Hello 2019! You look great!

As most of you know (Because there was a time when I'd talk about little else) I've written a few books...

Real books you can hold in your hands and get paper cuts on your nipples from should that be your particular kink, and on the whole they've been pretty well received. People tell me that they've read them and enjoyed them... Some people say that other people have borrowed them and they've also enjoyed them... And some people, who really over-estimate their quality have bought them as gifts for third parties who also say that they enjoyed them (You see, there's a theme, with which you should totally get on board).

There are four 'real' books for you to consider currently, the first two: 'Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin' & 'The Pangolin Yodels' are collections of my opinionated set pieces that originally appeared in my Blog - I'm told that they're funny (Well, that the funny bits are) and are worth a look if you're bored.

Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin

The Pangolin Yodels

There's also 'Child of Air' which is the first of a trilogy of >100,000 word novels describing a version of Britain some quarter-millenia in the future, where aliens, pirates, robots and airships feature quite heavily. Should those things give you a tingly feeling in your nethers, you should definitely buy a copy.

Child of Air



And then there's 'Forever Girl' a collection of short horror and speculative fiction stories that I knocked up over a few lunchtimes - I don't want to sell it short, it's 270-odd pages with about 30 stories after all, and that's hardly a folded pamphlet - And it's probably my personal favourite, I read random pages from it daily on the toilet you know. It features a few more trains than I'd normally be comfortable with, but the heart wants to write about what the heart wants to write about.

Forever Girl (And other stories)

But, due to a bit of bad luck and some lifestyle changes, I've pretty much stopped writing and a lot of people are somewhat miffed (See my previous posts for details) And when I say 'Miffed' some of them have become quite vocal

There have been threats on my life, offers to remove, or at least render inoperable, my primary male sexual feature (I was going to describe it as an 'outstanding feature', but I've recently had it surgically reduced by a couple of inches, and it's been cold too) To try and force my hand as far as returning to writing is concerned.

Well, I can officially announce (And a few of you know already) That I am writing again... Because I've run out of things that I can, in all good conscience, procrastinate about.

'Child of Space' the follow-up to 'Child of Air' is almost 25,000 words into a first draft and my new novel, which has the possibility of becoming a darkly humorous supernatural series (Should I be able to inject sufficient dark humour), depending on how it's received by you buggers - is currently sitting at a very light 5,000 words... I'm only aiming at around 80,000 words here, so you could probably roll it up and stick it in your pocket for reading at the yacht club and so forth.

'Jaffward Moncrieffe and the Primary Problem' will tell the ongoing story of a late 19th Century Vampire Freemason Tattooist who fights a daily battle against both vampire hunters and his own elective veganism to live a 'normal' life... Should be a complete doddle - It almost writes itself!

Don't ask when they're going to be published, because I'm properly out of practice.

But they're coming - And there might even be owls... Owls are sorely under-represented in modern supernatural literature... As long as we forget about a popular child wizard who is still doing the rounds.

And who wouldn't feel better if we did that?

Spiky, Shape-changing Pinecones of Death

Tomorrow, Saturday the 18^th of February, is the third Saturday in February - and we all know what that means.

It means that it’s Enzo Ferrari’s birthday… And Yoko Ono’s… And John Travolta’s…  It’s also the feast-day of St. Colmán of Lindisfarne who probably invented mustard or something (I didn’t really look into it that closely if I’m being completely honest – I’m trying to do like 300 things at once today) amongst other things.

But the real reason that we’re interested here at The Chimping Dandy – and therefore, the reason that you’re interested is that it’s World Pangolin Day. Pangolins – They’re literally the greatest thing ever. They have all the intrinsic parts required to be the best, cutest, most heart-warmingly twee bundles of keratin scaled, acid-pooping ant-eating machinery that has ever walked this, or any other, Earth.

But, you don’t need me to tell you that, right? We’ve covered pangolins in the past to the point where they’re not a complete mystery… We have, we did that here… Didn’t we? I thought we had. Remember, I told you that Neil-Patrick Harris had read the blog? Look, just read that post – You’ll be glad you did. I’ll wait here.

OK? Are we all up to speed now? Scaled anteaters, of the order Pholidota, no teeth, long tongue, and four legged but walks on two… Generally considered to be one of the most internationally trafficked animals that currently still exists (but only just) because, you know, They’re pretty tasty and some people, in some parts of the world think tearing them to pieces, grinding up their scales and swallowing them will sure cancer, or magically make your milk ‘come in’ if you’ve just had a baby.

(For the record, it won’t. And you’re a backwards imbecile if you think it will. In fact, just go the whole hog and shoot yourself repeatedly in the face if you believe that it will – All you’re doing is making this amazing animal even more endangered)

As of today, six of the eight species of Pangolin are classed as ‘Threatened to extinction’ whilst the other two are ‘Critically endangered’

So, what should you do on World Pangolin day? How should you celebrate it? Well, a good start would be not eating a pangolin – But I’m guessing that’s going to be pretty easy for most of us (And yes, I understand that they’re a valid staple of people who share a biome with them – But I’m not sure that those people read the blog as such) Then you could ‘Like’ the World Pangolin Day page on Facebook. Maybe draw some pictures of Pangolins? Bake biscuits and/or cookies? (In the shape of Pangolins, but not using pangolin as an active ingredient) Write a poem? Express the very idea of pangolinicity though the medium of interpretive dance? You could look at videos of them doing cute stuff of YouTube (other video sharing sites are probably available) and try not to 'Squeeee' too much.

You could go to your local museum if they have a pangolin on display and have an impromptu party, or you could take an outline of a pangolin with you and have a tasteful and well behaved vigil around it if they don’t have one of their own. Remember – Be courteous to your local museum, they’re generally great people – I know the people who work in the Nature Gallery in my local Museum (In Derby, in the UK) certainly are. Maybe your local Zoo has an animal adoption scheme and you could put some money towards a pangolin’s upkeep? Although, now that I come to think about it – They don’t do very well in captivity – Maybe you could adopt an Aardvark or something and just tell people it’s a pangolin – I don’t know, I’m not an expert. Just an excitable amateur.

But the main thing, the best thing you can do is think. Realise that there’s yet another animal out there that’s losing its grip on life because of our stupidity. And it’s a cute animal, so you’ve got no excuse not to help it – I could understand if it was some flesh eating worm or something, who gives a crap about them, right?

But it’s not… look…

Bloody brilliant aren't they?

Options most heinous!

Heinous, great word that is – Love it; It’s the sort of word that a lot of people have probably only heard in a Bill & Ted film… Let’s take a moment to look at its varied meanings…

Ohhh… Execrable – Doesn’t that word just make you shudder? Abhorrent! Not enough people use that in polite conversation in my opinion. Abhorrent, abhorrent, abhorrent... Lovely.   I might call my next pet something like that. Well, either that or ‘Unpardonable’ – I can imagine it now, I’ve attracted a new victim, sorry, *cough* willing visitor who would easily pass any drugs test you'd care to administer Your Honour, to Dandy Towers. Perhaps during one of Heckmondswyke’s, sadly under-attended fortnightly tofu and Cuprinol appreciation evenings? I can only assume that the conversation would go something like this:

[Visitor] Oh, look! Isn’t your Guinea Pig adorable? What’s his name?

[Moi] Unpardonable…

[Visitor, only slightly louder] I said… what’s… his… name..?

[Moi, putting the hatchet back] No… I…. Never mind, it’s Tim

Anyway, back to the heinousity (Which is a real word and you can’t prove otherwise) that you were originally promised in the title.

I’ve been approached by a selection of both attractive and mentally stable young ladies over the past month, who have actually stopped me in the street to tell me how much they enjoyed reading my books. Well, not in the street as such – I mean, I don’t frequent streets where ladies tend to congregate… Not since the cuckoo-clock incident in Leipzig.  Some of the descriptive phrases they used, included:

‘Now can't carry on reading “Mumblings” because I'm laughing so much I'm crying’, ‘Pissed my pants, I did!’, ‘Seriously, there are parts that I fell to pieces laughing!’, ‘the author's a bit of a knob-end’, ‘ I sounded like my nan, Alice. I was whooping so much’, ‘I can't stop laughing! It's like reading the inside of my brain!’, ‘Love this book so much! Thank you for enabling its existence!’, ‘I've gone all purple and sweaty’

Actually, at least one of those might have been me… But the rest are 100% Gen-you-wine things that real people have said.

You were still looking for the heinous bit weren’t you? I’ve dragged you here, by the scruff of the neck, like a lonely three-nosed halibut purely by the medium of clickbait and you’re worried that I won’t deliver – Well, I can tell you that I am about to deliver, just like I tell Mrs. Dandy on those very few occasions when she’d much rather be watching something interesting on the shopping channel than submitting herself to my fumbling ministrations. So, here goes.

This weekend, from Friday the 2nd. of September until Monday the 5th. of September I have decided, purely because of the warm, glittery feeling that I have in the bodily area where that snake bit me once and I had to have the poison sucked out by a native bearer in the rear entrance to the food hall of Fortnum & Masons in Magaluf, to offer the Kindle version of my ‘Pangolin’ books for the once in a lifetime price of…

Free and no money… between those dates they will be delivered to your choice of Kindle-enabled devices from those wonderful full tax-paying people at Amazon, gratis!

The three titles available in this offer include:

Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin – Volume 1 - Seventy-Five stories representing nearly a year of irreverent writing, on such various themes as Polar Bears, Motorcycling, Lego, Physical Injuries to Myself, and The Paranormal (woOoOOOooOo)

The Pangolin Yodels – Volume 2 - Still a number of frankly idiotic stories, including the one where he sets an angry goose on a famous sporting personality. But on the whole, it's all a little more considered.

The Collected Children’s Pangolin Primer – a collection of the previous two books but with a lot of the more ‘unclean’ references removed – I think there is still one usage of the word ‘bugger’, but used as an expletive, not a verb.

‘Buy’ them (for free), have them delivered to you almost instantly via the aether (also free), laugh yourself into some kind of debilitating aneurysm or embarrassing moistness episode, then leave a glowing review on Amazon that will make you feel like some kind of Warren Buffettesque philanthropist.

Total cost = Not a farthing – Enjoy them please, tell your family… Addict your friends… You never know, there might even be another Pangolin book in the offing!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

As Johnny Depp once said:

"I'm shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I've done everything I can to avoid it."

No, really, he did... But the poor bugger still has to sit on a big pile of money $400 million high and repeatedly have sweaty, monkey sex with Amber Heard (The blonde girl off of Zombieland) 

Amber Heard

So I'm guessing that he considers his life a massive failure. What with all the fame and the money and having to spend 14 years gettin-jiggy-wid French popstrel Vanessa Paradis previous to that.

Vanessa Paradis

I mean, just look at the quality of his taste in available women, the poor little fellah.

But anyway, enough of comparing myself to this professional pirate impersonator.  Let us concentrate more on our differences...

I was going to do a table and be all scientific and stuff, but I wrote it out on paper first and... to be honest, I couldn't read what I'd written after most of the ink had been washed away by my uncontrollable tears.  But suffice it to say, I am not 'Best buds' with Tim Burton, I do not have Alice Cooper on speed-dial and I do not own a vineyard in St. Tropez.

But the main difference is that I would love to be famous.  I know it changes you. I know that there wouldn't be a portion of my life that was private anymore (<remember this bit for the big reveal later)

And I don't mean fairly famous... I'm pretty sure that I'm 'fairly famous' already - I mean, you guys have all heard of me, Michael Sheen (Yes, THAT Michael Sheen) wished me Happy Christmas last month. I also count Yvette Fielding, Dr. Karl Fielding and Rufus Hound as close, personal friends (As long as you don't tell them about it - I'm not sure that it's 100% reciprocal - I mean, they like and retweet a lot of my stuff... Well some of it... maybe a couple each, tops... I'm so alone.)

and Scott Page, the saxophonist from Pink Floyd, thinks I'm cool - No, really he does.

But I want a gold plated helicarrier with a giant naked picture of myself on the bottom, I want Vin Diesel to walk everywhere behind me just punching his left fist into his right palm every time i talk to anyone, whilst wearing the sunglasses from 'Pitch Black'. I want whistling lobsters as shoulder-pads.

Am I ever going to be that rich?

Not on my own, no... What I need are followers (No, not 'Drink the Coolaid' type followers - put that straight-jacket down) I mean, like a regular audience who can spread the word and increase the numbers of the Dandy Nation.

To that end, I have done the unthinkable... From tomorrow, 28th January, to 1st February 2016 All three of my Chimping Dandy books will be FREE to download onto your Kindle, or Kindle compatible device from Amazon.

Here are the Links:

Mumblings of an Irate Pangolin - My First book... Read the reviews if you're unsure as to whether to download it FOR FREE - All five star, all of the time

The Pangolin Yodels - My second book... All five star reviews again (except the one four star review). You don't need to have read 'Mumblings' before you read this one - But you know, there's no reason not to because you can download it FOR FREE

And finally...

Do you have children, are they of an age where they're not so easily scared and/or overawed by life on this big ball of snot that we call 'The Earth'? Do you read them bed-time stories, or throw a book at them and say "Read this until you fall asleep"? Well, if you do, then you should totally get this:

The Collected Children's Pangolin Primer - This is a collection of volumes 1 and 2 from above, but with all the drugs, sex and swearing taken out (I think it might say 'bugger' once... But it's used as an expletive, not a verb) - It has a picture of my Son on the front... It's pretty dim, it's a bit like those 'The longer you stare into the fog, the more zombies you will see' type thing, but he's definitely there. This can also be downloaded FOR FREE

So, if I want to be rich, why am I giving my books away?

Well, in all honesty, I'm trying to get you hooked, so that when my fiction books come out (And the Pangolin books contain some of the stories that they're based on if you need a sweetener) you'll dive onto them like an extra from 'Breaking Bad' dives onto anything blue and translucent.

Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood drug dealer - only hairier, and possibly fatter with a slightly less casually racist Hispanic name.

But seriously Buy... I mean, GET FOR FREE, my books, make me famous, I'l buy you a chinchilla or something when I am. Totally, you will probably have to remind me though.

Remember when I said that I wouldn't be worried that none of my life would be private? Well, if you get these books, you'll know pretty much everything there is to know about me anyway - And that's got to be worth at least nothing at all... Hasn't it?

I try all things, I achieve what I can

I had a day off from my day-job yesterday (yesterday being, in this case, 12/1/16) you know… A lot of you won’t recognise the enormity of that statement – But those who have met me face to face (or face to any part of my morphologically improbable body) will know that I don’t take time off.  In fact, I often get reminded by my colleagues, in the latter part of the year, “Oi, Dandy, you know you’ve still got 22 days holiday left to take in the next two weeks?”

But anywho, I was off work yesterday and that was the important thing.  Initially, it was because my daughter had her last meaningful parents’ evening at her senior school and I wanted to see if any of her teachers had suddenly become less ineffectual (some had, some hadn’t, as is the way of things) – Please note, I wholly appreciate that Secondary School teachers have a set of problems all their own, mostly that they’re no longer allowed to punish, discipline, chastise, castigate, reprove or otherwise beat senseless their charges, who are often taller, wider, spottier and not beholden to any kind of government ratified rulesets that tie their hands firmly behind their backs – But then some are just namby-pamby twig-eating liberal hippies (My name’s Ben Elton… Goodnight!)

Ah no, don’t go… I haven’t finished yet.

Where were we? Ah yes, day off.  As luck would have it, it was not long after Mrs. Dandy had told me that my presence was required, and then reminded me – a mere fifteen or sixteen times, that I should book the day as holiday, that I was contacted by the massively popular, Norfolk based mixed media artist, Caroline Hack – whom I’ve known, via a plethora of mutual friends on social media, for a number of years, who requested a ‘meeting’.

N.B. Aren’t commas brilliant?

If you’ve not heard of the hugely talented lady in question, then it probably means that you’re just not that into historic whaling or wildly inappropriate Scandinavian songs about whaling, or whaling shanties, or fabric sperm whales, or Moby Dick, or maps, or the scientific study of the actual ratio of Polar-bear head size to polar bear skull size (Did you know, the Inuit name for the polar bear is ‘Nanook’? – I know I didn’t) – If you get the chance to visit her at one of her many residencies, you totally should – She’s very educational. The Memsahib even described her as incredibly passionate (Which is odd, because I only left them alone long enough for me to get the teas in – Earl Grey they were, very nice… I hugely recommend the Coffee House at the Central Museum & Art Gallery in Derby – Good staff, very clean.)

The brilliant Nature Gallery at Derby Museum

We met up in the Nature Gallery of my local museum (see above) – Being two people who had never met ‘in the flesh’ – We agreed that, to make things easier, she would wear a badge featuring a whale and I would wear a bow-tie, as I often tend to in every-day life.  We found each other with not too much bother, as most of the other patrons were less than four feet high and we could see over them – It was a visiting school party, rather than the organised outing for morally corrupt dwarves that you lot were no doubt imagining.  

The reason for this somewhat cloak and dagger meeting was that I’d received the honour of being invested into a world-spanning art project that Caroline has masterminded.  She has produced a limited edition of exactly 100 numbered, hand-made, foot-long, fabric whales that she provides to the great and the good (and myself, and the famous author and mental health Champion James Josiah, and my good friend Nathan – whose wife Victoria has the patience of a saint – trust me) on the proviso that they ‘have adventures’ and are photographed doing so – It’s a sort of global, movable art installation you see, in a ‘here is one of my whales at the top of the Empire State Building.’ or ‘This whale is posed, ironically, on an authentic James Durfee harpoon from 1862.’ Or ‘Here is a whale being held by Russell Crowe on the set of Noah.’ It’s a sort of a big deal you see, made me genuinely proud to be a part of it, and all it cost me was the basing of a character on Caroline in my new book – The fact that I chose to base a Goddess on her didn’t enter into it at all of course. *cough*

I was also introduced to the thoroughly wonderful Andrea Hadley-Johnson and her colleague, Rachel Atherton, both from the museum. Who, apart from being stupendous people in their own right, let us surreptitiously, but very reverently, fondle a real, live (well, not live, obviously – That’d be bloody silly, we’d have drowned and/or gotten horribly gored and eaten or something probably) narwhal tusk.  They’re funny old things you know - quite heavy, hollow, and almost freakishly smooth – Which is due to all the ceaseless fondling I should imagine – And yes, I’m talking about the tusk, not the nice ladies from the museum – I don’t know them anywhere near well enough to be able to say whether the same description applies.

Mrs Dandy, a Narwhal tusk, and half a Rachel Atherton

There was a tiny amount of pomp and a smattering of ceremony, photos were taken, words were said, the Pangolin-whale was introduced to the real Pangolin who resides in the museum’s Nature Gallery and then passed into my greasy clutches with whispered washing instructions and threats that my ownership was merely a ‘Fostering’ relationship and the artist retained the right to instantly repossess it if she suspected any kind of foul-play was on the cards.

Pagolin Whale meets Pangolin (Tweet via Derby Museum Nature Gallery)

At one point, Ms Atherton asked me if I was a ‘Naturalist’ – which is a damn fair question under the circumstances, and she was politely taken aback when I replied, “No, I’m just an idiot, who sometimes names his books after Pangolins.” – Which is, from now on, how I will introduce myself to dignitaries of any type.

On the whole, it was an excellent day, I met some wonderful people, visited a truly brilliant museum (Support your local museum – Both by attending regularly and donating if you can – They are under threat), drank some splendid tea, and I became the owner of a whale, who amongst you can say that you’ve spent a dull Tuesday doing all those things?

For those of you who would like to know what number my whale was, of the strictly 100 whales involved in the project… well, It was number 101, obviously.

It never Raines...

The title of today's blog will make a lot more sense if you:

a) Read it in Christopher Eccleston's voice
b) Have seen the 2000 'reboot' of Gone in Sixty Seconds

Anywho, it's been a bit of a full day today, lots has gotten done, some of which I've even been paid to do... Which is a turn-up for the books, all things considered.

-oOo-

The main thing that's happened though is that my third book 'The Collected Children's Pangolin Primer' is finally available in paperback from Amazon UK.  Don't get me wrong, the Kindle version's been out for weeks (which you can buy for the princely sum of 77p or $1.25 if you are deeply geographically challenged) but due to some flim-flam, or possibly jiggery-pokery, the actual pyhsical book has been as rare as Marmite flavour trifle.

But that is all fixed now, you can buy as many copies as your heart desires! Buy one completely selfishly for yourself. Buy one for yourself and one for your loved one - so that you don't have to keep saying 'What're you laughing at?' every five minutes.  Buy one for your child as a massive cautionary tale.  Buy four and use them to level that table from IKEA that you put together really badly.

Doesn't matter why you buy one, just buy one, or some, or many - I won't mind, I'll positively encourage it in fact.  If you send it to me (or bump into me whilst I'm in the Wild, or at one of my many appearances at Southcart Books in Walsall)  I'll write in it for you, maybe even doodle, or just sign it so as it's worth a few more pence on eBay.

This is what it looks like:

Yes, that's the Micro-Dandy and his fabulous performing teeth

And this is where you can get it

Get in on the ground floor, reserve your copy now.  Beat the rush!

-oOo-

And the other massively huge thing that happened today?

Well, why don't you see if you can guess (Although you'll never get it in a month of Sundays)

What? No, my head isn't flat enough for that to be practical.

Cheese? No, why would I do that with cheese?

There aren't enough badgers on the planet to pull that idea off, but I'll file the idea away for the future!

You guys are rubbish guessers!

I'll tell you, We had our first reader from the small island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

None the wiser?  Here's a map:

The Red thing on the right is Réunion, the bit of land on the left is East Africa

A tiny place, in the middle of an awful lot of water, which is technically part of Europe, where one confused chap (or chapess) stared at their computer screen and thought, 'qu'est-ce que je lis?'

Whilst we're on the subject, if you look at the top-centre of the map, you'll see the island of Comoros... See it?  That's where Long-Pig Station from the Windspider stories will be built (well, in about 500 years time it will at least).

-oOo-

And that's it for today,  Remember to buy the book, read it, lend it to other people to read, and then... Most important of all...

Please leave a review on Amazon, or Goodreads, or erm... Well, just on one of those places actually. Authors live and die on the reviews you people write - There is nothing more important.

See you soom Kiddies, and Mr/Mizz Réunion person? 'Merci, s'il vous plaît venez à nouveau.'

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.

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

Any way the wind blows

First of all, sorry that there was no Blog yesterday... I got caught up writing an email... It was quite a big email, all things considered... It had themes, and targets, veiled threats and promises of non existant bonuses.  And it went to everyone in the business - And I've had positive replies... So that was nice.

Right then... I was thinking about 'Energy' on my way to work today, After screaming at a little Asian girl in the car next to me that I wanted to do something unpleasently animalistic to her that is (I didn't want to really, Trent Reznor wanted to and he made me tell her. The big bully!)

Describe energy to me people... What is it? - Could you write an all encompassing definition of what energy is that would satisfy a precocious eight year old?

No...

Me either...

If you look it up, all the definitions tend to be something like 'Well, it's like force innit?' and then you look up force and it says 'Well, force's a bit like vigour, Brah' and then you look up vigour and it says 'Why do you want to know an' t'ing?'

It's kind of an abstract concept, it's not a thing you can hold, you can't say 'Quick, hand me a bucket of Energy - Stat!'  Although, you can pour all your energy into something...

You can't create it, or destroy it, you can only change its form - Take a second to drink that in... You can change the form of something that doesn't exist into a different type of something else that doesn't exist.  Brain melted yet?

You can change kinetic or movement energy into heat energy for instance, by rubbing your hands together. (You also get sound energy too - Bonus!)

Or electrical energy into vibration energy (Loudspeaker) and the other way around (Microphone)

Then there's that wonderful thing called potential energy which is a type of something that doesn't exist that doesn't exist currently, but has the potential to not exist in a different way at some unspecified time in the future usually by the application of slightly more non existant energy. (That stuff dripping down your neck is your cerebrum, do not be alarmed - That is quite normal.)

The reason this all came into my head in the first place was that I was thinking about wind turbines, you know, driving down the motorway, you occasionally see them don't you? Big white fellahs standing there giving it the old 'Pray to us bitches, we are the future.' attitude thing - I keep expecting to see a ring of rabbits and stoats around them offering gifts of acorns and dasies, gently waving backwards and forwards until they get hypnotized by a mixture of the slow rotation of the blades, the whomp-whomp-whomp noise and some slightly fermented potato juice that Steve the Badger forced them to drink down at the back of Farmer Jim's Hay Barn last Thursday week.

What I wondered was, all that wind energy that they're capturing and converting into electrical energy... What should it be doing? what was it going to do if the turbine hadn't stolen it away?  Wind's been with us for, quite literally, ages.  Probably since the very world began - So at least fifty thousand years... *cough*... And it does some pretty cool things, it used to blow sailing ships to far flung places, it lifts aeroplanes up into the air (possibly) - It's great stuff generally - windmills, both flour grinding and the pretty toy ones, wouldn't work without it.  OK, I mean occasionally it can spin around a bit sharpish and wipe things off the face of the planet leaving just some tinder and a single dolls head for poigniancy, but still!

All wind must have a purpose, Gaia or Nature or the Gods or our rubbery overlords from Zeta Reticulii don't put things on the planet just for the crack, except Duck Billed Platypi and possibly Pangolins... So, the wind that we're capturing and converting should be doing something else - But what? Does it have a function that we're not aware of?  Does it somehow trigger 'Spring' perhaps? - All evidence would point towards the fact that maybe it does.

Or could we be facing an altogether more armageddonal problem?  Could the light winds that the turbines capture regulate the planet's temperature? Could Wind Turbines be causing climate change?  Will the heat radiating from the molten core of our planet slowly build, without this breeze to cool it, until the mantle of the earth liquifies and the fragile crust tears to pieces like a soggy sheet of Plenty kitchen towel (Other brands are available) and we all have just enough time to yell 'Damn you Charles F. Brush!'  and wave our skinny fists towards the heavens defiantly before turning into a greasy speck in the burgeoning magma?

It's a possibility.

So, the next time some hippy says 'Tear down this coal fired power station and put in a windfarm, Man!' You have my permission to nail him to something solid so he can't do any further harm.

My Interview with iBazinga Magazine

A few weeks ago, I was approached by absolutely nobody, and asked if, as I was a rising star of the Internet, who regularly attracts double-figure numbers of page hits on his Blog, quite literally, almost every day, I would like to do an interview for a completely ficticious Technology Magazine called iBazinga.

At first I refused, partly because I am, by nature, a very private soul and do not like to talk about myself, but mostly it's because the magazine doesn't exist and it was just the voices in my head making me the offer, which is better than the normal 'Burn this, the duct-tape will quiet her filty noise' style advice I normally get from them.

So, on a rainy Wednesday, in the past, I didn't find myself in a suite on the 30th floor of the Park Lane Hilton, in London, talking to a made-up journalist about myself.

-oOo-

So, Mr Dandy, thank you for agreeing to this interview, I'm sure a lot of our readers would like to know a little bit about the man behind the T-Shirt with the amusing Pangolin motif.

Well, thank you Brian, may I call you Brian?

 
My name's actually Tracy...

Righty-ho, so, Brian, I'm glad that you asked me that, it's nice for me to finally get to set the record straight. I mean, there are people out there who think I'm just a megalomaniac with a God complex who somehow thinks that his opinions are more important than anyone else's.

 
I'm sure nobody thinks that, all of our readers who bothered to send questions in were generally very complimentary about your writing style, and didn't find it to be syrupy self-aggrandizement at all.

Ah, good, you say that people sent in questions? For me? How very lovely.

 
Yes indeed, we have one here from Michael Stibberly in Kuwait. 'Do you have a big family?'

Big? No, not really big as such, There's the Wife, Mrs Dandy, my Daughter, the MiniDandy - who has her own Blog, my Son, who has asked for his name to be witheld because it might impact his scrap metal and drive tarmacing business, my pigeon shattering Father and very occasionally the Ghost of my Dead Mother, who may, or may not, be scared of the Hoover. We've also got family who live on a little island in the Med and still more, just around the corner. Actually I guess it is a fairly sizeable brood.

 
Miss Sybil Von Daniken of Poole in Dorset writes 'You speak of GodS all the time, rather than God, the Saviour, The Father, The One True God... Did you know that you are going to Hell and will spend eternity in torment, pursued by Satan's imps with their constantly stabbing pitchforks?'

Nope, I think I'll be fine. I'm all about the whole Supreme Being idea, but whether that Being is the Judeo-Christian God, a Bowl of Spaghetti & Meatballs or a bunch of guys with oversized heads wearing a lovely tinfoil ensemble designed by some 'Space' Vivienne Westwood then that's OK with me. I mean, imagine the feeling when you get up to Heaven and there are as many Gods as there are people, and we've all got one each.

 
Marion D'la Plume D'ma Tante asks, 'We all know that you are something of an IT Guru, but have you ever done anything else?'

Funny you should ask that, I was talking to one of my ex customers only a few months back, I have spent time as a licensed Door Supervisor, a Fetish Model and a card-carrying Superhero - I'll leave it to your imagination as to exactly which one the person was a customer of. And I've recently also become a published Author.

 
A quick one from Simon Whatstandwell all the way from Rutherford, New Joisey. 'Do you really think that Pandas are the next big worry, greater than global warming, greater than Earth being hit by a comet, meterorite or alien spacecraft full of marauding, Oh, I don't know, flesh eating... Ermm.. Cats with spiky helmets?' - I'm sorry, I think that that question might have gotten away from the asker there a little bit!

That's fine Brian, it happens to me all the time! - Yes, I seriously believe that Pandas are the furry mammal equivalent of the Communist sleeper cell. At a pre-arranged time, they will rise up, take control, and subjugate mankind under their little part-formed thumbs. It'll be quick, bloody, and the cupcake shops with probably fall first. And just for completeness, I believe that all cats have spiky helmets.

 
Yes... Quite... Only a couple more questions, and then we can let you go. We received this one, written in crayon, which is very odd when you consider that it was sent by email, it is signed, but the signature is sadly illegible. Going by the address of the sender, it comes from Frankie.D'Souza@HouseOfLords.gov.uk and reads 'When you is growing up and stuff, who is it you wanna be, like, innit?'


Ah, little Frankie, I remember her well, Beautiful plumage... In recent times I have come to realise that the person I want to be when I grow up is me, but with a lot more cash, and some pet killer whales. But when I was but a young slip of a Dandy, and Chimping was the furthest thing from my mind, I wanted to be Martin Shaw off of Judge John Deed.

 
And finally, Cyril, Haha! Francoise Goebbels from the lovely province of Alberta in Canadiashire has asked the question that is on the tip of everyone's tongue, 'Dandy, how did you, mild mannered IT professional by day, pay as you go doppelganger and haddock worrier by night, become the Chimping Dandy.'

Brian, Brain, Brian... It's a well known fact that secret identities are secret for a reason, they protect the families and loved ones of the... erm... person who has decided to have a secret identity, for which I'm sure there is a proper noun. So, I have changed the names, crossed the 'I's and dotted the 'T's to make sure that the story is as safe as I can possibly make it. I can't be held responsible, well, for anything really, as I'm a bit infantile, but mostly I can't be held responsible for any personal harm that may befall you if you read.... The Origin of The Chimping Dandy.

 
Well, that was informative, thank you very much Mr Dandy, we'll be sure to let you know when the interview is published. The readers of iBazinga magazine thank you and hope you a long and happy Blogging experience.

-oOo-

And that's where the interview ended, I looked around and realised that I wasn't actually in a suite, on a non-existant floor of the tallest hotel in London, I was lying on the carpet, in the lounge, with a trickle of Irn Bru coming out of my nose and a very puzzled looking cat breathing its fishy breath into my mouth and licking my teeth.

Another normal day at Dandy Towers, I'm sure you'll agree. Enjoy your weekend, and if you do something exciting, don't forget to tell me about it - It could make you famous.


Yes, I realise you've seen all this stuff before, think of it as the Mid-Season Clip Show - If it's good enough for NBC then it's good enough for you lot.

The Barney Stinson of the animal world

So, following on (kinda) from yesterday's Blog - Bizarre animals and the suspect Gods that create them, I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about my most favourite of these weirdo, throwback, Friday afternoon type animals...

The Pangolin (whom I try not to challenge) specifically the Giant Pangolin of Central Africa.

If you've never heard of the Pangolin, you're not alone, they're not widely advertised, I don't think there have ever been any famous Pangolins. None have ever saved a burning bus, full of children from going over a precipice into the ocean as far as I'm aware.

They're just so Gorram odd!

Firstly, they're a scaled mammal, their scales are made of the same stuff as fingernails and hair (and therefore Rhino-horn - BooYah!), they're also sharp on the edges, and it rolls into a ball when threatened, kinda like a pinecone made of razor blades - Awesome!

Secondly, should you try to threaten a Pangolin and fail, because you are not awesome enough, it will excrete stuff from its butt that smells like skunk spray, but just happens to be acid - ACID? Who thought this up? - Doesn't matter - Awesome!

Thirdly, it walks on its fists, ON... ITS... FISTS... Because it is so hard! - And because its claws are so long and sharp that they make walking difficult - Again - Awesome!

Fourthly, it only eats ants, OK, so that's not so awesome, and it doesn't have any teeth and can't chew... however, it does have a tongue that's over a foot long and covered in glue - And if you don't think that's Awesome, well, obviously you need your head examining by an expensive professional!

It can be mistaken for a house eating alien monster from beyond the stars! In July of 2011, a small village in India saw a Pangolin crawling out of a building that had recently fallen down. Instantly, they decided that it was, and I quote, 'a dangerous and strange animal' and that the best thing they could do would be to tie it up and beat it to death with rocks. Then to prove their bravery, they hung it up (once it was safely dead) and beat it with shoes and then took its picture before cutting it down and dumping it for feral dogs to eat.

Nice... (Please note, this photo has forced perspective, the Pangolin is a lot smaller than it looks)

OK, maybe they do occasionally claw their way through the walls of insubstantially built houses looking for termites, but I mean, who among us can say that they've never done that after a night on the sauce?

Really? Just me then...

I've decided that, to honour this poor animal, I will make a humble Pangolin (whom I have dubbed Seedy) the official mascot of The Chimping Dandy - She will no doubt be gracing the huge range of Chimping Dandy merchandise that will, possibly, soon be available via mail order to selected clients at vastly inflated prices.

All hail the humble Pangolin!  Nature's razor sharp, demolition pinecone of doom!