What? All of my clothes?

Professional strippers feature fairly heavily in the backstory of The Chimping Dandy, I mean... The still burgeoning time-bending powers of my super-villain alter-ego were initially  forced into being in a strip-club in Birmingham.  I was even one myself once, briefly...

But in general, there are two kinds of people where strippers are concerned, those who REALLY like them, usually people who drink cheap lager and wear three-seasons old football shirts, and people who can take them or leave them.  Me? Believe it or not, I'm firmly in the second camp - I mean, I like naked ladies as much as the next big, hairy, chock full o' testosterone, bloke - But I can't see the point if you're not allowed to... erm... You know... How should I put it?.. Have a go on them (OK, some some ladies who class themselves as strippers will let you 'have a go' for a medium to large financial consideration, or so I've heard, but they are the exception rather than the rule.)

I know that sounds mercilessly objectifying and terribly misogynistic, but while those ladies are happy to portray themselves as commodities for (as I understand it) large sums of money, as exotic dancers, I'm happy to watch them without knowing their personal motivation and / or lifestory.

Right, before this turns into a discussion of the human trafficking of sex workers from Eastern Europe, let's drag it back on track... Strippers are nice people with attractive bodies who make money by showing them to people.

I knew this guy, many, many, years ago, who had his own business and would often entertain clients in pole-dancing clubs (For those who are unaware of the difference, the young ladies in the pole-dancing clubs tend to keep their underpants on - There are all sorts of health and safety issues otherwise - I'm not going to explain this, you should be able to work it out for yourself. Especially if you have prior experience of ladies front-bottoms) - He used these places so regularly that he became 'known' to the girls and they would say hello and give him a peck on the cheek if they saw him in the street.  This was only fair as he was probably single handedly putting all of their children through private school (Yes Katie Hopkins, Ex-Apprentice Harridan and Wholesale Bigot, a fair proportion of strippers send their children to private school because they make more money than you and I put together).

Anywho, he took me a couple of times, there was free beer and naked ladies, as you'd expect and whilst I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the lewd and lascivious behaviour of some of the professional ladies there, it was far more entertaining when they weren't 'performing' and would just sit down next to you and chat... It took a little while to get over the novely of talking to a pretty lady wearing just a sparkly thong about how they used to get bullied at school for having one ear slightly higher than the other - And I also admit that I sometimes had to work fairly hard to maintain eye contact, but I'm a bloke and to an extent, we're hard wired to be attracted to stuff like that, sorry ladies - But it's true - Ongoing continuation of the species and all that.

Then I told another friend of mine about this chap and he said

'I've never been to one of those places you know.'

Now, I was genuinely shocked, I'd assumed that it was sort of a right of passage for young men, everyone had done it, like kissing a girl then running away when you're eight years old, or tipping a cow over when it's asleep or thinking you look cool and then only realising some years later when you look at photos that you in fact looked like a complete cock.

So we went to a local strip-club that provided both kinds of entertainment.  There was a pole in the middle of the dance-floor where a rota of young ladies performed every fifteen minutes or so and there was also a... not sure what the correct group noun is... A flirtation perhaps? of honest to goodness, will take it all off in three minutes or less and position themselves two inches from your nose, strippers.

I believe our American cousins use a phrase 'Like a kid in a candy store' that aptly describes my friend's first reaction as he stepped through the door.  His eyes were like dinner-plates, as the popular simile goes, as he realised that even fully clothed strippers didn't wear a huge number of garments.  We had a pint, and sat, and watched a couple of poledancers whilst he tried to get a hold of himself (No... Stop making your own jokes up please, I'll do the humour thank you very much).  All was well until an attractive, naturally pneumatic, auburn haired lady approaced my friend (We'll call him Albert, but that was not his name) and spake thusly:

Lady: Would you like a dance?

Albert: Erm? [Looks at me in panic]

Dandy: [I shrug] Do you? She seems very nice.

Lady: Come and have a dance, it'll make you feel better, help you relax.

Albert: I... uh...

Dandy: It's his first time

Lady: Really? - Oh! - Well in that case I'll take special care of you. [She holds his hand]

Albert: [In a daze, stands up] Well, I'll have a go, but I'm not a very good dancer.

Now the young lady in question, because she was a consummate professional, just smiled and led him into the 'private' area - I however dissolved into that type of raucous laughter normally reserved for Hyenas drawn by Disney animators.  In fact, I think I may have even given myself hiccups.

They emerged five or so minutes later, her with a broad grin, him with a dazed expression and an air of unfulfilled tumescence.  They sat and chatted for about three quarters of an hour - It seems that they'd gone to the same school as each other (her starting some years after he'd left, obviously, otherwise it would have been weird)

Small world innit?

-oOo-

THERE FOLLOWS A DANDY SAFETY NOTICE ON BEHALF OF THE 'KEEPING HOLD OF YOUR GENTLEMAN PLUMS' PARTY.

If you should ever feel the need to ask your wife if you are allowed to go to a strip / pole dancing club - Do not bother, her answer will be no... Even if she says 'Yes', she means 'No', it is a trap of Admiral Ackbar proportions.

-oOo-

Some while ago, whilst the current Mrs Dandy was still the prospective Mrs Dandy, we had arranged to go and see (IIRC) a Bon Jovi tribute band called Blaze of Glory at a medium sized venue in her home-town.  We went seperately as I was still an unknown quantity to her dear Father and wasn't allowed to just pull up at her house on a large motorcycle and whisk her away to parts unknown. (He loves me now of course, I'm like the free IT support guy that he never had)

So, we met there, in the club.  She had arrived early with her mates, and I had rode there.  I parked the trike right outside, OK'd it in a doorman to doorman stylee with the frankly gigantic Afro-Caribbean bouncer who was really rocking the Crombie coat / Dreadlocks combo and went inside.  It was heaving, there were wall to wall people and it was virtually impossible to find my 'date' - So I thought the best thing to do was get a beer, and circle the room like a leather clad vulture until one of us spotted the other.

Yeah, the leather, maybe we should take a second there to explain... I was wearing a black leather bike jacket and leather jeans, combat boots, a tight, white cotton t-shirt and wrap-around shades - I was also a few stone lighter than I am now, my chest was bigger than my waist, and could still, just about, pick up a 3500 V8 Rover engine on my own (Yes, I've let myself go, yes, I'm suitably ashamed)

It only took five minutes for someone to grab my backside and shout, over the noise of the DJ,

'You're Late! where have you been?'

I turned, and looked down.  It wasn't who I'd expected, it was someone's Mother, I'm not sure whose, but she was certainly someone's.  I looked confused and took a sip of my beer.

'We're over here.'

She grabbed me by the wrist and started to drag me across the room, shoulder barging people out of the way like a miniature Norwegian Ice-Breaker, until we got to the bar - I'd assumed that she was one of my soon-to-be-wife's work friends.

'Have you got your music?'

'I'm sorry? I don't know what you mean...'

'Your music? a CD? that you dance to?'

'Dance? I.. erm?'

Now, the next two things happened almost simultaneously, My now-wife had seen me being dragged away and had followed, she was now standing directly behind me, and the other woman asked...

'You are the stripper, aren't you?'

It seems that replying 'That depends on whether you've already paid or not.' was not the reply that the Mrs Dandy in waiting was expecting... And resulted in the first of many 'Paddington' style hard stares.

We made our excuses and left.

-oOo-

So fair readers, I hope that our swift foray into the world of paid clothes taker-offerers has expanded your horizons a little, and always remember...

You CAN keep your hat on.

Should I have bothered? Probably...

I very nearly wasn't going to post a Blog today, I drew a blank with serious ideas, and I couldn't think of anything funny.

I couldn't spin out a story about one overpriced prima-donna of a footballer biting chunks out of another overpriced prima-donna of a footballer then limping off like a petulant seven year old, pretending that he'd been fouled to avoid retribution, for long enough to fill a whole page.

I wasn't in the mood to comment on the Cypriot financial crisis, or the vast swathes of the uneducated masses confusing Chechnya and Czechoslovakia (or thinking that The Brighton Pavillion is a Mosque)

Neither could I rouse enough bile to comment on why North Korea has stumbled down the list of 'things that people are talking about that involve the end of the world'

You see, this is why I don't do 'Current Affairs', it all comes from being so gorram  anachronistic I guess.
So I started looking through the back catalog of the Blog and seeing if there were any 'unfinished stories' or suchlike that grabbed me.  But there weren't.  I guess that it's just because it's Monday and the uphill struggle seems a little steeper than usual.

We all feel a bit Meh! occasionally, right?

What I did notice was that there were a few posts that stood out as having much lower than average number of hits - Now I know that this Blog is a bit hit and miss (Take today for instance).  But personally, I think some of these are OK.

I mean there's one post on the list that spawned the idea for the short-story that you can buy, with real cash-money, on Amazon, and that got less than 30 views!  You people are so fickle.  So, as I'm a second chances kind of guy, at least where pushing my juvenile claptrap out to an unwilling audience is concerned,  I present the six least read Blog posts that are any good... I've written posts that have had less hits than these, but in fairness they were pretty awful - I wouldn't ask you to read them...

But these, these are great... Well, They're OK... I say OK, the chances are your eyes won't fall out whilst you're actually reading them, Not fall out, not completely at least.

-oOo-

Let's start at the least worst:

With 30 page views, published back in December 2012 is - Something for the Weekend - Where I tell you about the day I spent working in a hairdressing salon:  Caution, starts with a dream sequence involving sturgeon and a wheelbarrow full of custard.

Just pipping it to the post marked 'Not quite as good' by one page view, also from December 2012 is - Pandas, the Eastern Scourge - Describing the enigma and possible evolutionary development of the Giant Panda.  This idea was developed into the Flash Fiction story 'Danao', as published to critical acclaim in February 2013.

With two less page views again is the confused engineering nightmare of - Maybe they explained it badly - A frank and forthright discussion on how the laws of physics can work against each other and we've all just accepted it since 1903 because we don't know any better.

Then we jump down the scale all the way to 22 page views, the oldest post in the list, from November 2012 and the first real post on the Blog - I'm a Bigot, You're a Bigot, We're ALL Bigots... - This attempts to describe, in an educational way, how bigotry can be a terrible, life changing thing.  To get the most from this Blog, you may need to know some of the short-codes that Starbucks use for their drinks, although... Nahh, con't worry about it.

We jump ahead to February 2013 for - Celebrity? She's a bit of a cult - A post where I display my complete ignorance of popularist celebrity culture, and delve into the past of one Kimberly Noel Kardashian and her ilk.

And right at the bottom, wallowing in the cesspit of ignored posts, was the very next day's post, racking up an almost unbelievable 20 page views, plucking at the very heartstrings of your ever-loving Bloggoteer, comes - My Interview with iBazinga magazine -  A pun and in-joke riddled travesty that details ficticious questions, asked by ficticious people, from actual places that the Blog has had hits from, which points you to other posts on the Blog... A bit of light Blog-a-ception for you there - But it does hold a link to the Chimpin Dandy's super-villain origin story, involving a smattering of telling lies to strippers to get free dances.

-oOo-

Hopefully I'm have magically become more creative tomorrow, or you could be lucky and something odd will happen to me between now and then.


P.S. Anyone else had trouble downloading the client for the free version of Star Wars: The Old Republic?  Thought I'd bang it on ready for playing it over the bank holiday weekend, but it's taken two days to download so far, it keeps stalling.  Hope this isn't a precursor to the quality of the game...

Top of the Blog Parade

Well, time for my first (and last) Friday post for this week.

I've noticed over the past few weeks that I've been getting hits on the 'older' pages of the Blog, some of the stuff that I originally posted on Facebook last year. Gave me a warm, glowy feeling in, what I like to call, my nethers.

I like some of my older stuff to have new life breathed into it, that's why I put all the hyperlinks in the new stuff (You see, you thought I was just a needy, self referential gitbag, whose only empty joy was pretending that people thought what he wrote was worth reading? - Oh! the irony!)

So I include below, the top ten most popular posts, starting at number 10, in a Smashy and Nicey stylee, as picked by you, the readers - There are no real suprises, but if you're bored and find yourself with a few spare minutes, these are the posts that you guys think are funniest, or most interesting, or... Oh, I don't know why you like 'em. You're the ones following a bald fat bloke with questionable personal hygiene and an over-willingness to share, you're obviously all deranged.

-oOo-

In at number 10 is a little story I like to call HAVE YOU TRIED TURNING IT OFF, THEN LEAVING IT This is actually a set of three stories about my first job in IT (In 1985 believe it or not) detailing some of the wonderful, completely not mad as a badger calls people still get on IT helpdesks all over this wonderful Kingdom of ours.

Number 9 is the only work of fiction in the whole top ten. A dramatic depiction of two gods, sat in a kebab shop, on a Friday night, discussing the creation of the Duck-Billed Platypus (and Chicken Tikka) - Put your Atheism together for WAITING FOR GOD-OH!

For all you fans of mechanical mayhem, Number 8 shows us how the restoration of vintage vehicles can sometimes lead to personal injury, and a small amount of light vandalism. BUT WILL IT FLY SMICK? proves that it's really not possible to make a silk purse out of a rusty Ford Transit Van. - The only SMick story in the top ten! - What's wrong with you people?

Number 7 is the closest thing I have to required reading. You can't appreciate the Chimping Dandy as a being until you know how he was created. AS THE SUPERHERO SAID TO THE STRIPPER is a blow-by-blow account of the creation of your friendly, neighbourhood, Superhero - Before I realised I was actually a Supervillain of course.

Number 6 is our first trip through the looking-glass into my childhood. AN EYE FOR AN EYE tells of my Dear Mother's constant need to fill my formative years with fear (Warning, contains mild psychological terror and scenes of a surgical nature).

Starting our journey into the top five is SECOND CONTACT CLOSING FAST, BEARING 076! Where I warn Ford Galaxy owners about a possible fault with their cars, and almost bring the M40 to a halt by explosively showering it with smouldering wreckage.

Number 4 is a love poem (well, prose really) to my favourite grocery supplier. In BOOBS, MELONS AND JUMPER LUMPS I relate another three tales about why I love ASDA (Walmart) so much - However, only one of the stories is actually about the female mammary area, just so you don't get over-excited.

A fairly new entry at Number 3 is the 'Chock full o' shocks' story of my attempt at becoming a fetish model - AND THEN I POSED, AND HE TOOK MY PICTURE A comedic, but still totally true description of the pre-show party for the Skin-Two Magazine's Rubber Ball in (I think) about 1998. And the chain of events that led to me being a household name in Germany.

The second podium place goes to BARNABY WILDE (PT. 1) A set of three cautionary tales about the trials and tribulations to be had when your motorcycle has three wheels and you're a bit gormless. There's personal injury, electrocution and dancing on ice. What more could you ask for?

But the winner, the piece de resistance, your most loved post by quite a margin, is not actually about me. It doesn't mention me, it happened before I was born. But even so, it is bloody funny. THERMODYNAMICS, IT'S THE LAW! is the story of how my Father used the corpse of a fragile, beautiful animal to condemn a young girl to an eternity of torment, reliving her horror over and over again until the end of time itself. Probably.

-oOo-

The Blog gets a lot of hits Internationally. I can identify who some of them are, I know who the German, Cypriot and Irish contingent are. I also know the identities of a large proportion of the UK and USA readers. The couple of hits from Isreal were, I firmly believe, Jason Bradbury from The Gadget Show and some from Canada, I think, were the director Kevin Smith. But many others find The Chimping Dandy through the Random Blog feature of Blogger itself, and still more find us through a Google search.

So, what would you have to type into Google to find this happy community? The top ten Google searches, where people found us and clicked through, as I believe the youngsters call it are:

10: Kipper the Stripper

9: It was a bright, cold day in april and the clock was striking thirteen

8: I shot myself 2013

7: I shoot myself dandy

6: dandy ishotmyself

5: boobs melons show in car

4: boob melons photos blogspots (I guess whoever searched for this was severely disappointed)

3: what do you call Dandy with tattoo

2: dandy boobs

1: swing away merrill

I think that this little sampling tells you all you need to know about the populace of the Internet. It's pretty much full of people looking for breasts and shooting themselves.

And they say the Internet's not like real life!

But my personal favourite, the one that mostly twists my melon, but unfortunately only got used once and hence doesn't appear in the top ten is 'Tandoori Wombat' - Not only will you find this Blog by typing this in, we're the first result!

I'm so proud.

My Interview with iBazinga Magazine

A few weeks ago, I was approached by absolutely nobody, and asked if, as I was a rising star of the Internet, who regularly attracts double-figure numbers of page hits on his Blog, quite literally, almost every day, I would like to do an interview for a completely ficticious Technology Magazine called iBazinga.

At first I refused, partly because I am, by nature, a very private soul and do not like to talk about myself, but mostly it's because the magazine doesn't exist and it was just the voices in my head making me the offer, which is better than the normal 'Burn this, the duct-tape will quiet her filty noise' style advice I normally get from them.

So, on a rainy Wednesday, in the past, I didn't find myself in a suite on the 30th floor of the Park Lane Hilton, in London, talking to a made-up journalist about myself.

-oOo-

So, Mr Dandy, thank you for agreeing to this interview, I'm sure a lot of our readers would like to know a little bit about the man behind the T-Shirt with the amusing Pangolin motif.

Well, thank you Brian, may I call you Brian?

 
My name's actually Tracy...

Righty-ho, so, Brian, I'm glad that you asked me that, it's nice for me to finally get to set the record straight. I mean, there are people out there who think I'm just a megalomaniac with a God complex who somehow thinks that his opinions are more important than anyone else's.

 
I'm sure nobody thinks that, all of our readers who bothered to send questions in were generally very complimentary about your writing style, and didn't find it to be syrupy self-aggrandizement at all.

Ah, good, you say that people sent in questions? For me? How very lovely.

 
Yes indeed, we have one here from Michael Stibberly in Kuwait. 'Do you have a big family?'

Big? No, not really big as such, There's the Wife, Mrs Dandy, my Daughter, the MiniDandy - who has her own Blog, my Son, who has asked for his name to be witheld because it might impact his scrap metal and drive tarmacing business, my pigeon shattering Father and very occasionally the Ghost of my Dead Mother, who may, or may not, be scared of the Hoover. We've also got family who live on a little island in the Med and still more, just around the corner. Actually I guess it is a fairly sizeable brood.

 
Miss Sybil Von Daniken of Poole in Dorset writes 'You speak of GodS all the time, rather than God, the Saviour, The Father, The One True God... Did you know that you are going to Hell and will spend eternity in torment, pursued by Satan's imps with their constantly stabbing pitchforks?'

Nope, I think I'll be fine. I'm all about the whole Supreme Being idea, but whether that Being is the Judeo-Christian God, a Bowl of Spaghetti & Meatballs or a bunch of guys with oversized heads wearing a lovely tinfoil ensemble designed by some 'Space' Vivienne Westwood then that's OK with me. I mean, imagine the feeling when you get up to Heaven and there are as many Gods as there are people, and we've all got one each.

 
Marion D'la Plume D'ma Tante asks, 'We all know that you are something of an IT Guru, but have you ever done anything else?'

Funny you should ask that, I was talking to one of my ex customers only a few months back, I have spent time as a licensed Door Supervisor, a Fetish Model and a card-carrying Superhero - I'll leave it to your imagination as to exactly which one the person was a customer of. And I've recently also become a published Author.

 
A quick one from Simon Whatstandwell all the way from Rutherford, New Joisey. 'Do you really think that Pandas are the next big worry, greater than global warming, greater than Earth being hit by a comet, meterorite or alien spacecraft full of marauding, Oh, I don't know, flesh eating... Ermm.. Cats with spiky helmets?' - I'm sorry, I think that that question might have gotten away from the asker there a little bit!

That's fine Brian, it happens to me all the time! - Yes, I seriously believe that Pandas are the furry mammal equivalent of the Communist sleeper cell. At a pre-arranged time, they will rise up, take control, and subjugate mankind under their little part-formed thumbs. It'll be quick, bloody, and the cupcake shops with probably fall first. And just for completeness, I believe that all cats have spiky helmets.

 
Yes... Quite... Only a couple more questions, and then we can let you go. We received this one, written in crayon, which is very odd when you consider that it was sent by email, it is signed, but the signature is sadly illegible. Going by the address of the sender, it comes from Frankie.D'Souza@HouseOfLords.gov.uk and reads 'When you is growing up and stuff, who is it you wanna be, like, innit?'


Ah, little Frankie, I remember her well, Beautiful plumage... In recent times I have come to realise that the person I want to be when I grow up is me, but with a lot more cash, and some pet killer whales. But when I was but a young slip of a Dandy, and Chimping was the furthest thing from my mind, I wanted to be Martin Shaw off of Judge John Deed.

 
And finally, Cyril, Haha! Francoise Goebbels from the lovely province of Alberta in Canadiashire has asked the question that is on the tip of everyone's tongue, 'Dandy, how did you, mild mannered IT professional by day, pay as you go doppelganger and haddock worrier by night, become the Chimping Dandy.'

Brian, Brain, Brian... It's a well known fact that secret identities are secret for a reason, they protect the families and loved ones of the... erm... person who has decided to have a secret identity, for which I'm sure there is a proper noun. So, I have changed the names, crossed the 'I's and dotted the 'T's to make sure that the story is as safe as I can possibly make it. I can't be held responsible, well, for anything really, as I'm a bit infantile, but mostly I can't be held responsible for any personal harm that may befall you if you read.... The Origin of The Chimping Dandy.

 
Well, that was informative, thank you very much Mr Dandy, we'll be sure to let you know when the interview is published. The readers of iBazinga magazine thank you and hope you a long and happy Blogging experience.

-oOo-

And that's where the interview ended, I looked around and realised that I wasn't actually in a suite, on a non-existant floor of the tallest hotel in London, I was lying on the carpet, in the lounge, with a trickle of Irn Bru coming out of my nose and a very puzzled looking cat breathing its fishy breath into my mouth and licking my teeth.

Another normal day at Dandy Towers, I'm sure you'll agree. Enjoy your weekend, and if you do something exciting, don't forget to tell me about it - It could make you famous.


Yes, I realise you've seen all this stuff before, think of it as the Mid-Season Clip Show - If it's good enough for NBC then it's good enough for you lot.

Low resolution

So we're well into the New Year now, I mean, I'll still be writing down '12' at the end of the date for... Oh, I don't know... Maybe the next six months or so, but 2013 is definately here to stay.

Now, I've never been one that subscribes to this idea of setting myself unattainable targets, or even attainable targets for that matter. But there are some things that I will try to do this year. Actually, 'try' might be putting it strongly - What I'll probably do is carry on as normal and then if I accidentally do any of these things, I'll feel all smug and self-important and tell you all about it.

1. Get more involved in Burlesque.

I've been nipping at the edges of burlesque for some years now, the words 'Flamboyant' and 'odd' are ones that you could quite happily use to describe me (amongst several others of course, but those are the two I'm highlighting now) and I think that that sums up my feelings on Burlesquerie. It's not all about the strippers, although I'd be lying if I didn't freely admit that that is a part of it. It's more about the whole feel of it, the anachronism, the ostrich feathers, the music. Although I think the main thing is that it's one of the few 'Glamour related' pastimes that is totally non-judgemental where body shape/size are concerned. Real sized people are welcomed with open arms, and a lot of the professional artistes can't be described as stick thin by any stretch of the imagination.

2. Shine at my chosen career

This one is probably the most unlikely in fairness. I've been doing what I do, jobwise, for about thirty years now. I'm pretty good at it, it (just) pays the bills and I tend to get a lot of repeat business, in that places I've worked at, or people I've worked with, tend to ask for me if they have things that need doing that I can do. Thing is, this has virtually nothing to do with the fact that I am any better at these things than anyone else - It's usually because I make people laugh, at the same time as doing a half-assed job. The ability to fit into an already established team with the minimum of discomfort has been a mainstay of my repertoire for a long time. But now I've moved from being a contractor to being a permie, I might just have to get good at what I do.

3. Draw more

2012 will be forever remembered as 'The year when I actually started actively selling my stuff Internationally' - I've always been a 'hobbyist' as far as my artwork is concerned, drawing mainly for pleasure and I'd considered myself firmly in the 1st. year art student school of drawing. I mean, I'd designed a couple of tattoos for friends and family that they seemed happy with, but I'm certainly no H.R. Giger. I need to practice more, copy some stuff by more talented people than myself - I might even post it, and give a shout to the people I am hopelessly plagurising - If'n I remember that is. I might specialise in erotica, that always sells well, what with the Internet being populated almost exclusively by perverts.

4. Work on my Anger Management issues

I hit my alarm clock with a 2lb lump hammer last night because it wouldn't let me change the alarm time - This did not enhance my general user experience, my wife is buying me a new one today... (And no, you don't need to know why I keep a lump hammer by the side of the bed)

5. Finish my bloody trike

I have a rather lovely Honda VF1100 trike in my garage - All blue with silver flames (See flamboyant, above) , it was the love of my life until I sent it away to have it professionally finished. The dilligent and trustworthy professional I sent it to had a few problems and he ended up having it for a number of years (rather than the number of months that he originally quoted) and I kind of lost momentum. The damn thing's been sat there for over a year now with no real progress being made. It needs maybe a few hundred quid throwing at it and days (rather than weeks) of time. I seem to always find a reason for not looking at it, ranging from 'There's something else we need to spend the money on', through 'It's raining' to 'I've found some beer that I'd forgotten I had'. This really isn't good enough, I seem to be coming across as a bit of a procrastinator. In fact, I would be the King of procrastinators, but I can't be bothered - All bow down before your regent, Prince LazyAss the fifty-third - Bathe in my reflected protraction.

6. I will stop feeling guilty for doing things that I enjoy.

Actually, this one's probably never going to happen either. Maybe it's just my made up middle-class sensibilities, or maybe I'm just too gorram passive-agressive - As the Offspring once sang, 'The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care (Right, yeah!)'. I tend to show this particular nonsensical defect by going without so that others don't have to... Makes no sense at all - I earn the vast proportion of the yearly family income, why should I feel guilty for buying myself the occasional PC Game or Ladyboy? No-one berates me for spending my own money, it's all self-contained - I think I'm probably not as well adjusted as I thought I was?

Anywho, enough of my bleating, I hope you've found something here to help you rationalise your own impending failure to keep to your arbitrary resolutions. After all, if a Super-Villain such as myself can't hit his own targets, what chance have you guys got?

(Feel free to use this as an excuse to your nearest and dearest)

As the Superhero said to the Stripper

I must stop using the phrase Super-Hero, as we established a few weeks ago, my made-up superpower - The ability to stop time - can only be used for evil, at least, as far as I can think of things to do with it.

Technically, I'm a Super-Villain, and as my Daughter reminded me, Villains get the best clothes.

So the time is here, pull up a bat-winged chair, that one over there upholstered in the suspiciously beige leather with the faint tattoos on it should still be warm, top up your skull shaped goblet with 'Claret' and I'll tell you the story of the origin of The Chimping Dandy.

Our story begins in the small West-Midlands hamlet of Birmingham, in a bar - as all the best stories do, I mean, I've yet to be enthralled by a story that begins 'The best thing about where we were was that there was free beetroot'. There were a number of us, and we were approaching that stage of drunken-ness just before the 'Hold my beer and watch this' casualty-fest.

It was a stag night, so it wasn't going to end well, we had no illusions about that - In fact, one of the guests was the bride to be's ex-husband - And was, after a number of drinks 'Loaded for bear'. The sensible thing to have done at this point would have been to go somewhere and get a meal, so that we could sit down for a while, get our breath back, sober up slightly, and line our stomachs with unfeasibly spicey food. What we actually did was to find another bar, and have another drink. We repeated this downwards spiral a number of times up (and then back down) Broad Street.

Then someone uttered the magic question 'is it Naked Lady Time?' In fairness, this had always been a planned part of the evening, to the point where the groom to be, had been stitched up like a kipper by his fiancee in that she had pre-arranged for him to be man-handled (well, woman-handled) by a selection of young(ish) ladies on the stage, on a throne, with shaving cream.

After a final beer, we adjourned to either The Rocket Club, or Legs Eleven - I forget which, and for the purposes of this story, it matters not - Both of them are establishments where semi-pulchritudinous ladies will remove 95% of their clothes for a small monetary consideration. For those who have never been to one of these establishments (or those that have told their partners this at least) I will describe the scene. The main area was a large, darkened room, decorated in early 'Poundshop Transvestite Christmas'. There was a central stage area, populated by a single chair, complete with handcuffs. This in turn was surrounded by a selection of booths with banquette seating for ten or so people each.

There were three types of people in the room:

Punters - Men (almost exclusively) who had come to prove their superiority over women by remaining clothed whilst the women got naked.

Strippers - Girls who had come to prove their superiority over men, by charging them £10 to watch them get slowly undressed over a three minute period.

Security - Huge (and I can't state that enough) gentlemen, usually of afro-carribean descent, who's aim in life was simply to enforce the rule that the punters and the strippers never got closer than 2" away from each other.

Like so many of my stories, some description of the clothing worn by the group may assist in your suspension of disbelief. The brief had been 'Smart to smart-casual' mainly to enable us to enter any of the myriad drinking establishments with a minimum of fuss. I had bought a new suit for the occasion, and it was silver - Now, I don't mean that it was shiney silk, at the time I was neither that rich, nor mental enough to believe a silk suit would survive the evening, no - it was made of finest rayon/polyester mix, jaquard printed to look like the sort of pattern you see under a leaky car on a rainy day. Yes, it was about 300% more vulgar than you're currently thinking that it was.

Anyway, the evening progressed much as you would expect, every few minutes a young lady would wander into our booth and say 'Dance?' Now, nine times out of ten, one of the other guys would say 'Yes' and gyrating would ensue. I am not saying that I didn't say yes myself because I was some kind of saint, or that I felt guilty to be looking at another naked lady whilst I had a wife waiting for me at home, it was purely because watching the guy next to me get a dance was free.

Now, this seemingly hadn't gone un-noticed by some members of staff and I was approached by what I can only assume, was one of the 'senior' girls - I'd seen a couple of the other girls talking to her and pointing at our group and she had seemed to have been offering advice to them.

"Hello," she said and sat down next to me.

"Hey!" I replied, in what I hoped was an off-hand, but inoffensive way.

"Don't we have anyone you like the look of?"

"Ah!, no, I see, Maybe later, I'm still making notes."

"Notes?"

I looked around furtively, hushed my voice and said, "Look, don't tell anyone, but we're doing research for a new show on Bravo" (For those unaware, Bravo was a channel that produced 'lads' programming - it's now mutated into Dave, which just shows Top Gear repeats)

"A new show? What's it about?"

"Well, we're going to visit various strip clubs around the country, but we're going to be filming an anchor segment from one place, like a base, every week, we're still trying to decide where to use"

"Oh, I did wonder." She replied, looking me up and down.

"What did you wonder?"

"Well, we don't get many people in here dressed like that - We figured that you were 'somebody', but none of the girls recognised you. Would you be filming the girls too?"

"Well, that would be up to the management, obviously, but I was wanting to include a couple in the title sequence, we'd have to see how it went. We'd have to audition obviously"

The young lady then stood up, and without monetary assistance, proceeded to audition, for two songs. She then sat down, waved at one of the security staff and mouthed the words 'On my break' to him. He nodded with the slow surety of a Norwegian glacier and continued scanning the room for distance infractions - A drink appeared on the table in front of her, and seeing my rasied eyebrows she said;

"Don't worry, it's already paid for. You must have seen some stuff"

"Sorry?"

"Doing programs like that, is it all the same kind of 'adult' shows?"

"Yeah, mainly... Swinging, Dogging, Chimping, that kind of thing."

"Chimping? I've never heard of that. Do I want to know?"

I leaned in close, keeping the regulation 2" distance of course, and explained it to her. The look of revulsion on her face started a change in me at the subatomic level, I could feel my time-bending abilities throbbing into life, I felt empowered, and I knew that things would never be the same again.

By proving to a jaded stripper, that there were still things in this world that could disgust even her, I had become...

The Chimping Dandy!