Unpaid Review: The Coronation, Derby (Steamin’ Billy Pubs)

Bit of an odd one this, I only usually do restaurant reviews. You know, because that’s the sort of place you actually might visit if you found yourself in the area.

Not that I’m saying you wouldn’t…

Well, isn’t this going well? I’ll start again.

A little under 50 years ago, there was, unto the small hamlet of Crewton, in Derbyshire, born a saviour… A saviour of grammar, good breeding, pronunciation and forensic etymology.  Namely me – And just around the corner was a pub, and it was called the Coronation (it’d been built in 1953 y’see), and it wasn’t a hugely nice place at all.

Don’t get me wrong, the lounge was OK in a ‘stuck in the 1950s/yellowing paintwork/smelled a bit fusty’ kinda style.  But you wouldn’t go in the bar without being dressed like James Caan from Rollerball (The original one, from 1975, not the awful bloody remake with Chris Klein – Although, thinking about it that one did have Rebecca Romjin in it… Yeah, OK, watch them both – But for different reasons)

Upon my coming of age in the mid-80s, or slightly before, truth be told *cough* I often went there with my Dad (when he was still alive – He’s nowhere near as vocal since he died, unlike my Mother) and we’d sit in the lounge and nurse a couple of pints for the evening. And later, when my Brother visited from his hollowed out volcano lair in the Mediterranean, we’d do the same.  Although we’d drink more quickly because he was richer and could afford to buy more beer more often and have the occasional go on the tote.  But still, we’d never go in the bar, for that way madness lay.

Over time, the pub went a bit further downhill, it was mismanaged by a succession of half-baked tenants and landlords – this, along with a generally unsavoury reputation, culminated in the pub closing its doors.

The pub was due to be sold to a developer so that it could be knocked down and about 70 tiny houses built on the half-acre site. But luckily they got cold feet, or they woke up with a Staffordshire bull terrier’s head in their bed or something similar. Because the jolly types at Steamin’ Billy managed to get hold of it and turn it back into their latest real pub.

It's significantly better on the inside, honestly.

It only opened a week ago (05/11/15 if you’re reading this in the future – Which is likely, as that’s when I’m writing it) and it’s not really fair for me to give it a full ‘Dandy’ style review as the staff and their support team are still ironing out all the kinks and suchlike.  But as you know from past experience, ‘fair’ is one of those things that I don’t often do… Along with favours, chick-sexing and teaching pigs to whistle showtunes.

So here’s an interim report - a story so far, if you will.

The pub is literally five minutes’ walk from Dandy Towers, so Heckmondswyke didn’t need to unmothball the Dandymobile – I gave him the rest of the evening off, he has just taken up the gentle art of steam-ironing badgers you see and I understand that he used his downtime to practice folding them so that they’d fit nicely in his album with a minimum of kerfuffle.

On their opening night Mrs Dandy and myself sauntered down Baker Street, where the establishment is located, fireworks bursting overhead and Gerry Rafferty’s oeuvre spinning around in our heads.  Upon entering, we gravitated towards the lounge – as was traditional at the time.  I had a pint of real ale that may, or may not have had a cartoon of Oliver Reed on the handpump and Mrs Dandy contented herself with a half-pint of fruit beer (She’d developed a taste for fruit based alcohol during the week we spent trekking back to civilisation in the Andes after our Heinkel ditched whilst we were supposedly ‘Nazi-Hunting’ in Bolivia).  The place was everything you could expect from what we assumed to be a normal ‘estate’ pub – There was music, just at the right volume, and the banquettes were upholstered in a wonderfully gaudy striped material which I would have no compunction about having a pair of curtains, galoshes or indeed a dinner jacket made from.  There was a selection of memorabilia affixed to the walls as is so often the case in the modern victualing environment, including hunting equipment and the occasional stag’s head – Which may put off the pale hemp-wearers a little, not that that’s any bad thing as there are plenty of places that welcome that kind of tomfoolery with open arms.

The staff were all exemplary, friendly, knowledgeable and attractive. Chris, the Landlord is a hale fellow, hearty of forearm and ruddy of cheek.  He made us feel welcome, commented personably on our refreshment choices and as the younger generation may still say ‘Ticked all the boxes’ as one would find in the 2010 Mein Host examination paper. He is also the older brother of Bill, the chap who runs the Brewery that runs the pub. This positively ourobourosian prospect means that there’s a real chance that any suggestions about general services and improvements are a mere whisper away from the heart of the decision making process – Which can never be a bad thing in my experience.

We have visited The Coronation of a number of occasions over the past week and have found ourselves favouring the bar area – The main reason for this is that it is also the food area and has, at its centre, a brand-new (as you would probably expect after a complete renovation) £20,000 pizza oven.  This produces some very splendid thin-crust pizzas (using bought-in dough by the taste of it, but as I mentioned, they’ve only been open a week) which all have a royal theme.  Sadly I don’t believe there was one called ‘The Prince Albert’ that comes with a complementary piercing… But that’s idea for the future perhaps?  Both the bar and, when it is completed I assume, the beer garden are both animal and child friendly - behaviour notwithstanding (up to 7:30ish in the evening, completely at the landlord’s discretion – and he strikes me as stern but fair) and there are tales of a non-smokers shelter outside with a wood-burning stove that has yet to see the light of day.  During my visit on Tuesday afternoon I was treated to the sight of a gentleman climbing on a roof in the rain, with an electric screwdriver – So I’d assume work is going on at a fair old pace.

On the whole, it’s a great place. The Memsahib and I have adopted it as our local and we will be attending as often as our currently limited funding sources allow (Buy my books, it will mean that I can go to the pub more often).  There is a poster (Well, an upturned wooden box affixed to the wall) that promises a steak night, a pie night and a quiz night (Sundays from 8:00pm) amongst other things and no doubt these boundless hedonistic pleasures may well be the subject of many future blogs.

You could do a lot worse than spending your free time at The Coronation.  The staff are friendly (one of them even lent me 5p, which I should really pay back at some stage), the beer is excellent and the pizzas are flat with cheese and other things on top.

Oh! – Just realised that we’ve been all pros and no cons… My only reservation is that it’s not cheap, you’d be well advised to budget for your pint of beer to cost you somewhere between £3 & £4 – But this is really to be expected for the amount that has been, and probably will be, invested in the pub in the near future.  It’s still less than a tenth of what a china cup of my exclusive weasel tea would cost if you visited me at home. Actually, a couple of the re-purposed scaffolding board tables could do with a bit more sanding too if I'm being totally honest.

The Coronation

Baker St, 

Derby DE24 8SL
Tel: 01332 913140

Facebook: The Coronation

Website: Steamin' Billy - The Coronation

Twitter: Steamin' Billy

Write what you know

I can't believe that I've not broached this subject before.

In the good old days, I was happy to call myself a 'Blogger' - I blogged... It's what I did, I picked a subject and desperately tried to have an opinion about it. That's what bloggers are, they're the 21st. century equivalent of that bloke that smells of urine and shouts incoherently at pigeons - Occasionally funny, but you wouldn't want to sit and listen to them for very long.

Then I released my first book, all the way back in November 2013 - 'Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin' hit the streets, well I say hit... It sort of slithered down them, with a noise reminiscent of a recently defenestrated squirrel. Some people bought it and liked it, some people didn't do either - You can't blame them really, it wasn't great literature when you get right down to it.  But I thought it was funny, and I published it myself.

I guess that's what I wanted to talk about today.  Publishing, specifically the different types of publishing available to a person like me, who initially just wanted to get a book out in a hurry, because he had a deadline (Which is an unfortunate choice of words as it happens)

I could go into the whole story, but luckily, my local paper covered it in detail - You could read about my motivation here if you really wanted to.

Link to my story on the Derby Evening Telegraph

TL:DR - Chap with over-inflated sense of his own worth wants his Father to acknowledge him one last time before he dies.

That's maybe putting it a little starkly... But effectively that's what happened (and winter is coming), I'm OK about it - You guys already know I'm pretty shallow.

But the important thing is, I did everything to bring these first few books to the great unwashed myself.  I wrote them, proofread them, edited them, typeset them, designed the covers, chose the font, advertised them and collected all the profits.

That last one's the important one really.  I'm an OK writer, some people say I'm pretty good in fact, I'm also an OK Editor - People occasionally pay me to correct their grammer.  I can knock out a decent picture every once in a while, so I'm OK at designing book covers, but that's where my experience ends.

I don't know the first thing about advertising, wouldn't know where to start.  I'd probably be embarrassed to do what was actually required if I knew what it was.  Advertising's a bit like lying isn't it? And I'm not hugely good at that.  But if you don't advertise in the right way, people don't know that your book exists; if people don't know your book exists, they can't buy it even if they would ordinarily have wanted to. If people don't buy your book, then sitting back and collecting the profits becomes a far lonelier idea.

Createspace, the arm of Amazon that I used to self-publish my first three books sends you a notification every month of how much you have earned in royalties - This makes you feel like a 'real' writer, right up until you open the mail and realise that you can probably afford a bag of crisps with your royalty payment this month.  But don't tell anyone that, it spoils the mystique and makes you less attractive to your chosen complimentary sex.

Don't get me wrong, Self-Publishing is great.  If you use one of the online services like Createspace, it's virtually free, and you can publish anything you like - Even a list of your top 10,000 favourite crisps (not flavours, the individual crisps themselves) with notes about taste and crunchiness and which deity they most resemble. But... If you don't put your back into advertising it, the chances are, you're not going to make any money... Full stop.

So, if making money is important to you (and let's be honest, in this day and age, who doesn't want money?) how do you go about making money by writing a book?  The 'easiest' way is to take the more traditional route and get your book published for you, by people who know what they're doing. There are a few hoops that you have to jump through to even start thinking about making it a reality.  You can fall at any one of them.

First of all, you have to have a pretty good, original idea for a story.  If your story is rubbish, you may as well just give up with it and think of something else.  If one of your friends reads your story and says 'It's good, but it's also an episode of Star Trek.' You're backing a loser. Be original, I can't stress that enough.

Then you make sure it makes sense and is spelled correctly.  Whatever you do, don't just rely on the spellchecker of whatever word processor you're using, 90% of them will be set to American (or what I like to call 'simplified' English) It'll also miss where you've put 'is' instead of 'if' and idiotic things like that.  You could get a mate down the pub to take a look, and as long as their English is good... Actually, you'd be better off getting a real proofreader to take a look.  Your local writers group (which you should probably think about joining about now) is invaluable for stuff like this.

So, your story is great, the words make sense... but your book is 518,000 words long.  The next stage is editing. People have as many ideas for the length of a perfect first novel as there are perfect first novels.  But in my humble personal opinion, I'd aim for 80 - 120 thousand words.  Long enough to tell the story, but short enough for your reader not to get bored and jump off a bridge.  By all means, do a first edit yourself - See if you can trim some stuff out that's not really required.  But there's an ever-present danger that you'll see the words you've written as your precious babies and not want to get rid of them... I know I do. So again, it's good to hand this off to someone who knows what they're doing. Word of warning - You will learn to hate your editor, he/she will make you cry, they will take your cunningly crafted prose and carelessly tear great chunks out of it to wipe their bottoms on.  Editors are both a writer's best friend and their worst enemy.  Make sure you have a good relationship with yours, they will improve your book 1,000%

Writing: Done, Proofing: Done, Editing: Done. Now, all you need to do is convince a publisher to spend a fortune printing and marketing your book, with no guarantee of ever seeing a penny of profit.  Would you do that yourself? would you wager literally thousands of pounds on some no-name illegitimate nobody who's convinced that they're the next Raymond Chandler? Of course you wouldn't, you're not a mental.  But there are people out there who will happily sit between you and a publisher and act as a buffer to take some of the risk out of the transaction.  These people are called Agents... And they are the closest things to gods you will ever encounter during your publishing journey. They know publishers, they know writing, they have a good idea what sells and they are not scared of telling you that your book is rubbish... If you're really lucky, they might even have the time to tell you why (But they probably won't because they've got 100+ Raymond Chandlers in the queue waiting for their shot).  You just have to convince these people to stake their reputations on your book being saleable... Simple, right?  If they agree to work with you, they will draw up a contract that usually promises them a percentage of the money that you will make from the book, there will also be all sorts of other clauses and caltrops in there that may (or may not - Depending on how decent a sort they are) trip you up, and you could do worse than having it looked over by a professional; as with any contract that might end up costing you money in the long run.

This last paragraph is for the less than 1% of new authors that actually get this far.  If you are lucky, and good, and confident, but mostly lucky, a publisher that you have heard of will show an interest in your book... And initially that's usually all they will do.  Most publishing companies are like wily old pike.  Your agent will play them for you, like Isaak Walton on MDMA. And this can go a huge number of different ways.  You know that sign you sometimes see that says 'Your Experience May Vary'? Well, it will... No two writers get treated the same.  You might be asked to sign a deal for just the work you're pitching.  you might get offered a deal for a series of books (especially if you've told your agent that's your long-term plan) You might even be offered the holy of holies - an advance large enough that you can quit your day job and write permanently. For instance, Garth Rick Hallberg just scored a $2,000,000 advance on his debut novel 'City on Fire' - You however, will not... Don't think you will... It never happens, ever, not even once... Stop thinking about it

But you can't can you? - Why are you sat reading this rubbish? Go... Go and write something... Do it now!

Unpaid Review: Iberico World Tapas

Welcome to Episode 3 in an occasional series where your humble blogger goes undercover as a member of the public (which doesn't take a huge amount of subterfuge as he is, technically, a member of the public) and dines at expensive restaurants so that you don't have to.

No, wait... That came out wrong - You should definitely visit this place, for all the resons that I'm about to enumerate, but just to let you know in advance, for those male readers who use expensive restaurants to 'grease the wheels' for a possible physical liaison with their chosen paramour, Iberico scores a 93 on the 'Aidan Turner gusset dampening scale' but you're going to need to budget at the thick end of £100 to make the whole experience a sure-thing, especially  if you include a decent bottle of wine.

Anywho, back to the 'PG' rated portion of the review.

On Friday (11/09/15), the incumbent Mrs Dandy had made it known, loudly and vociferously, that she had a hankering for some meat - A hankering that could only be extinguished by the application of copious quantities of barely cooked beef... Not a problem in itself, but Derby, the town where we live is known more for its engineering history than it is for its plethora of steak eateries.  A quick Google search threw up a couple of possibilities (yes, I realised after writing that that I could have put it better) and within moments, Heckmondswyke, our faithful manservant had brushed the whoop of mating marmosets (or is it a flange of mating marmosets?) from the plush velour interior of the Dandymobile and we were winging our way from our sleepy suburb into the throbbing metropolis of the city centre itself.

We were dropped in the Marketplace and I requested that Heckmondswyke travel the ring-road in the style of a common mini-cab driver until he was recalled.

Imagine our surprise, when purely due to my lack of research, we were unable to find the steak restaurant that I had researched not hours before. In its place (or so it seemed) was a shining beacon, a temple to gastronomy, a positive... erm... good place... to do some ahh.. eating in.  However, the Thai restaurant seemed to be a bit drab, so we popped next door to a tapas bar that we hadn't previously noticed.

Not that it really matters, but for completeness, you should probably know that I wasn't wearing my usual dinner-jacket / board shorts combo, neither was I wearing my kilt (traditionally) - Time constraints meant that I was still dressed for my day job - New Rocks, tight jeans, two leather jackets and a 'Guardians of the Galaxy' T-Shirt

To continue, I had never, knowingly been to a tapas bar before, certainly not whilst sober and I was pleasantly surprised with both the decor and the ambiance - there was a lot of smooth wood and artisan tiling, which is like normal tiling, but you have to take a run-up - The venue's website describes their choice of fabrics as sumptuous, which I'd probably agree with.

We were shown to our seats by a very agreeable gentleman who provided menus and offered to take my coats and so forth, which I politely declined for 'reasons'. After a very short delay, a young lady appeared to take our wine order and I let the Mehmsahib choose from the copious menu (Seeing as I have little or no use left in the tastebuds that register wine after that sordid incident in Mozambique) After assisting Mrs Dandy in the pronunciation of her wine choice, she educated us as to how the whole 'Tapas thing' works.

How the whole 'Tapas thing' works.

• Tapas is for sharing, it is more of an experience than it is technically a meal.
• Well, I mean, it is a meal, obviously.. But.. you know, just go with it
• There is a bread / nibbles menu (that you or I might call appetisers / starters, because we are all old)
• Then the main menu is comprised of small dishes that just 'appear' throughout your meal for however many people there are at your table to share.
• You should get 2 or 3 dishes per person
• You keep eating until you run out of plates and / or money
• Then you pay, whilst stifling a silent prayer to your bank balance

On the whole, our experience was hugely enjoyable, the food was excellent, the staff were polite, helpful, interesting, tattooed and one even had wonderfully dyed electric blue hair (I'm presuming it was dyed... The one joy of being the IT Manager for an International Hairdresser is that you can often recognise dyed hair when you see it) - There follows a small rundown of the dishes that we actually had:

• Mixed Olives (Manzanilla, Gordal & Nocellara)
• Catalan Bread (topped with tomato, garlic & herbs)
• Crispy pork belly with fermented radish & nectarine mustard
• Triple cooked Patatas Bravas 
• Barbecued Cauliflower
• There was a lamb thing too... (which I can't find on the online menu, I think it had quails eggs on it)
• And also some kind of omelet (Which may or may not have been served with a foam or a reduction or something, I forget)

But every single dish was perfectly cooked, presented and served.  On the whole the venue was stunning - If I knew anyone that I wanted to impress, I would certainly bring them here.

It seems like the sort of place where you could happily take a different young lady every week and the only reaction that you would get from the staff would be a knowing wink... Presuming of course that you tipped them royally.  Otherwise, they'd be all up in your grill like a maddened badger, maybe, that's just a guess though in fairness.

Great place, great food, great people.- I understand that they also have a location in Nottingham, although why anyone would want to go there is beyond me.

You know how the smallest thing can trigger a memory?

I was driving to work this morning, thinking how lucky I was that it only takes an hour and a half and that it’s payday tomorrow. When Status Quo came on Radio 2 (I listen to Radio 2 because I am old, and bald, and fat – and because one day, Chris Evans might make reference to the two books that I sent for him and the team to have a read of – But I shan’t be holding my breath, because: implied advertising / BBC / not in this day and age / Oh blimey no, more than my job’s worth.)

And it certainly wouldn’t happen this week (or next week) as he’s currently off and Sara Cox is filling in for him – And it’s his Birthday today (1/4/15 – April Fool’s day… Figures)– Happy Birthday Chap

So, got hit a bit with the tangent-bat there didn’t we?  Back to The Quo.  Now, I can’t actually remember which track it was that they played.  It wasn’t Caroline, or Rocking all over the World and in fairness it doesn’t matter as my vision did the whole ‘biddle-biddle-biddle’ thing and I was transported back to 1985 and a sticky-floored nightclub in Derby called…

The Rockhouse…

Now, I’ve spoken about The Rockhouse before, if you remember it’s where those nice, friendly ladies, Rockbitch, played and my gibbon-armed colleague managed to investigate their anatomy quite closely a few times. In the late 80’s – early 90’s. It was pretty much my second home.  I had a lot of ‘experiences' there, but the one that came to mind in this particular instance was one that happened most weekends (if a particular instance can happen repeatedly that is)

You know a particular song that has a dance routine?  I’m thinking of things like The Macarena and suchlike.  Or how in any given Hollywood film that features a dance-number there’s a bit where all the ‘normal’ extras clear off and are replaced by ‘super-pretty’ extras who launch into a spectacularly choreographed routine featuring a song that the leading man has only just written?

There’d be a time when the DJ would play Status Quo… Any Status Quo track would do*, and two lines of greasy biker/rocker/grebo types would line up facing each other like the chorus line of Mad-Max the musical and ‘spread’ – Now you’ve probably seen this dance even if you’ve not known what it is, it happens a lot at birthday discos for 40 & 50 somethings and wedding receptions where the just-pre-elderly enjoy embarrassing the youngsters. It consists of a number of people (Well, I suppose one person can spread, but it’s probably the saddest sight in the world) standing, facing each other and then sort of moving the top half of their bodies, forcefully, left and right with the beat whilst leaving their bottom halves immobile.

I’m not describing this hugely well am I?

But you know what I mean right?  Believe it or not, there was a hierarchy of ‘spreaders’…

Right at the bottom were the ‘swayers’ – The people who really didn’t know what was going on and just wanted to be part of something larger than themselves. They would look, nervously, along the spreading line whilst flopping about whilst repeatedly falling out of time with everyone else.  They were often felled by impromptu accidental head-butts.  I guess that you’d call them n00bs nowadays.

Then you had the ‘loopers’ – The ones who put their thumbs in the belt-loops of their jeans as they had seen on Top of the Pops the week before… This was a common misunderstanding by ‘trendies’ and this was a dance more associated with the bands The Bay City Rollers & Mudd in the previous decade.  This is the style you’d mostly see at parties.

Then, above the ‘loopers’ by quite a large amount, were the ‘punchers’. These were the first rank of ‘real’ spreaders.  The dance itself was very simple, you twisted to the right for two beats, looking down, then moved your head/hands to the upper left for a beat, then to the upper right for a beat, then down and left for two beats (Repeat ad nauseum – sometimes quite literally) – A ‘puncher’ is identified by a punching motion during the upper two beats, often with the opposite hand.  Occasionally, people stood next to punchers were rendered unconscious due to standing too close… More often than not, during a guitar solo.

Right at the top of the tree you have the ‘Ninjas’ or ‘Aces’ – These people are the elite.  They’ve been spreading to Status Quo songs since before Frank & Ricky were touring in Frank’s Dad’s Ice-Cream van singing about Matchstick men.  Their bodies move like heated quicksilver, they watch with impunity as the people next to them in line fall to the floor in exhaustion.  Where ‘punchers’ punched the air, the ‘ninjas’ would use an open hand in such graceful movements as ‘clearing away the mystic wind’ and the ever popular ‘if you only touch it gently, it’s not technically masturbation’.  There was no sweating from them, no heavy breathing, and no excuses.  And you could tell who they were even if they weren’t dancing for two easily spotted tell-tale features:

1. 1)      They wore crowns and ermine capes – A bit like Freddie Mercury’s
2. 2)      They had ‘trap’ muscles (the ones that join your head to your shoulders) like a steroid-addled cardassian weight-lifter from all of the forcefull bobbing about

I’m proud to say I was eventually one of their number, it took me years to work my way from being a humble ‘swayer’ through the ranks of myriad ‘punchers’ to the heady heights of ‘Ninja’dom. 

What did it earn me, other than the undying respect of my peers? you ask.

Well I'll tell you...

I could legally ask one of the lower ranked customers to give me a piggy-back across the 18” of flooded gents’ toilet.  And they told me who could turn off the security cameras whilst I became ‘better acquainted’ with various young ladies on the fire escape outside, rather than televising it in HD on the stage projector.

(OK, so technically that only happened once, but it was a very long time ago. And it wasn't to me, honest.)

'They' say you should dance like no-one's watching.  I beg to differ, I say you should dance like everyone's watching, but that might be 'cos I'm a massive show-off - Or a bit of a cock.

Rock-on kids

*and possibly ‘Spirit in the Sky’ by Doctor & the Medics but not all the time. 

\m/ Rockbitch are so NSFW that it's not even funny. \m/

No, seriously guys, I mean... You've read various posts about the pale underbelly of my life... You've read details of events that may even have nipped at the edges of illegality... Actually, you may well have seen the odd post that tore great chunks out illegality and spat it out whilst laughing maniacally and poking at a koala bear with a greased herring.

You've even read about the time I was trapped in a darkened room with a load of wild transvestites, and had my photograph taken for a German Fetish Magazine.

But this one...

It may not be for everyone... You should probably be at least 18 to read this.

And if you've ever been offended by anything, ever, don't read this either.

Don't get me wrong, everything that happened was between consenting adults and whilst money had changed hands... Well... It was still technically just a Gig.

-oOo-

It was just prior to the dawn of the New Millennium, and I was working for a global producer of aeroplane engines during the day, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol at night.

The pub I spent a lot of my time in was The Victoria Inn, opposite the main railway station in Derby which was at the time, and still is, one of the country's leading alternative live music venues.

This particular day, I was having a conversation with the landlord about the bands that he was putting on and the see-saw, swings and roundabouts situation that you get where 'Cover' or 'Tribute' bands are always very popular, but up and coming original bands are a bit more 'honest' but don't drag as many people across the threshold, if you know what I mean.  there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and it all got a bit philosophical until I mentioned a band that I'd only recently heard of, that I thought might well bring in the punters.

They were a bunch of melodious young ladies who sailed under the sobriquet of 'RockBitch'

Do feel free to Google them, but maybe not from a PC at your place of work.

For those of a shy (or quite sensible) disposition, I will give you a quick rundown of the, now sadly defunct, band.

They were a group of young ladies, who I believe at the time all lived together in a polyamorous, pagan, feminist community based in a chateaux, somewhere in France. They all knew each other very, very well. And were not hugely shy about showing their friendliness towards each other on or off stage.  In fact, they weren't shy about showing their friendliness towards themselves either.  In their spare time, they played pagan, feminist, empowering rock music... Which, if I'm honest relied more on the fact that they didn't wear very much than on any huge technical ability, don't get me wrong, they all knew how to play their respective instruments but, well, you know, boobs 'n' stuff.

Fast forwarding a month or so, the band was booked and it was discovered that 'The Vic' wasn't big enough to deal with the number of perverts that had said that they were interested in buying tickets, so a deal was struck with a local Rock club, 'The Rockhouse' to host the gig.

Then someone 'leaked' to the local paper that an all-girl hardcore sex-show was coming to the peaceful little hamlet of Derby-on-Derwent, which generated a potload of free publicity and increased the number of interested parties no end - Everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the gig to get cancelled, and everyone was very surprised when it wasn't.

I had the bright idea of getting some of my workmates to attend, as I'd been trying to get them to come out for a beer for a while, most of them were contractors who only lived locally during the week and went home to their loved ones at the weekend, and would otherwise just have been say in their digs, staring at the 1950s wallpaper and drinking 'Happy Shopper' lager.  To a man, they all said 'Yes'. (Please note, one of my workmates was almost seven feet tall, remember this, it pops up later)

The Gig Itself...

Now, I've seen the 'band' at the same venue twice now, once with Mrs Dandy and once without, and I can't for the life of me remember which time this was, I'm sure she'll remind me later, not that it matters hugely I suppose.

It all started off fairly normally, I suppose the band were gauging their audience and the stage was about 40 deep with 99.5% men,crammed together so tightly that you couldn't get a cigarette-paper between them. 

I remember looking at the back of this one chaps head and thinking, "why has that guy got a swimming cap on?' It was only when he turned that I saw the anatomically improbable phallus protruding from the front of it which the lead guitarist 'perched herself upon' repeatedly at various points during the evening.  

There were a couple of moments where the band members 'Openly celebrated each others femininity' via the medium of digital manipulation (No, I don't mean Photoshop) Which, if I remember correctly, raised more applause than any of the songs.

Then about halfway through the show, everything kind of stopped... The vocalist (who was excitingly named 'The Beast') called for quiet and produced from somewhere (She didn't have any pockets that I could make out) a condom, in a golden wrapper, which she held high in the air.  there was a short speech about female empowerment, women's rights to enjoy themselves however they saw fit and all sorts of other things that no-one was particularly listening to.

She then cast the item like a prophylactic Frisbee into the crowd.

Remember my altitudinally blessed colleague?  Well, he reached out one of his baboon like arms and plucked it, unthinkingly, from the air. (I kept my hands firmly by my sides through the entire sordid ordeal, obviously)

He grinned gormlessly at me and shouted into my ear, 'What did I win?' - I pointed at the band, who were all alternating between frantically gesturing him forward and doing that over-the-head handclap and shouting 'Woo' thing.

What he'd won, as some of you may already know (especially those of you who ignored my advice and Googled the band) was to spend the time that it took the band to play the next song, with an extended guitar solo, in the dressing room, in flagrante delicto, with a member of the band.  He toddled towards the stage, and was led away by a pretty young lady who looked him up and down as if trying to work out whether he was totally in proportion or not.

It seems that he probably was, as she came out as the song was drawing to a close, naked but for her boots, and asked them to play it over again.

-oOo-

These are the wonderful ladies from around the time in question, sorry it's not a great photograph, but it's quite difficult to find a decent picture where they're actually wearing clothes.

What? you were expecting them to be ugly?

New balls please.

Should you ever see me in the street, (and that sort of counts on you knowing who I am I suppose) what would the first thought be?

Would it be 'I say, he's reasonably tall.' or 'What a splendid beard that man has, I shall make it my life's work to become his faithful man/woman servant.' or 'What was that awful baconny smell?'

One thing it probably wouldn't be is 'That fine figure of a man there, is a natural sportsman, I should bow down before him in supplication and offer him the unfettered use of my clothing optional hot-tub.'

And that's because I'm not.  My frame is not what you'd describe as streamlined (apart from my head that is). My musculature, such as it was, has become flaccid through lack of use, and I sometimes get a bit out of breath thinking about chips.

But believe it or not, at one time, not only was I an avid sportsman who played thrice weekly, but I was captain of not one, but two top (ish) of the league sports teams at the same time.  I can virtually smell your surprise from here.

It all began around twenty-five years ago in a bar called The Old Silk Mill (As previously mentioned HERE).

I was sat there, one Saturday lunchtime, with my then girlfriend, when the landlord wandered over to the noticeboard and pinned an A4 piece of paper to it. It was the sign-up sheet for the new pool team.  Within a week or so, many names were added to this list and we went onto some limited success.  In fairness a number of the limitations we faced involved a few of the team being under the influence of certain substances that may be frowned upon in polite society.  It was a fairly regular occurrence that we would have to take nine players to a match that required seven in case someone started rocking backwards and forwards in the corner having 'shroom flashbacks and another person found themselves unable to play because the table was covered in tiny, multi-coloured horses with tusks, wearing snowshoes.

But we had some truly great players.  Our original Captain, Billy B, was a borderline psychotic, who looked like a dark haired cross between Professor Mick Aston from Timeteam and Rasputin, who would strut around the table with both his prehensile knees and eyes pointing in many different directions at once.  he mumbled to himself all the time whilst executing some truly physics defying shots and he would often turn around and laugh uncontrolably in the face of his opponent in the style of a pirate.

His sister, Louise, also played for us. It would be difficult to find two siblings that were more different in outlook (or any other email system for that matter).  Where Billy was manic, Louise was calculating.  She would look at all the balls on the table from all angles before every shot and was the closest thing to a Cyber(wo)man that I've ever seen. Fine pool player, especially where performing 'snookers' was concerned.  In fact, she only ever lost it when she made a mistake that lost her the match - Then... Well... Have you seen Bladerunner? With Harrison Ford? You know the bit where Daryl Hannah's character Pris was 'retired'? Well, that.

Louise had a female life partner (or whatever the politically correct term is this week) called Annie who was a natural pool player and a great mate who would wander around the table, taking great shot after great shot, taking multiple swigs from her pint, and bringing the generally masculinity of her opponent into question and then mercilessly barracking him until he cried.

We also had Sam, and her boyfriend Sam (Yes, it did sometimes get confusing) who we would usually try to put on in the last match, the spot usually saved for the Captains to play each other... Although it was more of a guideline than an actual rule really.  We would wait for the last player from their team to come to the table, if he was small, and seemed to be easily intimidated, Male Sam would play, and win without speaking a single word.  If he seemed to be confident, the sort of man who would have had his own cue cut from a single piece of antique wood, salvaged from the wreck of a viking longship, Female Sam would play - Not straight away of course, she would have a bit of a stretch, declare that her blouse was a bit restrictive and then look her opponent directly in the eyes whilst she slowly undid as many buttons as she needed to to let him know that she had 'forgotten' to wear a bra that day.  Then she'd win. Thinking about it, that might have technically been cheating I suppose.

Now, I'm going to stop there, because this is in danger of just turning into a list of people that I knew at the end of the 80's.  Suffice it to say that, obviously, the blindingly famous SMick was in the team, as was my other professionally Scottish friend Jock, who is, as I've mentioned before, sadly no longer with us.  Suffice it to say that it was like an outside broadcast featuring The Addams Family every time we went to a different pub to play one of our 'Away' matches.

Over a few seasons, things changed, as they so often do. old players left and new ones joined. In fact, Billy B himself left to concentrate his chemical experimentation and because I was the only one not to say 'no' when he tried to appoint a replacement Captain, I got the job.  A couple of other major things changed too.  One was that there had, for a long time, been complaints in 'The League' about sexism and misogyny, so a separate 'Ladies' league was started (Our team was Captained by my then girlfriend) and The Silk Mill changed hands, it's new owner instantly deciding that his first order of business would be to get rid of all the dirty bikers and turn the place into one of those awful, homogeneous city centre pubs with microwaved (but still described as homecooked) food.

So we moved, to The Station Inn, mentioned in the SMick story linked above, and presented them with at first two and then three ready made teams. We stayed there for many years, in fact, if you visit there to this day, you will see many of the trophies that we won still proudly displayed.

The teams continued to change, the supremely gullible Steve, joined the team that we now had to call the 'Mixed' team because:

a) It had both male and female members
b) You weren't allowed to call it the 'Men's' team, because that would be sexist.

But all this isn't exactly getting us to where I was Captain of two sports teams is it?  The emotional rollercoaster that was my love life took an excitingly depressing downturn in 1991, where my then girlfriend, and Captain of the ladies team, found solace in the arms (amongst other things) of another, as hinted at in this post HERE - So, I did what any self respecting man would do under those circumstances:

I became the Captain of the Ladies team too.

So, Thursdays and Sundays I would go to the pub, get drunk and play pool with my friends (both male and female) and on Tuesdays I would go to the pub, get drunk and watch ten girls, between eighteen and thirty, bend over a pool table for two hours.  It took my mind right off the heartbreak situation that I'd just been through I can tell you.

And for our less gentlemanly male readers, whose minds are racing with all sorts of interesting possibilities...

Yes, two, but not at the same time.

Unpaid Review: The Cardamom Club, Derby

You know how I'm always banging on about something?

Whether it's how the Blog's not very popular, or how I'm not really doing enough to the book with having a day-job and everything?

Well, I was comparing this to lots of other Blogs and I've noticed that a lot of the 'popular' ones review stuff... Companies actually send them stuff to review.  Don't know how that would work out here obviously, as a lot of you know, I'm not particularly 'corporate', I like to call a spade a spade and so-forth.

I figured that the only way I'd see if I could write a review, was to actually write one, and see what happens, see if it parts any velvet ropes, see if I get inundated with offers to test hand lotion or man-sized tissues (But not a the same time, if Mr Cameron has his way)

I'm going to review the restaurant I visited last Thursday, for myself and Mrs Dandy's fifteenth wedding anniversary. (I know right, you don't get fifteen years for Murder nowadays!)

-oOo-

The Cardamom Club

Indian Fine Dining Restaurant - Racecourse Park

Sir Frank Whittle Road - Derby.

First of all, let me just say that the chap who owns this restaurant also owns a company that I used to work for - The company with the haunted offices and the vending machine with the undocumented gamble feature - And some of the people that worked with me there, just happened to be in the restaurant when I visited.

Whether this impacted on the quality of my experience... Well, I couldn't possibly comment.

First impressions? Well, It's a part of the complex that houses the local Days Hotel and I must admit to being worried initially that it might just be the 'Dining Room' for the hotel.  I've spent a significant part of my working life staying in hotels all over the country where you have to go 'next door' for your breakfast and dinner of an evening.  This is not the case here, The Cardamom Club is definitely a restaurant in its own right.

Pulling up in the car-park, I noticed the owner's Bentley parked outside, so I had an idea that the staff would be on their best behaviour - It might be worth me trying again when he's not there, just to get a balanced view and see if things are any different 'when the cat's away'.

As you walk through the main entrance you are hit by the opulence of the surroundings.  From the fountains in the lobby to the gleam from all of the polished surfaces, it was easy to forget that you were on a commercial estate, half a mile from the city centre.

We had arrived purposely early, so that we could sample the hospitality and try some cocktails, which were very, very good.  There was only one fly in  the ointment, last Thursday was one of the hottest days since time began, even when Derby was an active volcano and pterodactyls ruled the sky, it wasn't as hot as it was on 18/07/13.  Unfortunately, it was on this fateful day that the air-conditioning had decided to go on the fritz.  Fair play to the team, there was an air-con engineer on site and he managed to get everything working again within the hour.

The Staff: Everyone who had anything to do with our experience, whether it was simply showing us to our table, taking our order, delivering food and drink, or making sure we were OK were excellent.  We never felt pressured, or neglected, the staff struck a fine balance between availability and unobtrusiveness.

The Food: We shared a platter of mixed Indian starters, with onion bhaji, kofte kebabs, lamb cutlets and fish tikka - This was excellent, it was a huge amount of food for a starter and if I had not been so hungry, this would quite easily have been enough for me.  However, I had purposely been starving myself since March (Well, bikini season is coming up), so I was happy to wait the few minutes that it took for the mains to arrive - And I'm not being sarcastic there, (Which is odd for me) the main courses arrived quite literally, minutes after the starters had been cleared away.

For main, I had the Lamb Saag - One of my favourite flavour combinations, the Memsahib had the Lamb Roganjosh (Coloured to a wonderful red with Rattanjot) and both were superb, probably the best Indian food that I've ever eaten (and I've eaten a LOT of Indian food.) - We both had Naan bread, as is the custom, and my Keema Naan... Well, I don't know if you've had Keema Naan before but it's effectively a Naan (I know, Who'd have thought it?) filled with minced meat, usually mutton, but it really doesn't have to be - And from every Indian takeaway I've ever been to, the filling has been macerated to the point where it looks like the bits of donner meat that even the lower end restaurants would give to the dog... But this was real, minced meat, with real spices, which fell like spicy rain from the Naan when you tore it open - I will probably never see its like again... Which is a real shame, because I've been forever spoiled and cannot eat anything else now.

We finished the meal (or so we thought) with a Dark Chocolate and a Mango and Cardamom Ice-Cream, which was also excellent and then made ready to pay the bill.
But no! - What actually happened was that we were presented with a cake, on a decorated platter, wishing us a happy 15th anniversary and then we had our pictures taken (Which has now been posted on their Facebook page)

Funny Story: The young Asian lady you can see in that picture, dressed in pink was horrified when the side-dish of her (I presume) fish curry was a basket of Whitebait, and that Whitebait were little fish, and that little fish had eyes! - Well, it made me chuckle anyway.

The Bill: OK, now we get to the bad bit, the bit everyone dreads, the moment when you open that little leatherette folder and scan down the receipt to the number with the most digits and start to cry.  I was expecting it to be a fairly big number, and I wasn't disappointed.  What you have to remember is that this isn't an Indian Restaurant... Well, I mean, obviously, it is an Indian Restaurant... But it's a fine dining restaurant.  The average price of a main meal is about £17 (going up to £50 if you fancy the lobster) - So you might not want to go the week before payday when you're looking underneath the sofa cushions for coppers.  But saying that, it was a fair price for what you actually get if you factor in the quality of the food and the impeccable service.  All I'll say is that if you take a 'friend' then you'd do well to not expect a lot of change from £100.  I'd take, maybe twice that if you're trying to get your friend drunk for any reason, not that you should have to... If you've taken a member of the opposite sex for a meal here, their enjoyment and any possible show of appreciation, is virtually guaranteed.

-oOo-

So, that's my first review, hope you enjoyed it.

If you have an item or service that you would like to get reviewed by The Chimping Dandy, feel free to get in touch.  I'm open and honest.  Conversely, if you want to review The Chimping Dandy, you could do that too - People have you know, and they thought I was great!

Edge-Lit 2 and Shameless Plugging

Well, that was a bit of a weekend chaps wasn't it?  Highest temperatures ever recorded on any planet in the known universe ever (Including that really hot day that we had on Mercury in August 1976 - Phew! what a scorcher - as I believe I said to Bremzag the Unclean, First grade Chinwok of the Mercurial Royal Family, at the time.)

So what did you do?  I'll bet it involved being outside, possibly burning some meat, whilst wearing inappropriate clothing... Whether the meat you were burning was your own, or came from an ultimately more bovine or porcine source is neither here nor there and essentially is between you and your Priest / Shaman / Robotic Richard Dawkins impersonator...

I spent a number of hours on Saturday in one of those modern, glass eco-friendly hippy buildings that people are so fond of building nowadays.  You know the ones, they never look finished and they've all got passive air-conditioning - In as much as when it's hot, they open a window and when it's cold, they offer to sell you genuine foraged alpaca wool ponchos and all the money made gets put towards a charity concerned with re-homing the fifth generation offspring of itinerant Turkish pit-ponies.

I was at the Edge-Lit 2 Convention(?) in Derby - (Please note, the question mark there isn't meant to imply that I wasn't exactly sure where I was - I knew where I was... At first, but I wasn't sure if convention was the right word - Never been to one you see.  I'd always thought the word convention implied CosPlay.  There was sadly no CosPlay, not that I noticed at least).

I got there nice and early, as it was also to be the day that I, your kilt-wearing hero, was to finally meet the Internationally accepted God of Flash Fiction, James Josiah and Neil Sehmbhy the Supremo Author of the upcoming The Corporation, Jinx and Sunder Wars books.  Now, because of the unusual way that the Internet works, I've know these guys really well for ages, but I've never actually met either of them in the flesh as it were.  They're both thoroughly nice chaps though, you should go and follow them now... Go, do it now.

So, we went in, with a fair amount of trepidation if I'm honest, none of us knowing really what to expect, and registered.  We were given a 'goodie bag' of frankly excellent books (Which more than covered the price of entry), a sheet of A4 paper with some words on it and a name-badge for us to fill in ourselves - I considered filling it in humorously, but as there was only the one pen, and a queue of sweaty Sci-Fi/Horror types behind me, I just wrote my real name and the name of this blog.  I noticed that some people wrote their life stories on theirs, reams of added paper disappearing into the distance making them look like the personification of 'Snake' on an early Nokia phone - Seriously, there was this one guy with a particularly long trail, during some confusion about which room he needed to be in for a particular Author panel, he crossed the streams, created a Moebius and immediately flipped into another dimension - His memorial service was lovely, we nicked some tulips from the traffic island outside, I cried.

We attended a couple of Writers' Panels, one on 'World-Building', which was where published authors talked about how they went about creating the background for where their books are set, the stage on which their characters perform.  It was really good, not just in that it gave me a couple of great ideas for how to improve the 'Edward Teach' Stories, but it showed me that no two authors do anything in the same way - Everyone pretty much just makes it up as they go along - It really filled me with confidence.

The next was on 'The future of Fantasy' and was quite interesting in a 'blue-sky thinking' / 'I'm just pulling this out of my rectum' kind of way.  But the number one, double diamond, glittering ruby, shaped like a cherry on the top of a birthday cake made of pureed Angelina Jolie and solid gold hundreds and thousands thing about this was the questions from the audience section.  OK, so a couple of people made salient points with real, erudite questions about the possible future of a widely unknowable medium, and the panel did their best to answer them.  But the guy who asked the last question was an absolute gem, I assume he was writing a book, he was very keen... Very, very keen... and very excitable... Very, very excitable.  I only picked up about one in every three words because he was talking so quickly, but there was something about people having brands or tattoos on their backs that specified who they were, I think, and rather than ask a question, he sort of gave us all a warp 7 synopsis of the book, it was a joy to see five professional authors sat there with their mouths open whilst they were bombarded by a wall of... erm... well... I'm not exactly sure what it was a wall of, but the three of us spent the afternoon trying to fill in the blanks, our ideas got more and more outlandish after every pint.

You see, for us, this is where it all went a bit pear shaped.  We went to the pub at lunchtime, nice place, The Brewery Tap (or Royal Standard if you're old like me.) just down the road - Does nice beer and snacks... And we looked at the running order to see when we needed to be back, it turned out that we had almost two hours to kill, so we had a few pints and wandered back to the venue in plenty of time - Only to find that the sheet of A4 paper that we'd all been given when we'd walked in was a list of changes... And pretty much everything that we'd planned on doing / seeing was now either full or all on at the same time... So we did the only noble thing we could - We had a go on the raffle, had a chat to a new local publisher who may have been looking for fresh talent *cough* and then went back to the pub for a couple of hours.

Then I woke up on the floor at home, with my kilt up around my waist, with no real recollection of how I got there or what the burning sensation was.

All in all, a great day - I would definitely recommend Edge-Lit 3 in 2014 (should there be one, which I hope there is)

-oOo-

Ages and ages and ages ago, I mentioned that there may be some Chimping Dandy merchandise in the works... Well, I have struck a deal with New, up and coming merchandising company Hash Togs to provide things, clothing, phone backs, mugs and other stuff no doubt that bear the Seedy the Pangolin logo - Here is a T-Shirt that I have - You can buy one for yourself for a measly tenner:

This is on the Back

This is on the front

They've very kindly supplied me with a phone back for my iPhone too, but as I have fingers like sausages, I couldn't get it off to take a photo of it, I will need to let the MiniDandy to explore it with her arachnid-style digits later on.  They deliver really quickly, the proprietor is not not completely mental and they will quite happily do whatever your little heart desires on whatever your little heart desires (within reason - They won't print a haddock on a live pig, but only because they can't get it through the presses without it making a helluva noise.

And yes, they paid me to say that, but in fairness I would have said it anyway. (So I win that transaction - Mwahahaahahhahahaha!)

For any questions, quotes etc. please get in touch with these guys, not me, because my stock answer will be huh?

They're on Facebook here - Hash Togs on Facebook
Or you can eMail them Here - Hash Togs eMail

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)

No, chopper as in motorcycle - And Greeks.

In the good old days (for new readers, the 'Good Old Days' was a time, in the past, some 20 or so years ago, where my life involved more beer, more motorcycles and more morally challenged young ladies) there was a Greek restaurant around the corner from our local.  We used to go there on Saturday and Sunday nights, mainly because they used to serve alcohol until about three in the morning and they had a very novel 'Buy two drinks, get one free' deal going on most of the time.

It was called the Village Taverna and run by a chap whom we called called 'Gleekos', which may have actually been his name, but it's more likely one of those playfully racist names that the English gave to people of differing racial backgrounds at the time. He used to wander between his restaurant, the pub and the betting shop bellowing a hearty 'Hey You!' and wave at anyone who acknowledged him.

I think it's a Spanish Tapas bar now, which is a pity - Their Mezzes used to be legendary, well, we used to like them, but I've never actually been there sober, so they could have been made out of cardboard and fish-paste for all I know.   Anyway - To the stories.

-oOo-

Because he was a generous type, had lots of experience with drunks (His wife used to throw them out for him, he was only little) and was one of the few Greek Tavernas that still did plate-smashing, he was very popular with stag parties.  You would often wander past, look through the windows and see crowds of apes in football shirts hooning plates at each other, whilst Gleekos ran around like Woody Woodpecker with his hair on fire, shouting 'No dee surfing playt! - We god da spesh playt for dee smashinge!'

On this particular night, we left the pub and decided to go for a quick stifado and a couple of bottles of retsina.  As we pushed through the little door into the restaurant, it was obvious that there had been a stag night going on.  Gleekos had pushed three tables together and there were slumped bodies all over them.  The man himself was sat on a stool by the bar, rocking backwards and forwards saying 'My byootifull playt, I say no smashinge the surfing playt, they smashinge innit?, iz like they no hears me or sutin.'

We found a table, ordered some drinks and started to take the mickey out of the drunks.  Now, in the dim and distant past, the restaurant had probably been a private house for some 19th Century mid-range toff and the upstairs (where the toilets were) was a bit of a maze. This is something you need to bear in mind for the next bit.

So we were sat there, happily drinking, enjoying a bit of houmous and pitta and suchlike (which we got free because we spent so much money there) when it started to rain.  You know when you're sat there, on a park bench, admiring the view, and you feel the first few drips of rain and you think 'If it gets any harder, I might go home'?  Well, the same was happening to us, but we were in a Greek restaurant, at just before midnight, on a Saturday, indoors.

It took us a few minutes to actually register that we were getting wet, and we called Gleekos across saying 'It's raining mate!'

He lifted his palms to the ceiling, agreed that it was indeed raining and then traced the water to a ceiling fan that was quickly spinning, and flinging water off the ends of the blades.

(Worked it out yet?)

So, he explodes in panic 'Ah godda leak, innit?' and runs upstairs to see if someone had left a tap on.  He came down minutes later, holding a drunk dude by the scuff of his neck, jibbering away at him in Greek and clipping him around the ear.  Turns out that the poor drunk chap had been looking for the gents, couldn't find it, and just decided to relieve himself in a corner.

It had gone through the floorboards, onto the ground floor ceiling and had found its way to the fan housing, which it then dripped down and onto the blades...

-oOo-

This story is completely second hand, told to me by my good friend Jock.

This is him, accepting a trophy for 'Best Chop' at the HAMC's 2006 Bulldog Bash, unfortunately for everyone who knew him, he died shortly afterwards.  I've included the picture to give you some idea of scale in the story that follows.

Jock belonged to a group of like-minded motorcycle enthusiasts called the National Chopper Club.  They would meet socially, very regularly and... How shall we put it? Knew how to have a good time.  He knew Gleekos, as all of us did, which made his restaurant an obvious choice for one of their many robust social gatherings.  It started out very sensibly, there was food and beer, then food and wine, then ouzo and wine, then ouzo, then Mr Sensible picked up his bowler hat, umbrella and briefcase, and left the building.

Sometime during the evening, two middle aged couples had come into the taverna and had chosen to sit as far as was humanly possible from the NCC lads.  All fine and dandy so far, you might think, and it was, until Gleekos started playing 'Zorba's Dance' on the stereo, brought out the 'spesh' smashing plates and it all went a bit 'Anthony Quinn'

(Bit of trivia for you here, Anthony Quinn, who played Zorba in the 1964 film, was actually Mexican... Born in Chihuahua - You've learned something - Thank me later)

So, spurred on by the thought of smashing plates and general pratting about, our heroes decided to have a bit of a dance.  Despite Gleekos' best efforts, it quickly degenerated from a traditional Greek-Cypriot folk dance, to something more like a Bad-Manners inspired can-can.

It was at this point that Jock noticed that one of the women was clapping along - and he did no more than wander over, grab hold of her, and drag her into the pile of broken crockery that had previously been the dance-floor - More dancing ensued, with the mature, but still attractive lady teaching the bikers how to dance.  After the tune was over, Jock escorted her back to her table, politely pulled out her chair for her and thanked her for the dance.

Her husband, who had gone quite purple and sweaty remarked, 'You've done well to get her dancing.' With a fixed, rictus grin.

To which Jock replied, 'Ah don' know whut yer grinning aboot flower, after ah've had a pish, you're next.'

By the time he came back, both couples had, probably not surprisingly, made their excuses and left.

When Jock awoke the next morning, in his own bed, he wasn't alone...

You're assuming that his dance partner had returned aren't you?

Well, I'm afraid she hadn't.  Jock was sharing his bed with a 4 foot square mirror, that had previously been screwed to the wall of the taverna.  Up until the last time I spoke to him, he still had no idea of how or why it'd gone home with him, or why he'd particularly felt the need to take it to bed.  Feel free to fill in the blanks yourselves - You probably won't be that far from the truth, however perverse you are.



I must extend a thank you to Briz at Custom Cycle Developments (Custom Harley Davidson frames and bespoke parts a specialty - Reasonable rates) who provided the above picture of Jock, although he freely admits that he can't remember where he got it in the first place - So, if you actually took it, my apologies, feel free to get in touch and I'll put in a credit for you.

Whaddya fink I am Ricky, some kind of double yolker?

Well, that weekend disappeared with a bit of a whoosh didn't it? If I had hair, it would still quite literally be blowing in the wind of the rapidly receding Sunday night.

Had a nice barbeque, drank some beer, spent an amount of quality time with the family, enjoyed the sun.

All in all, a decent couple of days was had by all, culminating in a selection of real ales in the pub last night with a select few friends and the conversation, as it so often does, turned to having parts of your body chopped off at random.

I didn't start it, there was something about a cow-race and a darts match between people with Special Olympics levels of missing fingers. So I pulled out a story about my maternal Grandfather, which I then realised I hadn't told you.

So sit back, relax, turn the big dial on the front of your Speedos to 'Smug' and listen to a few tales of my Grandad... Frank 'The Butcher'.

Now let's get a few things straight first.  He wasn't an East End Gangster - Although some of the stories might make you think otherwise.  He was a great bloke, and could make anatomically correct, highly polished, farm animals out of pipe-cleaners, cotton wool and glue.  He really was a butcher/Slaughterman and had his own shop in what was the Open Market in Derby (Now, oddly, the Magistrate's Court).

-oOo-

So, the story that started this all off in the first place.

A woman came into the shop one day and asked for a half-dozen lamb chops, and he replied 'I'm sorry madam, but this is a chemist'... Actually, no he didn't, I just added that for a little light relief.  He actually said, 'I haven't got any ready, I'll have to make you some.'  So, he wandered to the store and got out a side of lamb, plonked it on the block and cut off all the bits that weren't the rack (of ribs).

At this point, when he was telling this story, he would hold his hand up and do a sort of Vulcan salute and say 'Now you have to remember, lamb ribs are about as thick as your thumb' - So bear that in mind, it comes in handy in a moment.

He had a system, where he would lay his hand, flat on the lamb's ribs, measure out a rib with his thumb, move his hand, and bring the cleaver down.  Measure, move, chop, measure, move, chop.

You can see where this is going, right?

So, he was halfway down the rack and the customer made a comment about how surprisingly temperate it was for the time of year or how she's just paid a shiny tuppence for a Marcel Wave, which broke his concentration for a second.

His next cycle went: Measure, move, chop, measure, chop, move, OhMyGodWhereDidAllThatBloodComeFrom, IsThatMyThumb?I'veCutMyThumbOffArrgh!

He packed it in ice, and got taken to the hospital, where they sewed it back on, although as this was the late forties, he never got much of the use of it back.

Cool scar though, a white ring, all the way around his thumb - He used to wave it at me, his 'Frank-enstein' thumb.

-oOo-

Those of you who have ever been an apprentice, or have been the newbie (as I believe that it's termed now) may have been the butt of one of the many traditional 'pranks' in the workplace.  Generations of people have been sent out to get some tartan paint, or a new bubble for a spirit level, or my own personal favourite - One that I have suffered myself, being told to go to the stores for 'a long weight'... Whereby I mooched around for an hour and a half, being sniggered at, before realising that it was, in fact, 'a long wait.'

Anywho, it seems that the wonderful world of butchery has its own traditions.  One of which is the legend of the 'Electric Fat', which went a little something like this.

It is said, that very occasionally, a cow can build up a static electrical charge in its suet (The hard fat that collects around the loin) by constantly rubbing up against the other cows in the pen, in the manner of rubbing a balloon against your jumper. With the hilarious consequence of making your hair stand on end when you touched it.  If you found a cow with Electric Fat, it showed you were a real butcher, you would be bought a pint, and back-slapping would ensue.

So, one day, Grandad Frank's apprentice was asked to check some cow carcasses that had just been skinned.  He gave them a once-over for any obvious blemishes etc, or bits that needed trimming off and pronounced them fine.

'Hey,' Called Frank, whilst attracting the attention of the rest of the gang, 'Have you checked them for Electric Fat?'

'No,' replied the apprentice, 'How do I do that?'

So, Frank showed him how you firmly grasped the carcass, one hand either side of its 'waist' (They were hanging up), and explained that if the fat was, indeed, electric, then he'd get a mild static shock.

He grasped the first one - expecting a shock, nothing, the second, nothing, as he grabbed the third one, Frank touched an electric cattleprod to the carcass.  Seemingly, the jolt knocked the poor apprentice onto his backside, but as promised, it did make his hair stand on end.

-oOo-

As Frank was a registered slaughterman, he often used to be called upon by local vets to 'Deal with' large farm animals that were in pain or had become unmanageable and were therefore a threat to their owners, and anyone else stupid enough to try and share a field with them. Dealing with them mostly involved them being introduced to a significant amount of lead shot at fairly short range, accompanied by a loud bang.

In the early 40's, he went to a local farm to deal with a bull, which had become... upset... And needed to join its ancestors in the big rolling field in the sky.  He met with the vet who said that he'd considered administering a lethal injection, but that idea was discarded when it was plain the animal in question had, as the vet put it, 'Gone completely bloody loopy,' and the chances of him getting in the field with it to administer it was the same as 'a snowball's chance in hell.'

So Frank took aim at the bull, who at the time was doing a seemingly excellent spinney-roundey rodeo impression, and squeezed off a shell, which hit the bull amidships and had no effect.

Well, I say it had no effect... That might not be strictly true.  As the bull had previously been as mad as a binliner full of camels, it was now all that and in pain too.  So it turned and ran straight at its attacker (And the rapidly defecating vet).

'Shoot it!' Shouted the vet, hiding behind Frank, who was making sure that the butt of the shotgun was pressed deep into his shoulder.

'Shoot it! Shoooot it!' Repeated the vet, only with slightly more urgency, as the bull closed on their position, showing no signs of stopping at the fence.

'Wait.' Said Frank, calmly.  The vet was now so worried that he had run out of his own pants to wet, and was having a go at wetting Frank's.

'ShootItShootItShootItShootItShootIt!' Urged the vet, as the bull was now close enough to be able to smell his fear... In fact, a lot of people in the surrounding area could smell his fear, for a number of days afterwards.

Just before the bull reached the fence, Frank shot it right between the eyes. and it dropped like a stone.  His recollection of the incident was so crisp that he claimed to be able to remember seeing both its ears spiralling off in slow motion in different directions.

Weeks later, he had a visit of a 'Man From The Ministry', threatening him with all sorts of awful things because the leather from that particular herd had been earmarked to make parachute harnesses, and a brave British Soldier might now not be able to jump out of an aeroplane and single handedly win the war against Jerry because that bull had been shot rather than having a lethal injection administered.

Frank referred him to the world's bravest veterinary surgeon, and advised that if he didn't leave the shop toute-suite, he'd gut him like a fish.

-oOo-

And on a more horrific note, remember that story about my Dear Old Mother (When she was still alive) trying to snap my fragile mind by levering her false eye out all over the place?  Well, that wasn't the first completely mental thing she'd ever done.  It seems that she started early.

Frank used to get his meat from a multitude of sources.  One of these included gentlemen who would occasionally drop around the back of the shop with a shotgun and a bag of rabbits, or pheasants.  As these were not covered by 'rationing', he could do a roaring trade in them so he paid a premium, which in turn meant that he got a lot of them sometimes.

My Mum, who was but a young slip of a girl at the time, used to play with the dead bunnies (Wait for it, we haven't got to the shock reveal yet).  And would dress them up in pretty dolls clothes and take them for walks in a big, old, White-Cross pram.  Now, the people of the Market were used to seeing her with her bunnies and gave her a cheery wave as she strolled past, but customers were often 'Taken aback' when they went to stroke the cute little bunnies and found them to be stone cold and very, very, dead.

(Those of you of a fragile disposition, turn away now)

Some were even more... Erm... I hesitate to use the words 'Freaked Out' because it wasn't in use at the time, and I'm a stickler for authenticity, but it will have to do.  When one accidentally saw her changing their clothes and started to scream uncontrollably.

Because they had been skinned, and the only parts of their fragile little bodies that still had fur on, were their heads and their paws.

And yes, she'd skinned them herself.


Explains a lot about me, right?