if you're cleaning it.
3. Never point a weapon at yourself, loaded or not (You wouldn't believe the flak I got for my choice of Facebook Timeline image - Especially when they found out it was The Mini Dandy's hand, and the gun was actually pointed at my head - And when they saw that the safety was off... Well, it took them weeks to wind down)
4. Never point a weapon at anything that you don't want to make go away. (And by 'Go Away' I mean, to shuffle off this mortal coil and join the choir invisibule)

People shoot themselves a lot more than you think, there's no end of stories of people shooting themselves in the foot, and losing fingers or being hit in the ass by a ricochet *cough* Mrs Dandy *cough* but you don't get many stories that pan out the way that mine did.

I'm hoping that this paticular story will act as a cautionary tale, but I'm also pretty sure it will make you laugh - I mean, who doesn't like to see over-confident idiots getting it really, really wrong and hurting themselves quite badly?

I know I do.

So, just sit back, relax, turn your schadenfreude dial up to eleven, and listen to the tale of:

The Day The Chimping Dandy shot himself.

It was only a few weeks after the events of Friday's Blog, still summer, still hot, still lazing around the house drinking beer and being irresponsible. These were the times that I refer to, in conversation, as 'The Good Old Days'. SMick and myself were sat, as was our custom at the time, in the front garden of my house enjoying the sunshine. We were drinking beer and thinking of things to do that were a) possible and b) within our somewhat limited budget. The list wasn't particularly extensive if I'm honest and it often contained the words beer, sun, nothing and more beer. And we were in grave danger of spiralling into another day, which whilst not exactly wasted, certainly wasn't turning out to be particularly productive.

Suddenly, the day took a turn for the... ah... well, not exactly better... More sort of... erm... odder, as Gullible Steve pulled up, got out of his car and asked us what we were up to. Steve's presence seemed to act as a catalyst and I decided, that rather than just lying in the sun all day, I'd do a bit of target practice.

Now, I wasn't drunk, as such... I mean I'd never, well not very often at least, I'd say it would be quite unlikely that I'd choose to handle a weapon of any kind whilst drunk - I'd at least think about it for a second or to before doing it anyway... Probably.

So, I suddenly found myself lying in front of my open garage door, on the bonnet of (somebody's) car, with my head on the windscreen, taking aim at the door into the house from the garage (which was a firedoor - I'd assumed that it was in some way 'toughened'). The first shot flew between my outstretched feet and took a decent sized chunk out of the back of the door - The noise was considerably louder than I thought it would be, the garage walls acting as an amplifier, to the point where I thought it might attract the attention of the neighbours. I decided that I'd take one more shot and then call it a day, before the Five-oh turned up.

I looked down the sight, lined up the centre of the door and sent the signal to my fingers to fire. Now, a number of things happened at the same time:

SMick shouted 'Steve!'

Steve, who had wandered into the garage to look at the damage I'd done to the door, moved into my field of view and started to bend down and pick up the chunk of wood that had detached itself.

I pulled my arm up and to the right to try and not shoot Steve in the head.

I fired.

Luckily, the shot went wide, but I still only missed Steve's head by about three inches. It took a fair chunk out of the brickwork around the doorframe and came straight back at me.

It hit me in the left forearm, and it bloody hurt - I've still got the scar, it's about three inches long and pretty feint, you have to bear in mind this was twenty-five years ago. Another thing to bear in mind was that my left arm was tight up against my chest, due to me lying on the bonnet of the car, so if I'd got hit four inches to the right, you wouldn't be reading this...

And then there's the other thing... Most of you reading this will have assumed that I was firing some sort of gun, possibly the .50AE in my timeline picture - This is not, however the case. I was using a 5' Flatbow and I had three feet of wood sticking out of my arm, Oh, yes, and I was holding the bow with my feet.

The arrow was removed in the traditional style, i.e. with uproarious laughter from everyone but Steve. And bandages were amateurishly applied.

Steve stayed frozen to the spot, bent almost double, for a good few minutes, and the garage floor stood silent testament to the fact that he'd been really, really scared.

So, now you know, you have a new story to tell your friends in the pub - about a guy who shot himself - With a bow and arrow (That he'd been holding with his feet).

(Feel free to pass any of the Blog stories on - If you think to credit me then that's be great, even if it's just 'There's this weird guy on the Internet called the Chunking Monkey or something and he did this really stupid thing')