140 Fragile little worms

Twitter... What's this Twitter thing all about then?

Twitter is a social network that tries to emulate the early days of text messaging, where you were only allowed a small number of characters in each message.  The main difference is that you can send your message to anyone who has an account - Whether that person knows you, is in a different country, speaks a different language, isn't particularly interested in seeing a blurry photo of you that you took in the toilet of your nearest Burger King, or - And this is the one I want to concentrate on today, famous.

A vast proportion of famous people have twitter accounts, many of them are run by a P.R. Company and say uninteresting things like 'Mr Douglas will be in Palm Springs playing the part of Darren/Ophelia in Gay: The Musical - Tickets are still available.'

But, the interesting ones run the accounts themselves, and you can tell in a lot of cases, because they 'tweet' photographs of their lunch, or complain that they can't fit the kettle in the sink of their dressing rooms.  It's these people I like to send messages to, they don't often reply, I mean, they probably get a kajillion messages a day from actual fans, why would they take the time to reply to a bald, fat chancer, who lives to make himself giggle like an incontinent schoolgirl?

I present you with a selection of my favourite Twitter moments, along with a list of people who didn't see fit to reply, and who can blame them?

There was Shelley D'Inferno, popular Alternative model and Clothing Designer (and sometime fan of the Blog)

And I blamed writer and actor Steve Edge for one of the MiniDandy's emotional outbursts

And then of course there's my all time personal greatest, TV's Mr Nice, Martyr to getting stuff in his eye and having to have a bit of a lie-down: Mr Nick Knowles.

(I think I may have said that he looked like a badly looked after leather suitcase)

-oOo-

As well as plain old 'replying' there are three other ways you can feel good about yourself - If someone who is a 'someone' follows you...

-oOo-

If that someone 'Favourites' a tweet, which I guess is what you do instead of pressing 'Like' on Facebook

 

-oOo-

And then there's the Re-Tweet - What Twitter's really all about, it's the equivalent of a 'Share' on Facebook

-oOo-

I didn't get a reply from these guys though, and it was a crime...

(I think the restraining order went to my old address...)

And Mulder & Scully should be interviewing this baker in the near future:

This did not get me a bye through the selection procedure for MasterChef UK

(it was THIS recipe by the way)

-oOo-

People who have never replied also include, but are not limited to:

Russell Brand (@RustyRockets) - I accused him of trying to have sex with a character from Mad Max,
Jack Whitehall (jackwhitehall) - Comedian - I warned him against using The Chimping Dandy as his Superhero name.
James May (@MrJamesMay) - Top Gear presenter and model train enthusiast - poked at him many times,
Jeri Ryan (@JeriLRyan) Seven of Nine from Star Trek - It was about chocolate covered babies heads and whether she wore a corset under her costume,
Charlie Brooker (@CharltonBrooker) - Told him how much of a Fanboi I was for Black Mirror
Omid Djalilli (@omid9) - The worlds greatest Persian comedian - I offered to be his scriptwriter, I think he made the right decision,
Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) - I think I may have drunkenly referred to him as 'Da Man' *ashamed*
Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) - I asked him if he minded me comparing Barney Stinson to a Pangolin,
Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) - genius comedian/actor - Gave him some tattoo moving ideas using a cheesegrater.
The Pope (@Pontifex) - Although i was arguing the case for my ex-communication - No, really, I was
Professor Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) - Cosmic Scientist and Disco Keyboardist - Many futile attempts,
Peter Serafinowicz (@serafinowicz) - The voice of Darth Maul - I asked if he would rather have a French waiter with a small or large penis,
Davina McCall (@ThisIsDavina) - General TV Personality and worrier - I tried to organise a petition to get her manky shoes shown on television,
Sir Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) - THE Captain Picard - I asked him if he was going to guest star in Sons of Anarchy
Pollyanna Woodward (@PollyannaWW) - Ex Gadget Show, May have got drunk and told her I was wearing my wife's pants,
Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) - BBC's Top Gear etc. - Although I'm fairly sure that he's read the Blog entry about Top Gear
William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) Captain Kirk from Star Trek - And he answers everyone... *sniff*

Right in the Ghoulies

Well, Friday was a busy day wasn't it Children?

I wrote a Blog that was a bit divisive, about a sensitive subject, from my personal viewpoint.  It went straight in at No. 2 in the most popular Blogs ever by The Chimping Dandy (Completely failing to knock the whole shattering pigeon story off the number 1 slot of course - Glad to see you guys have got your priorities straight) and helped to power May 2013 to the second most monthly pageviews ever - Only got 208 views to go to take it rocketing to the top though - there's always hope... You know what to do.

Anyway, back to normal now - Let's be a bit more inclusive, I'm going to talk about a subject that can't possibly divide people.  no-one takes it seriously - there aren't huge groups of sometimes slightly unstable types going to gatherings of like minded people, no banners, no secret handshakes, no wandering around disused buildings in the dead of night hoping to make contact with shadowy individuals. No massive amounts of senseless death.

Cock!

Actually there's all of those things.

I'm talking about the paranormal and the investigation thereof.

Longtime readers will know, and dippers (What I've now decided to call people who just read odd posts every once in a while, on the toilet perhaps) might have spotted, that whenever I mention my Mother, I qualify it by saying whether she was dead or alive at the time of the particular story.

And for the few people left in the Blogoshpere who don't know why, HERE's the story of my Daughter meeting my Mother for the first time, despite the fact that she'd been dead for a number of years.

So, it would be safe to say that I believe that some spark of consciousness can continue to exist after death. I mean, it makes a certain amount of sense (to me at least) what with the whole thing about what makes us, us, being a collection of electrical impulses trapped in the 3lb of mush that we keeps stored between our ears. Maybe with the right atmospheric conditions, those impulses can get transferred into the ether - I don't know, obviously, I'm pulling this out of my butt... But it's not impossible... So little is nowadays isn't it - what with the advent of the microwave and nanotechnology and suchlike.

This also explains the traditional 'Country House' type  ghosts, those ones that are forever cursed to follow the same route they did the night they died, moaning and clanking chains and looking for their lost babies and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Their 'spark' is released into the ether, but gets trapped by the fabric of the building - Maybe there's a certain mixture of crystals or ores in the stones that record the spark and replay it in the manner of a cheap Taiwanese VCR.

This in turn fits in well with those, oh so popular in the 1970's, ghostly legions of Roman Legionaires that wander through country pubs and what-have-you, but have the audacity to be cut off at the torso by the floor - So it looks like they're wading through the concrete.  Then the owner of the building finds out that the floor's been raised by two feet and the Legionaries are marching at the level of the old floor.

So far, so spooky, but ultimately believable - As long as you have a stretchy imagination.

In fairness, I'm not wholly convinced about the whole 'Don't realise that they're dead' type things - But I suppose, thinking about it, it's not that huge a jump.  Maybe this 'Etheric copying' (Copyright Chimping Dandy 2013) isn't foolproof, and occasionally too much, or too little of the 'spark' gets transferred - You could use that to justify the angry spirit / poltergeist thaing too I suppose.  If there's supposed to be enough of you left to hold an understandable conversation with a small child, imagine the frustration if you still 'exist' somehow, but you can't communicate with anyone - Then imagine that there's enough of you left to realise that you're going to be like that for eternity.  Doesn't bear thinking about does it?

-oOo-

Then we've got those people who investigate the Rum & Uncanny for fun and profit.

There used to be a group of paranormal hunter types just down the road from me, they based their shenanigens from a semi with a high walled garden and had a website that had a few pictures of them in various dark rooms (And slightly more photos of them at various social events) - But they never actually displayed anything of a really ghostly nature, despite all of their night-vision cameras and EMF scanners, allegedly they ran a good ghost tour - Which I think was very brave of them as they had to compete in the same market with the wonderful Mr Richard Felix (Of whos Father's record stall in Derby Market Hall, I am proud to say I was a regular customer - in the 80's at least - Mainly because I fancied a girl on the Fruit & Veg stall opposite, but that's another story.) and his Haunted Derby / Derby Gaol tomfoolery.

You can't think about Richard Felix, without thinking about one time most popular woman on Television, Yvette Fielding... Who is great. And, with Husband Karl, has brought Paranormal Investigation to the masses.

Who hasn't seen Most Haunted?  Really?  That many of you?  Blimey! Go Google it or something, buy a box-set of the DVDs - Maybe Series 6 - Part 2, That features my local haunted house (Elvaston Castle)

If you ever watched Living, or Sky Living or whatever it's called this week you will have seen Most Haunted, at one time it was the only decent show on the entire channel and myself and Mrs Dandy were addicts.  It had it all, night-vision, history, believers, skeptics, stone throwing, table tapping, Ouija boards, orbs, and my most favourite thing ever in the world, is the consistent, regular as clockwork, reaction of Yvette's cousin Stuart to anything that could be misconstrued as even slightly paranormal.  Things such as plumbing noises, wind, spiders, darkness and on occasion, his own digestive system, would regularly sent him into a panic that started with a stream of expletives, continued via frenzied running through darkened corridors, and usually seemed to end with him banging his head off something and having to be rushed to hospital.

Sounds like I'm taking the p*ss?

Well, I'm not - I genuinely enjoyed it - It's one of the few shows that I would completely suspend my disbelief for.  If they produced a Stuart Torevell Teddy-Bear, I would seriously consider buying one.  Especially if it had a pull-cord that made it scream and spout fruity Anglo-Saxon invective, and you could buy a head bandage for it.

And that's before we even start getting into the antics (if you'll pardon the pun) of Mr Derek Acorah.  Seriously, he's too easy a target even for me, but if you get bored, and want to see his greatest work, go to YouTube and search for 'Derek Acorah Mary'

Mad as a Badger... Brilliant!


I include a photograph of 'The Brown Lady' of Raynham Hall - Not only because it's one of the UK's most famous ghosts, but it makes my link have a cool 'ghostey' image when I post it to FaceBook - Hey, kids, I'm nothing if not honest... And mercenary!