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!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

As Johnny Depp once said:

"I'm shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I've done everything I can to avoid it."

No, really, he did... But the poor bugger still has to sit on a big pile of money $400 million high and repeatedly have sweaty, monkey sex with Amber Heard (The blonde girl off of Zombieland) 

Amber Heard

So I'm guessing that he considers his life a massive failure. What with all the fame and the money and having to spend 14 years gettin-jiggy-wid French popstrel Vanessa Paradis previous to that.

Vanessa Paradis

I mean, just look at the quality of his taste in available women, the poor little fellah.

But anyway, enough of comparing myself to this professional pirate impersonator.  Let us concentrate more on our differences...

I was going to do a table and be all scientific and stuff, but I wrote it out on paper first and... to be honest, I couldn't read what I'd written after most of the ink had been washed away by my uncontrollable tears.  But suffice it to say, I am not 'Best buds' with Tim Burton, I do not have Alice Cooper on speed-dial and I do not own a vineyard in St. Tropez.

But the main difference is that I would love to be famous.  I know it changes you. I know that there wouldn't be a portion of my life that was private anymore (<remember this bit for the big reveal later)

And I don't mean fairly famous... I'm pretty sure that I'm 'fairly famous' already - I mean, you guys have all heard of me, Michael Sheen (Yes, THAT Michael Sheen) wished me Happy Christmas last month. I also count Yvette Fielding, Dr. Karl Fielding and Rufus Hound as close, personal friends (As long as you don't tell them about it - I'm not sure that it's 100% reciprocal - I mean, they like and retweet a lot of my stuff... Well some of it... maybe a couple each, tops... I'm so alone.)

and Scott Page, the saxophonist from Pink Floyd, thinks I'm cool - No, really he does.

But I want a gold plated helicarrier with a giant naked picture of myself on the bottom, I want Vin Diesel to walk everywhere behind me just punching his left fist into his right palm every time i talk to anyone, whilst wearing the sunglasses from 'Pitch Black'. I want whistling lobsters as shoulder-pads.

Am I ever going to be that rich?

Not on my own, no... What I need are followers (No, not 'Drink the Coolaid' type followers - put that straight-jacket down) I mean, like a regular audience who can spread the word and increase the numbers of the Dandy Nation.

To that end, I have done the unthinkable... From tomorrow, 28th January, to 1st February 2016 All three of my Chimping Dandy books will be FREE to download onto your Kindle, or Kindle compatible device from Amazon.

Here are the Links:

Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin - My First book... Read the reviews if you're unsure as to whether to download it FOR FREE - All five star, all of the time

The Pangolin Yodels - My second book... All five star reviews again (except the one four star review). You don't need to have read 'Mumblings' before you read this one - But you know, there's no reason not to because you can download it FOR FREE

And finally...

Do you have children, are they of an age where they're not so easily scared and/or overawed by life on this big ball of snot that we call 'The Earth'? Do you read them bed-time stories, or throw a book at them and say "Read this until you fall asleep"? Well, if you do, then you should totally get this:

The Collected Children's Pangolin Primer - This is a collection of volumes 1 and 2 from above, but with all the drugs, sex and swearing taken out (I think it might say 'bugger' once... But it's used as an expletive, not a verb) - It has a picture of my Son on the front... It's pretty dim, it's a bit like those 'The longer you stare into the fog, the more zombies you will see' type thing, but he's definitely there. This can also be downloaded FOR FREE

So, if I want to be rich, why am I giving my books away?

Well, in all honesty, I'm trying to get you hooked, so that when my fiction books come out (And the Pangolin books contain some of the stories that they're based on if you need a sweetener) you'll dive onto them like an extra from 'Breaking Bad' dives onto anything blue and translucent.

Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood drug dealer - only hairier, and possibly fatter with a slightly less casually racist Hispanic name.

But seriously Buy... I mean, GET FOR FREE, my books, make me famous, I'l buy you a chinchilla or something when I am. Totally, you will probably have to remind me though.

Remember when I said that I wouldn't be worried that none of my life would be private? Well, if you get these books, you'll know pretty much everything there is to know about me anyway - And that's got to be worth at least nothing at all... Hasn't it?

This is not the state of the nation

I’m aware that I haven’t done a ‘State of the Dandy Nation’ post for a while. In fact, it’s been so long that there are probably people reading this who don’t even know what that means.

Every month, when this blog was new, and fresh, and throbbing, I would let you wonderful people into some of the stats from the previous month (or however long it had been since the previous time that I’d done it) – I’d include things like the top-ten all-time posts and what countries had checked the blog out more than any other, or what strange and odd things people had typed into Google to find us.

I like thinking of us as us you know… You the reader, me the purveyor of lurid scoria, the people who visit the blog purely because I very often slip a word into the Metadata that people often use when searching for pornography – It helps to foster inclusion, and it makes me giggle uncontrollably.

Did I tell you about the time when I got confused for a busty, red-headed camgirl model, for like six months or something? People were googling “IsHotMyself Dandy” (Which was the name of a site she was featured on) But were being pointed to my page, explaining about the wonderful day when I shot myself… Easy mistake to make I suppose, I’m hoping that at least some of them stayed (If you are one of those people, please leave a message in the comments… I’ll buy a red wig and post a topless photo of myself as a treat for you… Might even sign it) - I was going to post a picture of the young lady concerned... But, I couldn't really find one that was 'appropriate' - You could try the search yourself, just not a work, OK?

Anywho, nowadays, if you want to know the all-time top-ten posts, I post them on the right-hand side of the main page, so you can take a look yourself. As far as our audience goes – It’s mostly the USA, followed by Russia, the UK, then the Ukraine… With a load of European countries making up the rest of the top ten. To be honest, the only thing people have googled to find us, other than the name of the blog, are the words ‘Dzit Dit Gaii’ (Which is Navajo for ‘The Mountain that is White’) – and only goes to show that the Internet is still full of conspiracy theorists. And that they’re coming to me for answers – The poor confused lambs.

-oOo-

Anyway, I wanted to do something different this time, if you follow me on Twitter (@Chimping_Dandy) you’ll know that I occasionally post phrases, in the style of Redtop headlines that, when typed into Google – Show search results where this blog (in general, not this post in particular) is the first result. I thought that I might share a few of them with you… In the vain hope that you might find them funny, or odd, or a cry for help from a fat, bald man whose readership figures aren’t what they were when he was posting every day instead of having a lunch-break.

I’ll start with the most recent one…

• Colin Firth makes an example of lesbian weasels using cutlery – Takes you HERE
• Alvaston Nazi hunter finds pizza from 1953 – Takes you HERE
• Stickleback tin helmet brain lesion made Benedict Cumberbatch try breast feeding – Takes you HERE
• A drunk moorhen on its gap-year wears teenage student underwear – Takes you HERE
• Christmas blindness blamed on primrose cannabis vodka – Takes you HERE

You know, if you get a spare minute, maybe you'd want to try this for yourself, it'll probably waste a few minutes, it might even be fun - If you find a good one, send it in - I'll say thanks and everything... Probably

Evolving with the times remains an entirely foreign concept

I spent the Christmas break, treading the windy (as in oft swept by the wind) windy (as in torturously convoluted) halls and corridors of Dandy Towers, reading great leather-bound volumes of Chaucer and yelling selected quotes out of the window at the unkindness of ravens that seem to have taken up semi-permanent residence in the trees between the southern tennis court and the helipad.

“Time and Tide wait for no man!” I would scream repeatedly at their dispassionate mawkish beaks

“Murder will out, this is my conclusion!” I shouted more than once (Mainly because at that point, I had accidentally misidentified them as crows)

It was usually at the point when my face started to turn a rather fetching shade of puce, that Heckmondswyke would appear from the serving staff’s hidden walkway to bring me a steaming cup of weasel coffee and the latest edition of ‘Making a Gimp-suit for your Clydesdale’ (Part 1 - £1.99  Remaining 624 issues - £5.99) to calm my nerves. I would sit on the granite window-seat of the Ladies Tower wondering exactly how I would tell Mrs. Dandy that I had, once again, accidentally defaced another pair of bespoke doe-skin promenading trousers during my excursion.

It was whilst I was being given a wet-shave by the upper-bathroom houseboy that the dear Memsahib suggested that we try an alternative method of recreation that evening… Knowing my love of entertainment where fresh-faced Sons of the Empire (The British Empire, that is) take on the foul revolutionary Colonial powers and give them a sound thrashing, often seeing them on the business end of a bloodied nose and comically disheveled hair, she suggested that we watch the splendid Colin Firth vehicle ‘Kingsman’ – You should all go out and watch this film immediately. It is splendid, as I may have mentioned previously.

It led, as most things seem to do, to a heated discussion, as to what constitutes a ‘Real’ Gentleman – And more worryingly, whether today’s modern woman actually wants a Gentleman as a partner in the first place.   As you may probably have gathered from the name of this blog, I consider myself sufficiently more flamboyant than the average person to identify with the ‘Dandy’ classification.  As funds, situation and time allows – I generally overdress for any given occasion. It’s my ‘thing’… Along with identifying with the tenets of an earlier, simpler, age, and attracting peoples’ attention by poking them firmly in the shoulder or haunches.

To my mind there are several, easy things that one may do to be perceived as a Gentleman. (In no particular order)

• Never eat until all participants in any given meal have been served.
• If the meal is self-service, serve yourself last.
• Always hold open a door, and in the case that you are holding it open for another male, offer a questioning glance. If the glance is replied to with a shake of the head, let the door go and do not look back.
• Never wear a hat indoors. Unless it is used as an obvious Gentleman’s affectation.
• Realise that a hat may be reversed only under specific circumstances (e.g. driving in an open-topped car)
• Never give advice that has not been requested.
• When walking with a female, or child, always walk on the side nearest the road. When walking a dog, the opposite is true.
• Always be kind to shop and/or restaurant staff.
• Know that there are a selection of situations where it is preferable to come second, especially when it is not technically a race.
• Judge a person’s character on their deeds, rather than their appearance.
• Be able to shine a pair of Oxfords to a mirror finish.
• Admit when you are in the wrong.
• Correctly wear cufflinks as often as humanly possible.
• Respect the opinions of others, no matter how obviously wrong they are.
• Tell the truth, constantly (people get used to it eventually) and as a continuation, do not cheat, or steal – For that way Caddishness lies
• Know which cutlery to use for eating a banana.
• Be able to launch (and safely recover) a falcon.
• Never get angry to the point where you lose yourself in an argument.
• Be able to identify the birds, trees and animals of your native country.
• Do not hesitate to put a suffering animal out of its misery.
• Never start a fight, but always finish one.
• Know that there are circumstances where each and every one of these rules may be safely bent and/or broken, so that your Gentlemanliness will remain intact.

Leave me your thoughts… Gentleman – Could you keep to these rules more often than not?  Ladies – Would a Gentleman be more attractive to you if he did?

Could you suggest any more?

So, Gay Marriage… What’s that all about?

I’ve talked about people who enjoy the close company of other people of the same or similar gender before.  I remember discussing their traditional love of musical theatre, their almost superhuman ability to match superfluous, but to the untrained eye wildly different, sofa cushions, and also their general flamboyance.  Which is something I wholeheartedly agree with, if you’re gonna do something, you may as well do it fabulously!

But these tropes are only usually applied to gay people who have ‘outie’ reproductive organs.  What about those with ‘innies’?

Well, I’ll be the first person to admit that I have more experience with gay men than I have with gay women or [Whisper] Lesbians [/Whisper] as some like to be called. (I’ll tell you what, let’s get the jokes out of the way first, OK?)

Haha! I bet you have!

I can lend you a DVD if you like!

Experience? With gay men? Woooo! – you complete bender!

And so on…

But this is odd when you stop to think about it, because my niece is ‘one of them’ and in a few days she will be getting married to her female life partner (or they might be being ‘civil partnered’ I don’t know I’m not au fait with all the ins and outs of the process – All I know is that I’m probably going to have to dress up and not drink anywhere near enough at the reception because: driving, just like I would at anyone else’s wedding)

And that’s the thing you see – the thing that gets me, is that when you think about it there’s no real difference between ‘Same-sex marriage and Different-sex marriage… Apart from the details of what happens on the wedding night that is, possibly.  Again, no first-hand experience, so I’m not qualified to judge.  Keen readers will have noticed that I didn’t say Normal marriage either, because, like, I used to own an owl, so my idea of ‘normal’ is different from most people’s.

What I’m trying to say, in an ugly and, on-the-surface completely uninformed way, is that in my opinion, the union of two people who care deeply about each other is a marriage.  It shouldn’t confer any more or any less rights and responsibilities on anyone depending on the race, creed, gender, level of disability or even species of all the spouses.

Yes, you heard me right… As long as the haddock loves you and you love the haddock, they why not? (My more vanilla readers might wonder how the haddock can give its consent to such a union, but when a haddock really loves you, you just ‘know’ OK? It’s in the eyes…) It makes no difference to me, or you, or that guy behind you trying to read over your shoulder (He’s gone now, don’t worry, although he did look a bit shifty and I couldn’t really see what he was doing with his hands.)

There’s a quote you see sometimes on the Internet, often attributed to the Writer and Comedian Liz Feldman (as it is in the example below – I’ve asked her if she ever actually said it, and if she replies, I’ll let you know)

In case you have a smartphone with a tiny screen, it says, “It’s very dear to me, the issue of Gay Marriage. Or, as I like to call it: ‘Marriage.’  You know, because I had lunch this afternoon, not Gay Lunch. I parked my car; I didn’t Gay Park it.”

And that sums it all up pretty well actually, there are people out there who’ve done the almost impossible, they’ve found the one someone out of just over seven billion, that they want to (initially at least, at this specific point in time) spend the rest of their life with in some kind of fulfilling relationship.   What business is it of yours or mine?  When it gets down to it – What difference will them letting the world how much they love each other make to you, or me?

Let me give you a hint… The answer’s none, despite what googly-eyed maddists will say it won’t bring down some random God’s wrath, it won’t cause floods or hurricanes, or confuse children, or infect the heterosexual majority and lead to record-shops selling out of KD Lang and Liza Minnelli.  It won’t lead to a global outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases, we won’t all get AIDS (Remember AIDS? It was like ‘terrorists’, but in the 90’s)

I’m incredibly proud of my niece and her partner; To be completely honest, I’m slightly more proud of them than I would be if my nephew was getting married to a female partner, because they’re doing something, out of choice, that’s difficult.

Something that really, really shouldn’t be.

-oOo-

P.S. My pride in them has nothing to do with the fact that I find it hugely funny that my father-in-law’s religion requires him to be staunchly anti-homosexual . He’s not homophobic, he doesn’t fear them in the slightest, he just treats them as Godless abominations… And he has no idea why, other than some guy, writing a book of rules to keep the populace in their place some time ago said that that’s how he should think.

Well, maybe just a little bit.

-oOo-

P.P.S. UPDATE!

OK, so, remember how I said that I'd asked Liz Feldman if she'd actually ever said that quote? - Well, she didn't answer the question, but she did do this....

I can live with that I guess...

I see a tall, dark stranger

Crap! is it that time already?

Better start Blogging I guess.  I could go for the whole Easter story, what the Bible actually says about it, how it's another stolen holiday that the pagans celebrated ages before Christianity was brought to England, how commercialization has ruined it. How it's a travesty...

But in fairness, I really like chocolate, so it would be a bit two faced of me.

So I sit here, on the verge of a four-day weekend pondering what to re-hash in a humourous fashion and entertain you guys with before you zoom off to Paris for the weekend (or whatever it is that you're telling your workmates you're going to do, we all know you're going to spend the days sat in a dimly lit room playing COD or FIFA, in your pants, whilst the snow falls outside like the cobwebbed cape of Thanatos himself.

So I thought long (lie) and hard (lie) about today's subject... Fortune telling.

There are many ways that people claim to be able to tell the future, there's palmistry (Reading of lines on the palms), hepatoscopy (Reading of entrails), scrying (crystal ball and water-bowl reading) and tasseography (Reading Tea Leaves - Which was a favorite of my paternal Grandmother), to name but a few.

I'm not saying it's all tosh, it could all be cockroach jugglingly true for all I know, but it's very open to abuse... And not in a good way.  In the olden days, anyone who was a bit bald, and a bit mad, and fairly greek, could set themselves up as an oracle, all it took was a bit of narcotic incence, and possibly getting someone from Handmaidens R Us to pop in on a Wednesday afternoon, wear the diaphenous clothes and wiggle about a bit. while you talked about auspicious circumstances, stars rising in the East and the lion lying down with the lamb.

So I got to thinking, I'm a bit bald, and a bit mad, and I like Greek food...

Welcome to the Grotto of Dandyissimus, newest, wisest and most accurate of the new wave of oracular prophets.  Cross my palm with coinage (but not the Euro, obviously, because that's worth less than a dog-fart in a crash helmet) and I will foretell your future with such accuracy as would blind a hamster.

You want a free trial?

Is that the marketing model that you're used to?

OK... Here goes - Some free glimpses into your future, but seeing as you buggers haven't paid me, I'm not going to tell you whose fortunes they are, or whenabouts they're going to happen.  (these are in no way just things I have overheard, or have been told in confidence)

Your husband, who loves you very much, will start living a double life.  Don't worry, he's not gay or having an affair or anything like that.  He finds himself mixing jam, drinking chocolate powder and 'space dust' and spreading it over his body with your best spatula every time you go out.  He will enjoy the feeling at first, but after a while it will become a compulsion, and his usage of it will get more and more extreme.   Things will come to a head when you notice that your toothbrush is sticky and smells of strawberries and every time he breaks wind, it crackles slightly.

An entire group of people, who currently meet under social circumstances will decide, after a celebratory night out, possibly after some kind of sporting event, to have commemorative tattoos.  These will done in ultra-violet ink and will look like random lines drawn all over their bodies.  However, when they stand in a human pyramid, naked, at a local nightclub, the silhouette of Deliah Smith 'tasting a tangy sauce' personally prepared by Heston Blumenthal will be revealed.

Two seperate people, in two wildly seperate locations will start vociferously complaining about the quality of british cheese since we joined the EEC.  MI5, intercepting their (completely seperate) emails will assume that there is some kind of lactose intolerant terrorist uprising on the way and ban the sale of Stinking Bishop and Sage Derby to anyone without a Rolls-Royce.  Questions will be asked in Parliament, which will lead to the leader of the opposition being 'outed' for running his own, black market trade in Dairylea Triangles.

Your wife will decide that her current position as your nearest and dearest, agree-er to your hair-brained schemes and backer-up of your obviously idiotic ideas is no longer enough.  She will start her own business on eBay, buying up surplus fur coats, cutting them up and sewing them back together as suits for those bloody awful sphynx hairless cats.  All will be rosy at first as all over the world people who have mistakenly bought these obscene creatures realise their mistake and buy a new coat for their hairless companions.  Then there will be a short period where sales will fall off due to an expose in the press over allergy issues and then business will boom again as she branches out into fur coats for reptiles who wish to live in arctic areas.  (P.S. she will also discover she is a lesbian and will take you for every penny you have.)

The Government will decide that to bolster the economy, they will put a tax on ducks, only privately held ducks are targeted and the bill (if you'll pardon the pun) flies through Parliament (if you'll pardon the pun) without notice by the general populace.  The next morning you will be visited by agents of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, demanding £6,000,000 pounds tax on the 20,000 ducks that you purchased from a man that you didn't realise at the time was the Speaker of the House of Lords.

And finally.

One of you out there will realise that that thing that your Aunt left you in her will, that one on the mantlepiece that you hate, but can't bring yourself to throw away, the thing that makes you feel all tingly and nauseous in equal measure.  The one with the purple stone that looks like it glows when you look at it out of the corner of your eye, is the key to the time machine that she had in her cellar.  You'll realise this just after the developer you sold her house to to make a quick buck has bulldozed it and built a housing estate on top.  You spend the rest of your life digging in peoples gardens in the darkness... You disappear one night, never to be seen again.

Happy Pascha to everyone.