My girl's mad at me (I think)

Hey Dandettes! (Yeah, that one didn't work either - Godsdammit, I wish I could think of a group noun for you people - It's a major inclusivity issue... Feel free to make your own suggestions in the comments below.) Long time no see, I've been sick!

You know I did a thing last year about how every other day is International Day of the something or other? The cat maybe, or the landmine, or the wombat, or the potato that looks like someone from Jersey Shore (Which is like every potato, AmIRiteKids?)

Well, today is the International Day of the Girl. It's the day where we all should 'highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face' It struck me that I know a girl or two, a few on Twitter, a few on Facebook, and even a few in real life! (I know, no-one's more surprised than me) But when it comes down to it there's only one girl that I feel qualified to really talk about... My own daughter.

This is her, her name's Dorla and she's beautiful isn't she?

I guess I should write this pretty fast as she's not going to be a girl for much longer (No, don't worry she's not dying, this isn't the X-Factor) It's just that a week today... She becomes A WOMAN!, no, not like that... I assume she's been 'a woman' in several other physical ways for a while now, I'm not an idiot.  I mean, she's gonna turn 18.

My daughter, an adult... Christ that makes me feel old. Which is fair, because I am old, and fat, and bald, and my handwriting's barely legible... I am such a catch! - It's a good job I'm rich innit?

Dorla and I had what I think I'm right in saying is the classic Daddy/Daughter relationship - She thought I was the best thing since thick sliced bees knees and that I could do anything, and I thought she was the single most fragile flower in the world and it was my job to protect her from anything that the world tried to throw at her for the rest of her life.

Which went about as well as you can expect, certainly if you've read any of my stuff before... I mean, I even taught her how to play golf - kinda

From R to L: Me, Dorla, My No.1 son Malachi & his friend, Reece.

And I fostered (if that's the right word) her interest in Photography, which she is bloody good at...

And Game of Thrones it would seem.

And Tattooing (She's looking for an apprenticeship, or she was at least)...

We went through all her changes of style...

Jebus this picture scares me - Looks like a 25year old's Tinder

Even that 35 seconds when she wanted to shave part of her head and become a Viking...

Actually I may have got over-involved with that one as I think about it now...

I've never seen anyone look more pleased with anything, ever.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that I wished this was still how our relationship was, but it really isn't. Something happened last year. I probably did something or said something, I'm still not 100% sure of exactly what it was.  But I'm guessing it was pretty bad, something that couldn't be talked over, some misunderstanding that couldn't be sorted out with a simple explanation (Yeah, let you imagination run riot, mine has pretty much every day since) - And she ran away from home in the middle of the night.

She's not living on the street (Told you - Not X-Factor) although maybe I'd find that easier to handle, there'd always be the feint hope that I could entice her back home with the promise of 'cheesy-chips' or expensive coffee. But she moved in with her boyfriend's family and she seems happy enough. They've got an extended family and have a lot of parties, which I would probably have loved when I was 17... Which is when I looked like this:

Yes, I know - The weight came on as the hair went off

I wish that I could have been a better Dad and stopped this from ever happening, I wish I could have done more... Or even just enough, to make her feel that she was able to stay. But it seems I couldn't.

Because no matter how old and independent she grows, this is who I see when I look at her.

Cradling her brother the day after he was born.

And I just miss what we had so much, but it can never be the same as it was. Maybe I'm just selfish?

Cook you a steak and do what job?

You know what really grinds my gears? Well, initially it's people who use the phrase "You know what really grinds my gears?" and don't expect me to think of them as Peter Griffin from that moment on. But let's leave that to one side for the time being...

Man-Babies are one things that grind my gears - Now this would be such an easy thing to do the day after International Women's Day... And obviously, that's why I'm doing it. (Did you know, IWD was started back in 1909 by the Socialist Party of America - One wonders if it would be as big a global celebration if it was started by the National Socialist Party of Germany in the late 1930s - But I digress)

Wait, where were we?

Ah yes, Man-Babies.  You know what a man-baby is don't you? It's a man, who acts, out of his own volition, like a whining opinionated baby - Which is pretty much all men (Am I Rite Ladies? High-five! - Wooo! - Don't leave me hanging... OK [Looks at palm of my hand][sees unusually crusty peeling stain][understands completely]) 

Now I don't mean the men who employ the paid services of professional ladies who look after them whilst they toddle around wearing nappies and rattling their... Um... 'rattles' in people's faces and wearing comfortable bootees and happily having their nappies changed and suchlike.  Each to their own I say where sexual perversion's concerned - Especially in society's upper echelons, what-what?

And I don't mean card-carrying misogynists - They're a whole different breed entirely and we've talked about them before.

I mean the ones who genuinely believe that the only important things are things that apply directly to them and other men, who they claim some kind of shaky brotherhood with - like the urgent, Gods-given need for Government-sponsored erectile dysfunction medicine and free at the point of delivery hair replacement therapy, I mean the lightbulb shaped headed ones wearing last season's football shirts who bleated all over social media yesterday "When's International Men's Day?" - The same ones who went oddly quiet when I (and several other people - I'm not claiming any singular Godhood here) replied, "It's the 19th November you massive Twonk, the day before Universal Children's Day. If you're going to cry like a bitch about some perceived slight against your gender, at least have the common decency to get your facts straight."

And don't think I'm some kind of white-knight feminist defender myself either. I'm really not... If you're female and wearing a low-cut top (for whatever reason) I will look at your cleavage and/or boobs - You can check with Mrs Dandy - we can't go anywhere without her tutting, shaking her head and having to repeat herself at least a dozen times. I won't stand in front of you with my coat open shielding you from the ogling stares of other neanderthal men. I'm a firm believer that boobs are great, and if you want to have a proportion of yours on show - You should feel completely free to do so - But you're gonna get looks from the weak willed.

But what really gets me, specifically, every bloody year hasn't really even started yet.  Next week, Facebook & Twitter will be full of it.  On Monday it'll be wall-to-wall schoolboy sniggering for the preamble. On Tuesday it'll be "when I get home tonight from a hard day at the coalface/office/clinic, guess what I'm getting?!?!!?'

You've worked it out right?

March 14th? a month after Valentines Day?

Well, it's another one of those gender specific made-up strictly for profit holidays. Whereas Valentine's Day is a holiday for women, with non-generic petrol station flowers, high cocoa content chocolates, and things wrapped in red and pink reflective paper. Steak and a Blowjob Day (for it is that of which I am speaking) is for men... because men like red meat and getting their dicks wet whilst their eyes roll back into their heads (and if that doesn't happen, someone's doing something wrong).

I don't get why you need to announce it to your 63 Facebook friends (half of which are probably friends with your significant other too who will laugh when she post "Not bloody likely Sunshine, you can spend 30 seconds on Pornhub once the kids have gone to bed like you do every Saturday night instead of playing FIFA.") 

And it's so boringly contrived and binary - I mean, I love chocolate - And Mrs Dandy gets excited by the thought of a decent mouthful of steak (well, she did before she decide to go pescatarian - feel free to insert your own jokes there.) 

But men... (Lower-case used intentionally) Just like there's no specific date for you to tell your partner that you love them or to buy them flowers, as long as you're prepared for every one of her female friends to ask her what you've done. And there's no date when it's more or less right to buy decent chocolate for your partner or even yourself. There's no specific day when you can't buy and cook a nice, thick steak, or go to a nice restaurant and order steak if you you don't 'do' washing up, because you're too manly. And, believe it or not if you have a decent cleanliness routine, it's not out of the realms of possibility that a lady that you personally quite like will, without any kind of struggle or Gaffer Tape being involved, put your love-python in where her shouting at you usually comes out of.

Providing you're both equally up for it that is... And that you've eaten quite a lot of pineapple beforehand.  Enjoy.

So good to be Viviparous

The Doctor looked out of the mirrored window at the assembled news teams, collected on the street outside like flies on a rotting corpse, and shook his head.

‘What do they hope to achieve?’ He mused aloud, ‘How many scenes of a redbrick frontage will their viewers stomach before rising up against the state-sponsored propaganda machine in rebellion?’

He was a veteran, he had served in the military for several years, and had been recruited into the Royal Household many years ago.  It was an honour to serve and his senior position filled him with pride.  He had overseen the past half dozen Royal births and was something of an ‘old hand’ at the delicate procedure.

The private suite was entirely populated by the vetted and the security cleared, even if they weren't exactly ‘his kind of people’ they could be trusted.  Nothing that they heard or saw would go any further than these four walls – Especially after what happened last time, a tragic incident, but a lesson in security.  Every outsider was checked and double checked.  Every protocol for every eventuality was drummed into them, consequences were explained, and ominous threats were made towards their extended family.

There was a quiet knock from behind him and a young nurse sheepishly poked her head around the door.

‘It’s time Sir. She’s ready.’

He turned and nodded curtly, took one last look down at growing, baying, throng and moved sinuously into the orange light of the stiflingly hot delivery room.  She lay there on the bed, her gown gathered lazily around her waist. 

‘Are you ready My Lady?’ He regarded her distended stomach, ‘He looks like he’s going to be a big boy, do you require any pain relief?’

She looked up at him with her huge eyes, her mouth gaped slightly and her tongue darted out, wetting her upper lip.

‘Yes…’ She panted, ‘and water.’

He turned to the nurse and barked, ‘Fifty CCs of medetomidine hydrochloride, administered here, to the base of the throat, then fetch the scoop.’ 

Passing the gravid Duchess a bulb of water, which she immediately squeezed into her mouth and swallowed hungrily, he ran his hand across her expansive, dry forehead and into her ear, checking that her pulse was steady.  He looked at each member of the team one by one and nodded.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to bring the newest member of the Royal brood into this cold, harsh world.  If all goes well, pray to Dazbog, and thank him for the blistering basking sun that he has given us this day… If all does not, pray for yourselves.’

He held his breath and delicately inserted the birthing scoop between the scales of her cloacal opening, applying just enough gentle pressure with the serrated edge to rupture the skin of the amniotic sac.  Once the wash of hot fluid had drained from the table and onto the floor, he reached into the cavity and lifted out the baby.  His scales glistened like stars in the glow of the heat-lamps and his pronounced brow ridge pulsed with life.

‘He is beautiful my lady, eight toes, six fingers, two opposable digits and...’ He turned the baby around, ‘...a perfect tail.  What will you call him?’

The Duchess thought for a while and then answered, ‘I will name him after his Uncle, he will be called “Zod” amongst the true people.’

The doctor raised the new-born above his head, his pronounced snout almost touching the infra-red bulbs on the ceiling.

‘Mighty Dazbog! Lord who watched over us on our long flight to this world. I call upon you to look now to your newest worshiper Zod, third in line to the throne of our soon to be Empire, conqueror of lands, despoiler of forests, maker of deserts and the heater of this dirt-world.’ He looked down at the mother, panting on the bed, ‘What would you have the apes call Him?’

‘I don’t know, his Father can decide that, it is of no great importance.’ She yawned sleepily as both sets of eyelids closed over her scarlet eyes, 'Perhaps Arthur?'

Overhead, the bright sun had been replaced by a roiling cloud, and in the distance, there was a faint peal of thunder.