Go Dandy, it's your Birthday...

Actually, it's not my Birthday... Not until tomorrow at least... I've already had two cheery 'Happy Birthday's though, from slightly confused work-colleagues - So that was nice.

As I got all Biblical on Wednesday - Let's start with a bit of Psalm 90:

The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labor and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Which sombre dirge, by anyone's reckoning means that, as I'm a child of the sixties, I'm over half way through already.  I'm speeding downhill on the badly maintained pushbike of my own maturity.  The brakes have been cut by my children and I'm going to freewheel through some little villages called Upper Adulthood, Senility and Incontinence On Sea any time now.

Well, at least I've got the longer summers brought on by Global Warming to look forward to.

So, what do I want for my Birthday?  (Apologies if you've already bought me something, it probably won't be anything off this list - But not to worry, I'm notoriously easy to please.)

1. Anything with the word 'Marvel' secreted somewhere about it.  I'm a sucker for fictional spandex - In fact both of Dandy Towers' reading rooms have weighty tomes filled with the work of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and and Jack Kirby (Amongst others)
2. Someone who wants to rebuild the clutch on a 1984 Honda VF1100 for free.
3. A belt, because I'm losing weight and my trousers keep falling down. 
4. A brown leather overcoat with a surplus of unnecessary brassware and bucklery.
5. A top hat, as above
6. A more powerful, less noisy PC - I mean, honestly the one I've got sounds like an asthmatic Harrier Jump-Jet trying to take off from an airfield made of toffee and the graphics can be a bit like a Janet & John flick-book in a strong wind.
7. An ironic T-Shirt, seriously, anything will do... A bit of 70's nostalgia, something from pretty much any sci-fi film or TV show that there's ever been - I'm easy (Size: XXL)
8. Food - Any kind
9. Alcohol - Any kind
10. Vouchers for cool stuff, even fictitious stuff - Or those acceptable anywhere ones that have a picture of the Queen on, where she's sat next to a random two digit number.
11. An Iron Man suit - One of the modern ones, not from when he looked like a drunk with a bucket on his head - I've got that costume already according to some non-flattering photos.
12. Some Sci-Fi weaponry - I've always fancied a wall covered in weapons from TV, Games and Films, Like in Tommy Lee Jones' apartment in Men In Black - One of each Star Trek phaser, one of each Light-Sabre Hilt (Plus Force-FX glowy blade ones... Maybe upgraded to ones you can actually belt someone repeatedly with) The Spinney-roundy sonic Shotgun from Minority report, (Has to be the coolest cocking mechanism of any firearm ever) An Identity Disc from the new Tron film, a Portal Gun, Deckards gun from Bladerunner, All the weapons from Halo and Half-Life, A pair of Grammaton Cleric pistols from Equilibrium, One of each of every Predator weapon, except maybe the shoulder cannon... Always thought that it looked a bit 'kit-bashed'.  An M41-A from Aliens... Actually no, six M41-As, in a rack, so you could grab one as you ran past. A Morita from Starship Troopers, Dredd's Lawgivers (Comic and both films) The Railgun from 'Eraser' and maybe a ZF-1 from the Fifth Element for comedy value (I think I may have thought about this slightly more than absolutely neccesary). Plus anything else I can get my hands on.
13. Some more large format fantasy art books - You can never have enough pictures of a seven feet tall barbarian hero with an eleven foot long axe stood next to a 48-24-36 woman with flowing red hair wearing only a squirrel and two earwigs whilst an anthropomorphised badger plays a timbral solo in the background.
14. Peace and Quiet (This is the one that I'm least likely to get in fairness)
15. Chocolate - I know that technically it's a kind of food, but it's important enough to have its own entry (f'narr f'narr)
16. Anything odd - If you see something for sale and think 'Who in their right mind would want that?' The answer would be me.

OK, that's me done for this week - I expect thousands of Facebook messages, tweets and emails and suggestive pictures from you guys tomorrow, wishing me a Happy Birthday.

Don't disappoint me, I know where most of you live.

And David Attenborough was no-where to be seen

As promised on Friday, today I will regale you with the story of the day when I trod on a penguin.

It started like any one of a thousand other Saturday evenings, the kids had gone to bed, there was a half-decent film about to start on Sky Premiere (other broadcasters are available), dinner had been successfully eaten and all was right with the world. Apart that is, from one glaring omission...

The whiskey, and its partner in crime, the slightly oversized glass, were still in the kitchen - a whole floor away, rather than being on the table next to the sofa - within lunging distance. I stretched out my hand and concentrated reeeeaaaaly hard... But unlike Luke, in the Wampa cave, with the lightsaber, it didn't spring into my outstretched paw. I asked Mrs Dandy if she was thinking of going down to the kitchen for anything in the near future, but the withering look she gave me told me that I was actually going to have to get up and service myself.

So I struggled to my feet, trudged the length of the lounge and started downstairs - The thought of impending alcohol the only thing keeping me going. It was this momentary lapse of concentration and premature ribaldry that led to my, quite literal, impending downfall.

We've all trodden on things going down the stairs haven't we? Especially those of us lucky enough to be blessed with children. But how many of us can say that we've trodden on things that are roundish, possesed of small, almost fur-like injection moulded feathers, usually found in the antarctic and of a piscavorian persuasion? Contrary to millions of years of evolution, the penguin (for it was he - But I was unaware of this fact at the time) flew across the stairwell, bounced off the clock and disappeared into a boot that I wear very infrequently.

I however, performed an almost perfect vertical triple salchow and finished with an impressive three point landing, the points being the heels of both hands and my left buttock - The assembled audience of the downstairs bookcase, my cashmere crombie and my amusingly ironic cowboy hat all gave me 6.0 for execution, but minus several million for good thinking*.

I proceded to slide down the remaining stairs in the style of a dimensionally blessed Homer Simpson, complete with the '*bang* Ah... *bang* Uh... *bang* Sunnova... *bang* d'oh...' soundtrack, belting my wrists and behind on every single step. When I came to rest, in a heap, at the bottom of the stairs, I noticed that my left forearm looked a bit 'funny' and was flopping about to the point where, apart from the excruciating pain, I could have quite easily done the David Brent, floppy arm-y dance without relying on the optical illusion.

I cradled the offending limb, in much the same way as my Father did the frozen pigeon and let out a distress call to alert Mrs Dandy that her assistance was required. She came to the top of the stairs and peered into the gloom.

'Are you OK?' she asked, 'Only, I heard a noise'

'I'm fine,' I replied, calmly, 'I could do with a hand in the kitchen if you've got a second.'

'The film's due to start, shall I pause it?'

'Yes, that'd be for the best, it might take a few minutes.'

I stood up, gingerly, and walked to the kitchen, opening the door with my good shoulder, I turned to Mrs Dandy and said,

'I need you to hold something for me and not let go.'

'Oh, really?' She replied, smiling, grasping the wrong end of the stick entirely.

'No, not that, this.'

I proffered the limb in question. which took this opprtunity to flop alarmingly in the wrong direction. Mrs Dandy's visage took on an ashen colour and she backed away.

'Erm... nope,' she squeaked, quite sensibly, 'Go to the hospital.'

'Casualty? On a Saturday night? With my reputation?', I quipped, trying desperately to make her feel more comfortable, 'Look, all you have to do is hold on, it's a really simple dislocation, as it swings, I can feel it wanting to go back in.'

On the whole, this didn't have quite the calming effect that I'd initially thought, and Mrs Dandy's complexion went from grey to white.

'OK, really, just grab my wrist, I'll try and pull it out of your hand, but don't let go - It'll pop back in, then we can go and watch the film.'

'Erm... I don't know.' She said, reaching for my wrist.

I contemplated yelling out as she touched it, but thought better of it. She took hold, braced herself against a cupboard, and closed her eyes, pushing aside the obvious similarities to our wedding night, I gritted my teeth and yanked my left arm back. Apart from a few stars appearing behind my eyelids, and having to resist the urge to invent a couple of new expletives, nothing happened. It seemed that Mrs Dandy hadn't been quite prepared for the violence on the movement involved. My arm waved around at my side like a particularly boneless octopus.

'Shall we give that another go?'

'No, just go to the hospital...'

'Look, really, it will only take a second, you just really need to hold on.'

So, my wrist was dutifully grabbed, the slack was taken up, nods of implied readiness were exchanged and I threw myself backwards. This time Mrs Dandy was ready, she kept hold of my wrist, my humerus and ulna seperated and reloacted with a loud *schlock* and I swore, loudly and earthily.

'I'm just going to have a bit of a sit-down,' I said as I slid to the floor, quite dizzily.

The rest of the evening passed without incident, the occasional twinge perhaps, but nothing more than that. The bruising came out nicely and the story joined the ranks of those that get told when anyone mentions falling down the stairs, whisky, dislocations, stairs, McDonalds, hats, trees, carpet or the number 43 bus (i.e. any time I can shoe-horn it in)

In actual fact, nothing was really mentioned about it until a couple of weeks later when I decided to wear a particular pair of boots. Giving rise to a phrase that I have only uttered once, but may well have printed on a T-Shirt one day;

'Why is there a penguin in my New Rocks?'

　


*(c) Douglas Adams 1978

But will it fly SMick?

Firstly can I congratulate my Daughter on starting her own Blog - Gods bless it and all who sail in it. Hopefully it will give you a somewhat skewed teenagers eye view of the Dandy Universe.

Important word of caution, whilst I am usually a good natured, happy go lucky kinda guy with an infinite amount of patience and startlingly good cheekbones, any sniff of abuse or unwarranted* unkindness towards her and I will, most definately, reach down the perpetrator's epiglottis and show them things that would normally only be available via x-ray.

-oOo-

Right, onto the job in hand.

We've all heard stories about people who've found wonderful things in the most unlikely of places. Antiques Roadshow is full of people who have found original Picasso sketches in their Aunt Mabel's loft or there are those despicable people who find an original, fully working, 1920's Brough Superior in a neighbour's garage which they buy for a fiver as 'It was our Derek's and he never used it, even when he was still alive'.

So, imagine my excitement, when everyone's favourite Chilli cook and professional Scotsman, my good friend SMick, arrived at my front door with news of a 'vehicle' that he'd found out about, just lying in the mud in a farmer's field just around the corner. It was, quite literally, just around the corner, as in those days you could spit the distance from my house to the wonderful British countryside - You had to check no-one was in the way of course, things like that didn't go down well with the residents' association, but a well-hawked loogey would land on grass, or in a tree, or on a sheep.

So, dutifully, I clamboured into his Peugeot and drove the 100 yards to the farm. I walked around to the outbuildings, through knee deep mud, in my white Status Quo style white hi-tops (It was around this time that I changed my footwear of choice to second-hand army boots) and said to SMick.

'OK, where is it?'

'There,' pointed SMick, proudly

'Where, is it behind that scabby P.O.S. Mk1 Transit Luton?'

The slow grin that swept across SMick's face told me all I really needed to know.

'You've got to be.. erm... flipping joking, I'll be in the car...' I said, and started to squidge away as fast as I could.

He convinced me that it would be a good idea, a nice little project, something to do during the day when the pubs were shut. And if we couldn't get it going, then the box on the back was aluminium (Not Al-OO-min-um) and we could weigh it in and get some money out of it.

I honestly cannot remember how we got it out of the field, I think I blocked it from my memory the same way that victims of alien abduction do, I'm fairly sure it involved lots of sheets of wood, many, many bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale and an almost Olympic quantity of swearing.

Eventually, it found itself on my drive. It didn't actually look all that bad with a large proportion of the mud washed off. It also turned out to have a V6 engine which was a bonus, which on it's own started a selection of trike/go-kart fantasies. After the battery was left on charge for about six weeks, the engine would succesfully turn over but not 'catch', dutifully we did what any men confronted with a failing engine would do, we stood staring at the engine and scratched our heads.

'I think the carb needs priming,' SMick suggested, sagely.

'Right you are, how do we do that?' I replied - I wasn't then the mechanical whiz that I'm still not now.

'Well, we just take the air filter off, put something flammable down the carbs and see if it will start then.'

'Flammable?' I asked, nervously, not quite liking where this was going, 'Like what?'

'Like... petrol!'

'Like petrol, or actually petrol?'

'Actually petrol, we've got petrol, and it's what you'd expect to find in the carb anyway, should be fine.'

I bowed to his greater knowledge and we poured, what turned out to be significantly too much, petrol into the top of the carburetor and turned the engine over.

Now, I've never seen a real giant lightsaber, but I can imagine it looking something like what came out of the top of the carb - a nine foot high column of flame and noise which existed just long enough to drive my eardrums into my rectum and blow my eyebrows over to the other side of the road - It's a good job, in hindsight that we'd taken the bonnet off else it would have bounced off it and cut a neat porthole in the garage door.

'I think we might scrap it,' Said Smick, batting at his still smouldering sweatshirt.

'What?' I shoulted as I was still mostly deaf and over the other side of the road looking for my left eyebrow.

Over the next few weeks we set about stripping down the van to its component parts. Many interesting and fun times were had during the project.

Do you remember when I talked about our friend 'Gullible' Steve? The gentleman who ate of the baby-carrot and rottweiler chilli? Well, a couple of incidents involved him:

1) He was stumbling about in the back of the van, seeing if there was anything of any worth amongst the rotting hay and mud. When there was a cry, a protracted coughing fit, a torrent of expletives directed at myself, SMick, life in general and birds in particular. I turned to SMick, who was sat next to me in a deck-chair and said,

'Didn't think to tell him about the nest full of rotten blackbird eggs we found yesterday then?'

'Nope,' replied SMick, taking another gulp of his beer. 'But I did put it right near the side door so we wouldnea forget to throw it in the bin.'

2) The roof of the Luton box was made of fibreglass, which is not as weigh-innable as aluminium sheet, so we asked Steve to have a go at taking it off. We assumed (Which taught me that you should never assume) that he would get a ladder, and maybe a saw and cut the roof off. But no, he clamboured up onto the roof with an axe and a hammer.

'Is that a good idea?' I asked SMick, knowing full well that it wasn't

'Idea? No... Opportunity to laugh? Yes.' He replied, reaching down into the crate for another beer.

It took him a good fifteen minutes to fall the eight feet or so into the back of the van as he smashed the roof our from under himself. Thinking about it now, we really should have thrown that blackbird nest in the bin.

I didn't remain completely unscathed through the project, I had countless fibreglass splinters pulled out of my arms with pliers, cuts, bruises and boo-boos of various kinds.

And I understand that SMick still bears the scar of his particular mishap. We had got to the stage of trying to flatten the aluminium enough to get it in the back of the car and take it to the scrapyard and SMick was belting away with a lump hammer at a piece of metal that he was stood on.

Well, he missed... And hit his shin... He went completely silent, looked at the group of grubby schoolchildren that were hanging around watching us, looked at me, said, very quietly,

'Excuse me.'

And went inside the house.

The flow of profanity lasted a good half an hour and featured words that I didn't think could be used in that particular context. It left seven local dogs paralysed down one side and a further three pregnant. He'll show you the scar now if you ask him nicely, it's quite impressive.

I'll never forget that summer - And neither will the person whose drive we dumped the burning remains of the van on.

Anywho, I've been informed that my Daughter has mentioned about the time I shot myself, maybe I'll tell you about that on Monday. Have a good weekend, and if you see me around, feel free to buy me a pint - I think I deserve it, I've had a hard life!


*There are times when my Daughter's Blog will warrant abuse, feel free to fill your boots in situations such as these.

Two-Handed Lightsaber? [Edited Meme]

Originally posted on Facebook 28/6/12

As some of you may (or may not know), I recently changed the text notification sound on my crappy phone to the Lightsabre 'Power-up' noise from Star Wars... What? you didn't know I was a geek? Really?

I was in the Westfield Centre yesterday when I needed to use the facilities. I walked in, to find that only one of the urinals was free between a couple of burly gentlemen. I carefully maneuvered between them and undid my fly - It was at this point that I received a text from an Agency, and of course, the Lightsabre noise went off!

The two guys looked at me quizzically, I very calmly turned, looked at them both and said -

'You know, that's happened every time since I bought the Special Edition on Blue-Ray'