And, having writ, moved on...

Yadda - Yadda - Yadda... Authoring, Yadda - Yadda - Yadda... Empowerment, Yadda -Yadda - Yadda... Worthiness, Yadda - Yadda - Yadda... I'd like to thank the Academy... Boring Boring, Boring...

You get it by now, I'm sure - I bang on about it all the time, I consider myself a writer, not just because I am completely up myself, but because I write stuff.  Since November 2012 I've written this, my semi-daily funny / ranty Blog - Which attracts on average maybe 50 hits per day.  Not brilliant, but I don't think it's bad for one that doesn't have any particular theme, doesn't get asked to endorse anything and doesn't have (very many) naked pictures of the author and his friends (For which you should all be truly grateful, trust me... OK, I looked pretty hot in the Beard Blog, but other than that, you'd want your eyes bleaching afterwards.)

I'd just like to take a moment to apologise to some people who've found me accidentally via Google, especially those people who were trying to find the popular, and incredibly naked Cam-Girl 'Dandy' - on a website whose address involves the word/s 'Ishotmyself' and got a story about Me, The Dandy, shooting myself one day by accident.  And the many, many gentlemen (I presume) who were searching for the same lady, but were concentrating on her mammary protuberances, and accidentally loaded a page about my love of shopping at ASDA / WalMart.

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook, (And if you don't... I'd be genuinely interested to know how you got here - Unless You're Russian of course, then you'd have probably searched for 'The Internet Saying', 'I sit here on the verge' or 'The Doors Lock' - Leave a comment, we're all friends here, I'd really like to know.) then you'll have heard that since May 2013 I've been trying to write Britain's next, greatest, youngish brother / sister / male / female protagonists, aspirational, Airship Pirate novel of the 21st. Century - It's going pretty well, 40,000 words (as of 10/7/13 - That's 10th July, not 7th October for the unusualy colonial types).  It's had some good WiP reviews, it's been mercilessly torn to pieces by proofers and it's been re-written more times than a Conservative Party list of Election Promises.  I'm sure you'll all buy a copy if I ever manage to have a meaningful relationship with an agent / editor / publisher.  I might even sign it for you if you send me gifts of cake, or compromising pictures of yourself that I can use to blackmail you in the future, should you ever become even slightly famous.

Then there's my published work, perhaps the most currently meaningful part of my portfolio as far as serious writing is concerned.  At around the same time I started this Blog, I also started submitting Flash Fiction stories to the august institution that is The James Josiah Flash Project (This was the first one I ever had published)- You should all be visiting this site regularly.  Short stories that you can quite easily read which performing many kinds of bodily function. JJ has published a couple of anthologies too (Of which I am perpetually honoured to have a couple of my stories feature in each), which you can download for your Kindle - Go to Amazon, do a search for 'James Josiah' and you'll find both of them. Then buy them, because they're only 77p each - In fact, buy all three of his books - Right now! - 'Stories I Shouldn't Tell' will make you cry, and if it doesn't I'll happily kick you in the shins, repeatedly. (Oh, and should you REALLY be interested, I'm credited as the Illustrator for volume 2 of the Flash Fiction Anthology under my real name... Bit of insider knowledge for you there. *wink*)

We're even going on a kind of Project Outing on Saturday, Well, some of us are attending the 2nd (Hopefully) Annual Edge Lit Festival in Derby.  It's an opportunity for authors and lovers of SF, Fantasy & Horror to get together and have a bit of a mingle.  There are writing workshops, guest speakers, book sellers and competitions, you should definitely go... I mean, we'll be there and everything.  OK, it's £25 a ticket, but you could learn something - And you get to hang out with creative people (And probably some geeks, and maybe some fully grown people who still live with their parents  - But who are we to judge?) - I intend to enjoy it immensely, and take pictures (if such shenanigans are allowed) and bore you with them next week

So be warned.

-oOo-

So, as the Top Ten of most popular Posts has taken a bit of a beating recently, I thought I'd provide an updated countdown.  Remember, these are voted for by you, you only have yourselves to blame.


10: An eye for an eye - Tales of Horror, inflicted by my Mother (When she was still alive) on a small child, using her own false eye.

9: Second contact closing fast, bearing 076 - A story about the time when, working as a glorified delivery driver, I caused a lorry driver to spontaneously combust and a motorway to be closed.

8: A discussion of pornography, do not read - A treatise on sexism, erotica and the popularity of soft-core pornography.

7: Then I posed, and he took my picture - About the time I may have had accidentally posed for a photospread published in a German Gay porn / Fetish magazine.

6: I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle - A guide to the etiquette of fancy-dress parties and how to teach children to field-strip a .50AE Desert Eagle.

5: Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 1) - The first installment of my three-wheeled motorcycle memories.

4: Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps - It's not what you think... It's about My enduring love of shopping at ASDA / WalMart.

3: One more rusty nail - A serious one, (Apart from the farcical bit in the middle) about how many people confuse the word 'Muslim', 'Terrorist' and 'Psychopathic Madman'.

2: Thermodynamics, it's the law! - This little beauty had been at number 1, since it was written, back in January 2013 - This story involves my Father, a cryogenically frozen bird and the trapped, screaming spirit of a mentally compromised secretary.

1: Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young - The new number one, only a few days after it's publication, it had received three times as many hits as the last number one had ever had in it's sad little life.  Pimped by semi-professional Bloggers, promoted internationally by the real live famous and hooptiously wonderful comedians Rufus Hound and Al Murray - My diatribe on all things bearded and how you are more likely to be considered manly by a modern female if you can grow a luxuriant facefull of fluffy fly-catcher.

Have a read with a chocolate digestive, see what you think, let me know, ask me questions, pop in and say hello on Saturday, I'll be the one in the green kilt (If it doesn't need ironing)

Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young.

Let me start by saying... You probably read the title wrong the first time.  Your mind is so used to seeing that other 'philia' that starts with the letter 'P' and has an 'o' in it that it just automatically fills it in, especially if you read the Daily Express.

Pogonophilia is the state of admiring, being fond of or having a fetish for... People who have beards - You see I said people, not men because there are ladies who wear full beards proudly.  But in fairness, I am actually going to just be talking about men, because: ewww.

I've lost track of the number of posts I've seen on twitter and other blogs and Facebook that start with things like 'Oh, I saw this guy with this completely lush beard at the Railway station this morning and I just wanted to rush up to him and run my fingers through it and get naked and have his babies right there outside WHSmiths.' or 'I'm sitting in Costa and there's a guy sitting opposite me with a Brad Pitt beard and a sharp suit, reading Dostoevsky's treatise on the vagaries of the human condition and I'd go over and jam my tongue in his ear but I seem to be temporarily stuck to the chair by my own lady-juices.'

What is it that's suddenly made beards fashionable and/or desirous?

Ok, so Brad Pitt seems to have gone a bit Worzel Gummidge, and La Depp seems to be hanging on to a watered down version of the Jack Sparrow goatee, George Clooney is rocking the Silver Fox look, Mel Gibson looks like a boggle-eyed anti-semetic musketeer, Colin Farrel, Billy Connolly, Daniel Craig, Viggo Mortenson, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale - All of these guys currently sport, or have sported in the recent past facial hair.

In the past, (like, 50-60 years ago, not prehistoric times - where beard wearing wasn't a lifestyle choice, it was a neccesity) - Beards were the preserve of Fishermen and members of The Royal Navy (Yes, I know there's a salty seaman joke in there - feel free to fill it in yourself - I can't be bothered) Then if we move forward slightly you get everyone being clean-shaven except for the Hippies and Beatniks, From then until 2010 it was just Bikers, Tramps and Santa.

Look, here's an example... This was me in about 1994.

Calm down ladies... I know... 26 years old, full of beans and brimming with so much rebellion that I should be driving James Dean's Silver Porsche.  A veritable love machine of the old school (Ignore the washing machines... Long story).

*cough*

So, why did I grow a beard originally? Well apart from the whole motorcycling thing?  It's because I'm a mutant - It's all my Mother's fault you see, she had a freakishly small womb (Obviously, this was whilst she was still alive.) and I spent a significant portion of my gestation period with my forearm jammed into my chin causing a certain lack of mandibular development, making me look a little bit like Beaker, off of the Muppets when I shave my beard off. (Which is why I don't, ever, not even to go to a Muppet themed fancy dress party - I go as Sam, the American Eagle - Gives me the opportunity to paint myself blue... again)

While we're on the subject, did you know that the only animal other than humans to actually have a chin is the elephant? - Which is strange, because scientist believe that the chin's job is to support the muscles required to move the lips well enough to enable us to speak.

But over the years, I've developed my hirsuteness from full Captain Birdseye (You should never go full Captain Birdseye) to the interesting Goatee/Walrus moustache with disconnected sideburns combo that I'm rocking here - I have stuck with this style as it seems to work for me:

That's the MicroDandy by the way - Yes, he was cute wasn't he - You'll also note that my hairline has... Retracted slightly from its position in the previous picture.  I think it makes me look distinguished - And I lie to myself regularly about other things too.

I would have used a current picture, but I'm growing my hair at the moment and it's in that difficult 'In between short and long' stage that makes me look like a startled clown.

That's why I have a beard, but why do I think women like men with beards?  I think it's part of a cycle.  The late 70's / Early 80's were the golden age of 'The Man', the one who'd jump from a helicopter, scale your trellis (ooh-err) and deliver you a box of chocolates.  Hard drinking, Hard fighting, Hard loving men who made women feel like women and misogyny was a normal and expected part of everyday life.  Then, as the 80's turned into the 90's and political correctness and sexual equality became increasingly popularised, Men (not men... But Men) started to be regarded as anachronistic, overly neanderthal buckets of testosterone who, if anyone ever invented a cucumber that could mow the lawn, would be consigned to the cupboard and only brought out for the process of procreation.  Thus causing the Golden Age of the metro-sexual - These chaps were characterised by their fantastically quaffed hair, Gucci manbags, colour co-ordinated silk ties, socks and pants and legendarily low sperm counts.

These amazingly successful subspecies dominated advertising and finance for many years until everything went a bit pear-shaped. Benetton and Gap spiraled out of control and became satires of themselves, the stock market and banks followed suit and every news report seemed to show slightly effeminate males running around trying to grab the last few lettuce and watercress sandwiches after there'd been a run on Pret-a-Manger and having a bit of a cry.

It was time for a change, someone needed to take charge and steer the ship towards land, who were those people? Who could emerge from a cloud of dry-ice wearing just fireman's trousers or a kilt with a good quarter pint of baby-oil smothered over their pecs? Who could we trust to buy their food from a roadside greasy spoon which only sells thick slices of bacon, sausages with indeterminate contents and pasties that just have meat and potato in them?

Men, that's who... Men with beards... Beards that say 'Yes, I can both change a plug, spatchcock a donkey and make love to a beautiful woman until she is incapable of anything other than lying there shaking whilst muttering "thank you, please sir can I have another?" over and over again.'

Beards!

The Mark of a Man.