Emergency Broadcast! This is (Not?) a Drill

Because a drill sounds like this: BlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDecker.

Anyway, people of the West Midlands, it is my humble duty, as an (in no way) internationally recognised member of the Pato Banton memorial Emergency Safety Broadcast team to deliver the following serious news update:

-oOo-

The West Midlands in general and Birmingham in particular is on the edge of invasion.  A foreign power has taken hold of the populace and guerrilla terrorist attacks have already started with devastating results.  You will already have noticed the signs, but do you know the cause?

Are you ready?

Can you help us fight back against the insidious horde?

If you don't, your way of life will be forever changed.  Do you currently live in a comfortable house with a cat, a dog, or some fish? - Well think again, when the unleashed plague has finished with you, you'll be sitting in a pile of ash, cuddling the remains of something that may be your deeply loved pet but, looking at it from a different angle, may well be a piece of fire-resistant foam out of that sofa that you got from eBay - And your fish will have boiled dry, or possibly exploded - We didn't really test that bit in fairness.

What am I talking about? What could possibly hope to destroy a area with a population of 5,000,000 or so people, What vile, uncompromising foe could be sneaking into our most loved metropolitan area where everyone has a slightly funny accent?

I'll tell you...

I can hardly bring myself to say it...

It's... It's... Chinese paper lanterns... There, I said it.

Do you remember, back in July, the fire at the recycling plant in Smethwick?  Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish were mysteriously and completely burned, causing a firestorm of such epic proportions that it may well have been visible from the surface of Mars, probably.

When questioned by BBC local radio, a worker from the company, who had turned up for work as normal, not noticing either the mile high flames, nor the fifty mile long plume of smoke, had this to say:

'Err.. I don't know really, we just collect the recycling, then recycle it.'

Wise words there, a rare insight into a world that we don't often get to look at, I think you'll agree.

The local Council take the threat so seriously, that it is now a criminal offense to launch Chinese Lanterns (or, as they are more rightly called in all of the professional literature 'Fiery Paper Death Balls of Death with added dripping Death-wax') from any of the local, council owned parks - This is punishable by a fine of up to, but not exceeding your total Council Tax rebate amount.  And will be levied by specially equipped Park Services Rangers, once they have shot the offending FaPDoBODWADDoWs out of the sky using a highly modified Super Soaker and a battery operated hand-fan from the Pound-Shop. (So, if you could just hang around for a few minutes whilst they do that, promise not to run off or anything during the process and then pay him - Exact amount only, no change is carried by members of the parks service for personal security reasons - That'd be great.)

Don't add to the problem people...

There's a very real danger that a cloud of FaPDoBoDWADDoWs could bring down an airliner.  A real, live airliner people! For instance, a Boeing 747 flies at an altitude of, ah... well, I don't really know, but it's pretty damn high I'm guessing. And the lanterns? they probably fly at exactly the same height at least I should think.  Imagine the damage that a tiny amount of paper and two matchsticks worth of bamboo could do to a couple of tonnes of rapidly spinning, razor-sharp titanium blades... Imagine it!

Carnage! - It would be like The Hindenburg all over again, if the airliners were made of canvas and full of hydrogen it would be anyway... Which they might be for all you know, you're not a aeroplaney-designer person. Oh! the Humanity!

Also, there's the ever-present problem of wax drippage.  Clouds of as many as four lanterns have been spotted over the Small Heath and Erdington areas and locals have complained of warm exudations falling from the skies and landing in their hair, faces and mouths, often to the accompaniment of 70's guitar music.  The relatively minuscule amount of this oddly opalescent liquid that has been spat out, rather than 'accidentally' swallowed has been gathered, scientifically tested and found to taste a bit like wax (in most cases).

Experts have told us that 'large amounts of scalding hot wax falling onto unsuspecting people' rates quite highly on the United Nations 'Probably best not to do that' list.  In fact, it sits right in between 'Water-boarding civilians in their sleep' and 'Using nerve-gas and blaming it on one of the other big kids in the playground'  Obviously, we wouldn't just pass on potentially inflammatory statements like that without testing them first.

So with your safety in mind, we spent over £14,000,000 million pounds of your money (what with it being your safety and everything) on dripping wax onto people from various heights.  We found that from any height above six and a half feet (or, two meters or so, if you happen to be French) the wax cooled and solidified before it had time to cause any damage, between zero feet and six and a half feet, the wax was warm, but not hot - and felt much like that feeling you get when you get drunk and poke your finger into the melted wax of a candle, stuck in an empty Mateus Rose bottle, in a cheap Italian Restaurant, that you've taken that new girl from Accounting to in the hopes that she'll say 'Oh! Mr [State your name] No-one's ever made me feel like THAT before'.  To ensure completeness, we dug a large hole fifteen feet deep, in the middle of the A38 dual carriageway and tested to see if wax dropping from negative heights would be hotter.  Unfortunately, despite numerous, increasingly expensive tests, we were unable to both make the wax drip upwards and also to make the lanterns float below ground level.

(Please note, due to completely non-related funding cuts, the New Birmingham Library will close with immediate effect.)

And so the warning ends.  Be vigilant and report any sightings of these potential infernos to your local police, fire service and/or religious organisation.

Wake up and smell the bamboo people!

Bamboo?

Gods! I'd never thought...

You don't think it might be the Pandas doing it do you?

MESSAGE ENDS - Your normal programming will resume momentarily...

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.

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!

Bruno Who-now?

Originally posted on Facebook 18/5/12

I heard a song on the radio last night, not sure who it's by, I'm sure someone will tell me, but it consisted of some American chap explaining to his girlfriend just how much he loved her... Nothing wrong with this you might think, very popular in this type of affair. But some of the ways that he was happy to prove it were a little, well, extreme if you ask me:

"I would catch a grenade for 'yah'" - Now, I'm assuming that they are stood in close proximity, what with their undying love and everything. The standard fatal blast radius of the U.S. standard issue M67 grenade is 5 meters - So they'd both be, like, a snotty red mess, not altogether attractive to either sex you'd think.

"Throw my hand on a blade for 'yah'" - OK, so maybe he's a Ninja, I mean, intercepting a knife, mid-air isn't impossible - Just very, very, improbable. If you've got the 'Mad Ninja Skillz' to do that, why not trip the guy before he throws the knife and have it away on your toes before he gets up?

"I'd jump infront of a train for 'yah'" - What? The girl he's desperately trying to woo is either standing on the tracks already, or has just asked him to do it, so either

A) she's completely dog-shavingly mental or
B) borderline psychotic / Sociopathic.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've been out with some complete nut-jobs in my time, but never one that said "Prove you love me by throwing yourself under the 10:17 to Birmingham New Street"

"Take a bullet straight through my brain" - And what happens directly after this? The undisclosed assailant simply pops a cap in one's soul-mate too. So, you're decalring your love by effectively just standing there and letting both of you get shot.

You'd have to ask yourself if a girl who was constantly being shot at, stabbed and having explosives thrown at her (not to mention making her home on an active railway track) was a good choice in the first place, I mean, why are all these people trying to kill her? Is she involved in organised crime?

Remember when songs were about walking in fields on a summer's day and seeing some lovely rabbits?