There's one born every minute

You know what I hate?

Well, yes, stupid people, drivers of black MR2s that sit right up my trumpet going down the A45 this morning, haggis, gardening, chavs, pikies, people with whiny voices, people who eat noisily, shellfish, fruit in curries, drawn-on eyebrows, carrying so many plastic shopping bags that your finger-ends go white, other people's children and the French.

OK, no-one could have expected any of you guys to know that entire list, or the fact that what I'm about to waffle on about isn't actually on it.

At this precise moment in time, the thing that I hate more than anything in the Western World are things like this:

I've blanked out the poor kid's face for a couple of reasons...

1) No-one except possibly a facio-maxillary surgeon really wants to look at a picture of a child that's allegedly been shot in the face.
2) The privacy of the portrayed individual.
3) I have no idea whether this picture is actually of the person described in the text.
4) I have no idea whether the incident described in the text actually happened.

You'll notice that I haven't blanked out the person who posted this originally, as he knowingly posted this update (but without the face obscured, obvs.) and is therefore happy to have his face spattered all over the Internet.

Please note, I, at no point suggest that Mr Gunzmore, who I assume, from his Facebook page, is some kind of up-and-coming rap star, is using this image as some kind of sordid and heartless advertising tool.

So, what do I particularly hate about it?

Well, apart from the things that I enumerated above, and the fact that it's entirely posted in CAPITAL LETTERS and that the grammar is, quite simply, appalling... Let me post the entire text below, for those trying to read it on mobile devices:

-oOo-

14 YEAR OLD BOY WAS SHOT 6 TIMES BY HIS STEPFATHER . THIS BOY WAS PROTECTING HIS LITTLE 6 YEAR OLD SISTER WHO WAS ABOUT TO BE RAPED BY THIS POOR ... EXCUSE OF A MAN . THE LITTLE GIRL DID NOT GET HURT , THANKS TO HER BRAVE OLDER BROTHER . THEIR MOM WAS AT WORK WHEN THIS HAPPENED . NOW THIS BRAVE YOUNG LITTLE BOY IS FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE , BUT DOCTORS SAY HE WILL NOT SURVIVE UNLESS HE GETS AN OPERATION WHICH IS COSTLY AND HIS MOM CANNOT PAY .ALL FACE BOOK COMPANIES HAVE AGREED TO DONATE 45 CENTS FOR EVERY TIME SOMEONE POSTS THIS TO THEIR WALL . SO , PLEASE SHARE THIS ON YOUR WALL . SO , THAT TOGETHER WE CAN HELP SAVE THIS BOYS LIFE .I JUST PASSED THIS MESSAGE DOWN AND "SHARE" FOR A LITTLE LIFE#HUMANITY COSTS NOTHING

NB; My post ain't about likes or shares its all about "humanity and charity service"

‪#‎join‬ US ( only if you cool) ;

Stay blessed world - make peace not WAR !

-oOo-

I have removed the gentleman's link to his Facebook page that Gunzmore put in after the 'Join US (only if you [sic] cool)' message, as leaving that in was just a little too sordid even for me.

So, let's see what is actually says (I'm not going to bother putting the word 'allegedly' in after every statement, you just go ahead and imagine I have, OK?)  So, a fourteen year old boy, trying to stop his Stepfather raping his little sister, gets shot six times.  Let's all take a look at the picture... The fact that you can't see any wounds would say to me that all of the damage in in the bit you can't see, i.e. the face.  Now, I have seen what's in the blanked out area - Don't get me wrong, it's not pretty, and a lot of his head is bandaged but it's more the sort of thing you'd expect to see if the child in question had been beaten with a bat.

The picture itself seems to have been taken in an Emergency Room, where even my rudimentary knowledge of the American Health System, backed up with a good five minutes research on Google, says that treatment for immediate life threatening trauma is free, certainly to a child.  Even the most heartless, jobsworth, doctors will not let a child die as a result of a crime because his parents cannot afford to pay for treatment.

And even if they would...

Facebook WILL NOT donate money to causes that are advertised by individuals in this way.  Mark Zuckerberg (who I really shouldn't have to introduce to you if you're reading this... And if you're not, I'm not going to introduce him out of spite.) regularly makes massive donations of his own money and Facebook shares to Charity.

Unless he means all of the fifteen million or so companies that have a Facebook presence? - The Chimping Dandy was never asked to take part, and neither was the company that currently pays my wages, despite having a number of Facebook pages.

So, We'll tot it up shall we?

There's a crime that may not have happened (+1) perpetrated by and on people who may well not exist (+1) and a boy that was certainly injured, but probably wasn't injured in the way described (+1), who definitely would not be allowed to die for financial reasons (+1) who could not be saved by such a plea, because Facebook doesn't operate like that (+1)

If I've added that up correctly, there are five instances of things you can happily call B*llsh*t on in one badly laid out paragraph without even thinking about it too hard.

So, can someone tell me why it has 358,591 likes, 53,573 comments and has been shared 628,657 times? (at the time of writing at least) - Which if it were true would mean that the un-named child would already have received $161,365.95 - If the 'Facebook Companies' just means Facebook itself, or $2,420,489,250,000.00 (Two and a half Trillion Dollars) if every company on Facebook donates 45c for every Like...

And that's only by Mr Gunzmore's share alone... If every one of the 628,657 people that shared it got a couple of likes, not only would we have saved the boy's life, he would now own the entirety of the known universe.

Does any of this seem a little bit unlikely to you yet?

I mean, it's all a lie, but some lies are at least believable aren't they? 

People can say things like 'No, it's perfectly fine that you used my toothbrush to clean the dog's rectum and took two weeks to tell me, I'll just buy a new one, no biggie.' - You might be able to believe the person who said that, if you were very simple, or if the person whose brush you used was a Buddhist Monk, legally and religiously obliged not to kill you with a rusty spoon.

I don't mean to single out Mr Gunzmore, I'm sure that he's a wonderful person who loves his mother very dearly - We've all seen the pictures of babies with lesions from some terrible illness, and young, dehydrated African children covered in flies that they are too weak to wave away.

They're terrible, and it shouldn't happen... But really, liking the image will not help their plight in the slightest, no-one will donate money to some unspecified cause because of you clicking a mouse and then scrolling down to see a picture of a cat asleep in a shoe.

Share them if you must, to raise awareness of the issue, but do me a favour if you will.

Take the time to see if the story that you're promoting is true, check Snopes Which is a great Urban Legend resource and can let you know with a quick search whether you're going to look an idiot when you press 'Post', and think what it is that you're promoting if it says 'For every like we get, 45c will be donated to the cause.'

Promoting a lie makes you a liar, and I know that no-one who reads The Chimping Dandy would admit to being one of those.

So, as a certain training shoe manufacturer may once have almost said, 'Just Don't Do It.'

 

No, it is not a 'Slow News Day'

So, it's time for a roundup of what's happening with everyone's favourite Immaculately Dressed, Time Stopping, Random CaPiTaliSinG, Super-Villain's Blog.

Well, apart from some cretin in a Black Range-Rover HSE Sport trying to permanently 86 me on the way into work this morning.

(To the gentleman in question, If you were as important as you think you are with your shiny-clean offroader and your personalised plates, you wouldn't need to rush everywhere and cut people up without indicating - Unless of course the post office had put one of those cards through your door telling you that you'd missed delivery of your new penis pump - I can understand your hurry in that case - I mean, it looked like you were sat on a stack of cushions already as you turned right off the island from the left hand lane... And no, the handsignals I made weren't me miming defrosting a frozen stiff snake through vigorous application of friction, they were indicating that I believe you constantly enjoy solitary sexual pleasures, seemingly whilst driving...)

Ahem...

Anyway...

Occasionally, as you know, people occasionally find the Blog whilst looking for something else.  Often they're looking for pornography - After all, that was what the Internet was created for - If you look at early photos of Tim Berners-Lee, the Inventor of the World-Wide-Web, (Before Photoshopping was so popular) you'll see that he has a right fore-arm like Popeye's, so much so that he often goes to Fancy Dress parties as a fiddler crab.

This month has been fairly quiet in that respect, I means, we've had a couple of people - Or possibly the same person twice, finding us by Googling 'Martin Shaw Nude' and someone asked the question 'What happens to the skin with too...' Unfortunately, that's where the report cut off I'm afraid - So I suggest we all take a minute to think what the rest of that entry might be.

Google suggests that they were probably asking 'too dry' or 'too much soda', or my personal favourite 'too many carrots' - But I'm sure it was something cool like 'too much exposure to Gamma Radiation' or 'too many cheap hookers' (I can answer that last one for you, if that was in fact the question... The answer involves the word 'pustules' though, so maybe not at lunchtime.)

We've had a couple of inoffensive ones too 'fruit bat in tree' made me smile, as did 'Patrick McDonald Dandy Wiki' (If you've never heard of Mr McDonald - And there's no reason why should have - Give him a quick Google, he has great cheekbones and dresses Faaaaabulously.)  Someone asked 'dandy (Terrier breed) crossword clue' (I think the word they were looking for was 'Dinmont') and 'Chibs Sons of Anarchy' has raised its big, biker, head again, what with Season 6 due to start at the end of this week.  Of course, we had the ever present instances of people Googling 'TheChimpingDandy.blogspot.com' - I Love you guys, you're all great... nuts, but great.

As far as Geography goes, omitting the hits from the US and the UK, we've had a bucketload of pageviews from Poland, Russia, France and China - And a big Dandy welcome to all of you.  We also seem to have a peak from the Ukraine and the Philippines this week, Ласкаво просимо and maligayang pagdating! to you wonderful people... Please stick with us, sometimes I can be funny and everything - It's not all ranting and spitting into the wind.

it's been just over a month since The Chimping Dandy's Facebook page came online and it's going pretty well - Which is completely down to you guys - There's been a marked increase in traffic, I'm guessing because more people can wangle their way through Facebook than are willing to traverse the Blogosphere on foot with only a bent twig and a water buffalo for company - But it's great, give it a look, give it a like,  It's got all the Blog posts there, with a description of what you can expect to find if you read each one.

Also, there's Merchandising you can buy now, the great people at Hash Togs have kindly done us a deal on shirts and mugs and phone backs and keyrings and stuff,  You can contact them via Facebook or Twitter and I believe that there's a 'Real Website' in the offing, but you'd have to ask them about that - Anywho, the 'Merch' (as I understand the cool kids call it nowadays), involves Seedy the Pangolin, Mascot of the Chimping Dandy - and some words, probably - Feel free to have it personalised to your heart's content.

Please note, I'd appreciate it if the words weren't 'I Hate' or 'Smells of rotting garbage' but any advertising is good advertising I guess.

-oOo-

OK, a quick rundown of the current Top Ten, as chosen by you, you wonderful and freakishly good looking people:

No 10: But it says here... - A bit of a fun poke at those people who think that the words that get said whilst you're worshiping your God of choice are more important that the good things you do every day for everyday people - And why they might be a bit wrong.

No 9: Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps - My ever popular (And the cause of most people who are looking for porn accidentally finding my Blog) post about my Torrid love affair with ASDA / Walmart - WARNING: May contain some mild references to Mrs Dandy's Chesticular area.

No 8: So good to be Viviparous - A Docu-Drama treatment of some leaked documents that may (or may not) have come into my possession about the birth of the most recent Royal Offspring

No 7: Then I posed, and he took my picture - A completely true account of the time, when I was younger, more muscular and slightly more deviant, when I found myself in a room full of photographers - Who spoke a foreign language and asked me to do some... Questionable things.

No 6: Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 1) - Some anecdotes from my times trying to kill myself with motorcycles, not intentionally, but through sheer ineptitude.

No 5: One more rusty nail - A strangely serious one for me. A call for calm after the senseless murder of Drummer Lee Rigby

No 4: It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen - A contender for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for longest Blog Post title in the history of Blogs penned by people who take their pen-names from unsavoury deviant sexual acts.  A quick trip down memory lane, fondly remembering years of being a younger sibling.

No 3: Thermodynamics, it's the law! - For a long time, this was a lot of people's favourite post.  It features my Dad and his somewhat free and easy take on animal corpses and the sanctity of the fragile human mind - The only thing that stops me calling it a Legend is that it is (for the most part) completely true - I may have embellished the last line slightly, maybe the last two lines, tops.

No 2: Priorities - Not going to do a funny description for this one.  All I will say is that without question, this is the one post that I have received more comments, emails and tweets about, both with offers of help and thanks from people who are in similar circumstances.  It's the description of the feelings I had, when my Father told me that he had inoperable cancer.

No 1: Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young. - No one was more surprised than me when this particular post went viral / meteoric and possibly both.  It's a simple premise, I just happen to believe that men with beards are infinitely more masculine than those that aren't.  Every right thinking woman in the world would agree (and if fairness, most of them did, and those that don't have a tendency to wear dungarees and badges with rainbows on them) - Retweeted by Rufus Hound, Favourited by Al Murray, quoted as the 'Best Blog Post Ever!' by popular Blogger Tattooed Mummy - This one post makes up 3.5% of all the traffic on the Blog ever - And it's only been up for two months! (But it does involve a topless picture of me holding a Baby - Maybe that's it? - From now on, every post will contain a naked picture of someone holding something, probably)

-oOo-

So, that's the roundup for this month kids.

Keep reading

Keep sharing

And P.S. I've just started translating popular words and phrases into Circular Gallifreyan, so if you want anything inexpertly writing out, give me a nod.

See you all later.

Steve the Hedge

Kids are great, aren't they though? I like kids so much that I went and got some of my own.  I decided to get one of each, you know, so I could experience both sides of the coin as it were.

I know that a few of you out there in the Blogosphere have children. I mean, I've accidentally read... Oh, I don't know... Literally tens of Blogs that say things like:

'And this is little Clinton taking his first steps, we bought a new deep-pile carpet for the whole house in case he falls over.'

'Jocasta looks absolutely scrummy in this Anne Geddes original Bumblebee costume that I bought from Fortnum & Mason (in the sale, Tarquin tells me that he's not made of money, hahahaha!)'

'We took the BMW so that Phillipe and Hermione could have enough room for all of their imaginary friends'

And I suppose I can sympathise to a degree, net-savvy Yummy-Mummies spending their time between glasses of Veuve Clicquot filling the empty void left in their lives after they gave up their full time job as a Business Analyst or Advertising Executive to be a real woman, just like their own Mothers', by telling their equally vacuous friends how their offspring regularly exceeds the targets that some book or other has set for them, whilst they're trying to re-invent the non-existant neon coloured school satchel market in their spare time.

But for every one of those, I have five, or maybe ten people who I follow via Twitter or Facebook that regularly say things like:

'Oh for God's sake, my idiot offspring has crapped in the bath... AGAIN! And he's NINE!'

'Well, I'd told her not to lick her fingers and put them in the socket, then there was the bang, but I knew she was OK because she was crying.'

'So, I got a call from the school and this very nice lady told me that HellChild had said "That's not a willy... THIS is a willy!" which it seems is frowned upon in a mixed ability PSHE lesson nowadays.'

See if you can guess which of the people I count amongst my friends? I'll give you two guesses, but the first one doesn't count.

Anywho, back to my own little bundles of joy... As I said, there are two of them.  The MiniDandy is a teenager, who writes a Blog (very) occasionally, that some of you even follow.  She's the thinly veiled heroine of the Edward Teach stories and is quite odd, in an individualistic, original way.  She gets her sense of humour, irony, fair play and indignation from me.  Her mood swings, irrational behaviour, clothes sense and general female-ality are all from her dear Mother.

My Son, who despises being referred to as The MicroDandy, so I won't, except just then, which he won't see so it doesn't matter.  Is a completely different tray of spiced giraffe tongues.  He's also odd, don't get me wrong, sometimes supremely odd.  I mean, you'll often wake up after having a bit of a snooze on the couch and he'll be standing there, staring at you, just about breaking a smile, then turn around and walk out of the room.  He's got a mind like a steel trap, and can find a hole in any argument faster than a Teflon stoat in a greasy Swiss cheese factory.

He's logical, calculating and almost autistically anal about things.  Which is great if you need him to remember something, I mean, he can quite honestly quote chapter and verse things that he finds interesting that have happened over the past five years.  But ask him what he had for lunch of course and he looks at you as if you're an idiot and says 'Can't remember.'  He's also the basis for the Ice-Demon killing, Pig Exploding hero, Mal Ak'hai the Hunter

But he's not one for whimsy, which can be a bit of a handicap in the Dandy household... Or at least he wasn't, until last night... He came into the living room and said,

'Dad, I've written a story, do you want to hear it?'

Being a kind and loving parent, I ignored the obvious, intuitive answer and replied;

'Yes, I'd love to hear your story.' And you know, I'm glad that I did - It's a gem.  I present it below, I have taken the liberty of correcting his spelling and punctuation, for clarity's sake.

Steve the hedge lives in fire hydrant land.
Steve is always watered, because of the fire hydrants.
But if you dig a trench, from the lake to Steve, it would make Steve very happy.

It's a thing of beauty, I'm sure you'll all agree.  It's got everything, whimsy, abstraction, nonsense, descriptiveness, at the end - fatalism bordering on the Dadaist.  I loved it. I've had it framed and I keep it on my desk.

(And yes, for the eagle eyed, that is a whiteboard with a picture of a squid on it behind the frame - What of it?)

I was slightly worried about him, in a John Wyndham, Midwich Cuckoos kinda way, but now I'm not.  He's one of the Firm now, definitely  100% on target to be a gen-u-wine, solid gold, stone cold, thousand yard staring, klaxon blaring, Dandy of the old skool...

Maybe of the new school...

Maybe that's even better...

But more likely, very much worse! - MuahahahahahaahahahahahahHAHAHAAHAHhahah!

I think we should all beware, just in case, start stocking up on tins, maybe dig a fallout shelter.  Because if either of the smaller Dandies ever makes a bid for global domination, the chances are that it's going to be him.

Yet another reason I'm sinking all of my spare cash into the space program.