It’s like sitting on a razor blade.

Do you commute regularly? To work, or some educational establishment or other? Maybe on a bus or a train - by some means where you can while away your journey watching the sights, sounds and (let’s face it) fairly unusual smells of your fellow humans. You can engage in all sorts of fantasies involving your fellow travelers can’t you?  Wondering what they’d look like naked perhaps, whether they’d cry ‘Again! Again, like a big drill!’ during the throes of passion as you assault them with a toilet brush.

Maybe you wonder what their neck would feel like as you slowly crushed the life from them… Which will totally happen if they don’t stop slurping noisily at that can of ‘Relentless’ that they’re gulping down to try and replace some electrolytes because of the vodka and cocaine binge they had in a hotel room with a selection of down-on-their-luck Eastern European models last night (You’re fantasizing again, I totally didn’t write that bit – You’re an add sort when it comes down to it you know… You need help.)

Anyway, let’s get back to me, because I’m handsome, aspirational and famous and ostensibly, the reason you’re all here. I commute 110 miles every weekday. 55 miles there and 55 miles back.

110 miles a day… That’s 550 miles a week, 2,420(ish) a month. Or 29,040 miles every year (minus things like holidays and stuff, that I get a right potload of because: Senior Manager in my day-job – But let’s forget about them for the moment) – I can’t really complain, all these miles are done in the comfort of the Dandymobile, which Heckmondswyke religiously tops up the Chablis and Merlot tanks of every Sunday evening and makes sure there is Ample Stilton in the glove-box.  For those non-locals, I should explain that Ample Stilton is a specialty of my local fromagerie, it’s like normal Stilton, but formed into a facsimile of the derriere of my old school matron. I’ve no idea how he manages to get it all in the glove-box in one piece… I think he uses both knees and a lubricated spatula – That’s certainly how we used to handle the real thing.

You’d think that everything would be rosy, a daily trek around the country villages of the West Midlands, glass in hand, rivulets of part-masticated cheese dripping from my jowls like slightly moldy glaciers and surrounded by enough hand-finished walnut veneer and paisley headlining to stun a village full of angry Matabele tribesmen.  And it would be, but for two minor points:

1: I’m not 100% sure that Heckmondswyke has actually removed all the marmosets from behind the cheap-seats in the back – I get an occasional bustling noise, which can’t be simply explained away as the May Queen doing a bit of a la carte spring-cleaning.

2: Cyclists…

Now, before things get heated and feaces starts getting thrown (which is a popular traditional pastime in some places you know) let me explain what I don’t mean.  I don’t mean people who ride ‘pushbikes’ well… I do, but not all of them.

I don’t mean ruddy-faced children cycling to school

I don’t mean swarthy farm-workers cycling to a distant barn to feed and fornicate with animals that will eventually become my food and/or shoes.

I don’t mean people whose homes are suddenly in the commuter-belt for Birmingham and who have had to sell their more ‘adult’ forms of transport so that they can afford the massive price-hike in their monthly bills for simply staying in the same place.

I don’t mean a mother cycling to her local shop in a carefree 1940s way with a headscarf, a wicker basket and her heart full of song and anti-depressants.

I don’t mean retired people who cycle because their doctor said that it’s healthy to do so.

This... Exactly this... Terrible.

I mean people who wear lycra so tight that you could explain their manscaping regime to the local police officer who has to ask you where they made you feel uncomfortable. The ones who stand, provocatively on their pedals, lifting their backsides off their razor-thin seats and waving them at you so that you can see how much lower their left testicle hangs than their right.  The ones who, even if they are not riding two-abreast, hold up the traffic going through the idyllic, but venomously twisty, country lanes that the Dandymobile counts amongst her natural hunting grounds.

The ones who work in an office, who have sub-middle aged friends, often called Trevor, or Gavin who don’t need to wear a tie to the office but still do.  The ones whose wife is having an affair with someone who works for her, but they believe it’s perfectly acceptable because it gives them more time to lycra themselves up and meet similarly attired men in the toilets of country pubs before ‘click-clacking’ across the tilework and disappearing for the afternoon and coming back home sweaty and chafed around their nethers.

The ones that even tractors get stuck behind. The ones whose shorts tighten when somebody mentions Sir Bradley Wiggins. The ones who wear black lycra 51 weeks of the year but buy a yellow jersey for Tour de France week because… Well, I don’t exactly know why they do this – If you were to look at their faces if and when you can actually pass them on a long straight, you’d see an expression on their faces that could only be explained by the yellow jersey having some kind of electronic device that stimulates their nipples as they sail along in their own personal peloton. (Which is French for ‘Platoon’. You knew in your heart of hearts it’d be the French’s fault in some way didn’t you?)

Maybe you know someone who does this? Maybe they’ll say that they do it for fitness, or they’ll say that it’s their kind of meditation, their refuge from the pressures of the working week that most people solve with gin and masturbation.

But we know different don’t we children? We know it’s just because they’re strange – And not the ‘good’ kind of strange like the rest of us… They’re the ‘bad’ strange, the kind of strange that causes reporters from local newspapers to start any article about them with a quote from their next-door neighbours that says something like ‘He was a quiet man who kept himself to himself…’ and ends with, ‘He is survived by two ruddy-faced children and his wife, Lavinia, who habitually wears a headscarf – pictured here being consoled by “a friend”’

Don’t pretend you’re a professional competitive cyclist kids… Not even once.

So, Gay Marriage… What’s that all about?

I’ve talked about people who enjoy the close company of other people of the same or similar gender before.  I remember discussing their traditional love of musical theatre, their almost superhuman ability to match superfluous, but to the untrained eye wildly different, sofa cushions, and also their general flamboyance.  Which is something I wholeheartedly agree with, if you’re gonna do something, you may as well do it fabulously!

But these tropes are only usually applied to gay people who have ‘outie’ reproductive organs.  What about those with ‘innies’?

Well, I’ll be the first person to admit that I have more experience with gay men than I have with gay women or [Whisper] Lesbians [/Whisper] as some like to be called. (I’ll tell you what, let’s get the jokes out of the way first, OK?)

Haha! I bet you have!

I can lend you a DVD if you like!

Experience? With gay men? Woooo! – you complete bender!

And so on…

But this is odd when you stop to think about it, because my niece is ‘one of them’ and in a few days she will be getting married to her female life partner (or they might be being ‘civil partnered’ I don’t know I’m not au fait with all the ins and outs of the process – All I know is that I’m probably going to have to dress up and not drink anywhere near enough at the reception because: driving, just like I would at anyone else’s wedding)

And that’s the thing you see – the thing that gets me, is that when you think about it there’s no real difference between ‘Same-sex marriage and Different-sex marriage… Apart from the details of what happens on the wedding night that is, possibly.  Again, no first-hand experience, so I’m not qualified to judge.  Keen readers will have noticed that I didn’t say Normal marriage either, because, like, I used to own an owl, so my idea of ‘normal’ is different from most people’s.

What I’m trying to say, in an ugly and, on-the-surface completely uninformed way, is that in my opinion, the union of two people who care deeply about each other is a marriage.  It shouldn’t confer any more or any less rights and responsibilities on anyone depending on the race, creed, gender, level of disability or even species of all the spouses.

Yes, you heard me right… As long as the haddock loves you and you love the haddock, they why not? (My more vanilla readers might wonder how the haddock can give its consent to such a union, but when a haddock really loves you, you just ‘know’ OK? It’s in the eyes…) It makes no difference to me, or you, or that guy behind you trying to read over your shoulder (He’s gone now, don’t worry, although he did look a bit shifty and I couldn’t really see what he was doing with his hands.)

There’s a quote you see sometimes on the Internet, often attributed to the Writer and Comedian Liz Feldman (as it is in the example below – I’ve asked her if she ever actually said it, and if she replies, I’ll let you know)

In case you have a smartphone with a tiny screen, it says, “It’s very dear to me, the issue of Gay Marriage. Or, as I like to call it: ‘Marriage.’  You know, because I had lunch this afternoon, not Gay Lunch. I parked my car; I didn’t Gay Park it.”

And that sums it all up pretty well actually, there are people out there who’ve done the almost impossible, they’ve found the one someone out of just over seven billion, that they want to (initially at least, at this specific point in time) spend the rest of their life with in some kind of fulfilling relationship.   What business is it of yours or mine?  When it gets down to it – What difference will them letting the world how much they love each other make to you, or me?

Let me give you a hint… The answer’s none, despite what googly-eyed maddists will say it won’t bring down some random God’s wrath, it won’t cause floods or hurricanes, or confuse children, or infect the heterosexual majority and lead to record-shops selling out of KD Lang and Liza Minnelli.  It won’t lead to a global outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases, we won’t all get AIDS (Remember AIDS? It was like ‘terrorists’, but in the 90’s)

I’m incredibly proud of my niece and her partner; To be completely honest, I’m slightly more proud of them than I would be if my nephew was getting married to a female partner, because they’re doing something, out of choice, that’s difficult.

Something that really, really shouldn’t be.

-oOo-

P.S. My pride in them has nothing to do with the fact that I find it hugely funny that my father-in-law’s religion requires him to be staunchly anti-homosexual . He’s not homophobic, he doesn’t fear them in the slightest, he just treats them as Godless abominations… And he has no idea why, other than some guy, writing a book of rules to keep the populace in their place some time ago said that that’s how he should think.

Well, maybe just a little bit.

-oOo-

P.P.S. UPDATE!

OK, so, remember how I said that I'd asked Liz Feldman if she'd actually ever said that quote? - Well, she didn't answer the question, but she did do this....

I can live with that I guess...

The Cir-her-her-cle oooof LiIiIife!

Back in August 2004, I took a trip to that London place, you know the one, the Capital of England (And you thought that was 'E' right? LOL), that sits on the River Thames, where Kubrick filmed the battle scenes for Full Metal Jacket (The old Beckton Gasworks) and Ridley Scott filmed most of Aliens (Acton Lane Power station)

Was I visiting scenes from movie history? No, I wasn't, but in fairness it's quite difficult to wander around London and not see a location from a Richard Curtis film.  I was going to see a show, a musical, a professional terpsichorial display of the highest order. Otherwise known as 'The Lion King'.

Now I know that there are people out there who will be saying things like 'A musical? but that's how gay men spend their free time!'  Well, traditionally, perhaps they do, that and ordering multiple copies of the 'Queer as Folk' box-set from Amazon...  And, erm,a lot of casual bumming, obviously.

But, you know, in a mixed group, some of the 'West End Shows' can be really very good. I've seen a few and on the whole, if you can get a cut-price deal to go and see one, they're well worth it.

But on this occasion, we're talking about The Lion King.  There were six of us on the trip in total,  Mrs Dandy and Myself, my now-American artistic benefactor and her husband, and two more people, one male, one female, who were not at that time, nor have they ever been, before or since, involved in a relationship with each other... Just friends, OK?

As my job at the time involved moving around the country quite a lot and staying in hotels, the group trusted me to book somewhere for us all to stay.  Once I'd confirmed that everyone favoured a budget hotel, so that there would be more money left over for beer and other frivolities, I set to work, trying to find a budget hotel within walking distance of the Lyceum Theatre, in WC2, that had two double rooms and two singles.  Believe it or not, I managed it, Great looking place, All of the rooms were en-suite, Central location, easy walk to the theatre, £25 or so per room.

That should have rung alarm bells right? Yeah? - Not with me it seems.  We had a great trip down on the train, all shiny faced excitement, cans of British Rail Strongbow and talking slightly too loud,  When we arrived outside the hotel, it still looked great, it was quite a large building, that overlooked one of those nice gated private garden type things that you see sometimes on the TV.

We went inside, and frankly it was a bit dingy, the owners and staff were all natives of some unidentified Eastern European country and had raised surliness to an artform.  There was a little light confusion as to whether we'd already paid, which got everyone off on the right foot and we were all given directions to our rooms, which were spread at every possible corner of the building.  The directions involved a lot of pointing, and words like 'Go stairs two floor, turn *handsignal for left* three doors. toilet at both ends corridor'.

Now, being sharp witted, I picked up on this and said 'Aha! Excuse me, my good man, but the booking form clearly states that the rooms are en-suite!' and I waved the printout from the Internet under his bushy moustache.  He inhaled, and the paper disappeared into his nasal cavity, losing me all of my documentary evidence in one fell swoop, then he replied, 'Room have shower in, toilet at end of corridor.'

So we made a plan to unpack, then go for a beer and some lunch, said our goodbyes and went to our rooms.  We went up two flights of stairs, turned left, went down three doors and pushed.  The room was... Small, yes, that's a kind word... Small. There was a (barely) double bed and a long-dead potplant.  Most of the room was taken up by a hardboard box that stretched from floor to ceiling, that was covered in the same 'Early Mental Hospital' style wallpaper as the rest of the room and had a concertina door on it.  My curiosity finally got the better of me and I opened the door.  It was, of course, the much vaunted en-suite shower.  To say that it was a bit of a lash-up would be to despoil the good name of lash-up showers such as the ones that Colonel John Blashford-Snell made out of three bits of bamboo and a sloth, whilst trying to transport a Grand Piano up the Congo some four years previously (look it up).

It was whilst I was examining a particularly unusual piece of fungus, emanating from the shower drain (hole in the carpeting inside the box) that I decided that a quick trip to the conveniences was in order.  I left the room, made for the end of the corridor and gingerly pushed open a door with many panes of frosted glass in it (and one perfectly clear pane at face height, when you were sat down.) The toilet could not have been more Victorian if it had a hairy German bloke, wearing a T-Shirt that said 'I [heart] Saxe-Coburg and Gotha' and an unfeasibly large pierced penis, sat on it.  I attended to my urgent business and pulled the chain (as it had a high-level cistern, like back in the day) and nothing happened other than a faint gurgling.  I pulled a few more times, in the style of Ned Beatty trying to start an outboard motor, but finally gave up and went back to the room.

It was then that I noticed that the doors didn't have numbers on.  You know that scene in every single film set in a hotel? The one that sort of zooms in then back out again down the corridor full of doors?  Well, let me tell you, that actually happens.  I went from door to door, listening carefully to see if I could heard the sound of Mrs Dandy silently complaining about the room.  But I could not, so I chose a door at random and opened it.

It was then that I noticed the urine-soaked corpse of a tramp.

No, seriously.

He was a tramp, he stank of urine, and he was dead... Probably - If he wasn't, then he was sleeping so deeply that his chest wasn't moving at all.  Now, I've seen enough horror films to know that if you go down, alone, to the reception of a hotel run by unidentified Eastern European types to say that you've just discovered a dead body, then you often find yourself being served to your friends for breakfast the next day.  So I backed out of the room, apologised (OK, so he was dead and couldn't technically hear me, but that didn't mean that I shouldn't be polite) and closed the door.

We all met up again in the lounge, had a long pub lunch, told everyone the story of the toilet and the tramp, then went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.

The next few hours or so passed by quickly and will remain undescribed to spare the blushes of my dear wife.  Suffice it to say that there was no bar, or indeed mini-bar, so we had to resort to the old fashioned way of passing the time with only a bed and a dead plant for company, and it was only due to one of our party knocking on the door and asking if we were ready that reminded us of the time (and it seems that answering 'give me about thirty seconds and I will be' will earn you a slap from your wife)

We went to the theatre, had a great time, then came back to the hotel and had a few drinks in one of the rooms that had a working balcony until the early hours of the morning.

Breakfast was an interesting affair, the advertised Full English Breakfast turned out to be a single sausage and a piece of bacon each, calls for beans and/or tomatoes and toast fell on deaf and slightly frightening ears and in true tabloid style, we made our excuses and left.

The trip to the railway station was fairly uneventful, apart from not being able to find the tickets, going back to the hotel to look for them and then finding them in one of the ladies handbags and having to run to get the train.  And we put the whole sorry business behind us.

Until just over nine months later... The MicroDandy was born...

But it says here...

So, Religious Texts, what do we think about those?

There are a lot of them about, probably more of them than there are actual religions.  And most of them purport to be the word of whatever god, God or Goddess favoured by that actual religion, whether directly dictated or 'translated' by a selection of scholars and prophets.

I'm going to put the next bit in big letters, so there's no confusion as to what follows.

IN MY OPINION ALL RELIGIOUS TEXTS ARE THE WORK OF MEN - NOT A SUPREME BEING.

You could argue that the people who wrote these things were directed by a god, you might be right, I don't pretend to know, but my opinion is up there, in the big letters.

But they exist... The books that is.  We're stuck with them now, so what do we do with them?  Well, as I understand it they were provided initially as a set of stories to teach things like morals and laws, rules for handling certain situations, and ways that you could prove that you were a follower of that particular religion.  In Christianity (I chose this one because it's the one I know slightly more about, but I'm reliably informed that the others are pretty much the same.) You've got your commandments and suchlike and your abominations, things you should do, things you shouldn't do. Fish you can eat, neighbour's asses that you can't covet.

And then there's the contradictions, a detailed book, written by a committee, is bound to have a few contradictions - Even if it was dictated directly by a deity - the entire history of space-time is a lot to remember, even for the omnipotent.

Although you'd think that they'd manage to get his Corporeal Son's last words right at least..

MAT 27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."

LUK 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the ghost."

JOH 19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

OK, you're right, I'm being petty - It was probably an emotional time.

And there's the whole 'Who told David to start the census in Israel?' question - There's some confusion, but the two 'suspects' couldn't be more different:

II SAMUEL 24: And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

I CHRONICLES 21: And SATAN stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

No... I got nothing on this one - You'll have to make your own minds up.

Maybe, just maybe, it's a mistranslation.  I mean, the texts that form the Christian Bible were written in a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek with a smattering of Chaldean thrown in to make things interesting, over a period of a thousand years or so. The the bits that were in hebrew got translated into Greek so that the Jews could read them (Most 'modern' Jews didn't speak a lot of Hebrew at the time - from about 100AD onwards) Over the next thousand years it got translated into Gothic (Germanic) Olde Englishe and Latin and didn't get a Modern English translation until the sixteenth century.

Is it any wonder that a lot of it doesn't really make sense, you can imagine scribes translating from a Gothic version, into Latin, for the English market, hitting a word that the previous translator didn't really get right, scratching his head with the end of his goose-quill and saying something like 'Whateth I thinketh he meaneth thereth is-eth...' and having a wild stab at it.  No guarantee that he gets it right either of course.

There are a lot of parts that various people (usually those people who are directly effected by them) claim to be mistranslations.  A popular one is 'Abomination' as I've used above, this was originally translated from the Hebrew words 'Sheketz' and 'toevah' which is a bit difficult to explain really... It kind of means 'Things that THEY (pointing to Johnny Foreigner) do, but WE don't think are right.'  Many things are described a toevah through an awful lot of the Bible, including Child sacrifice, Idolatry (Very big on idolatry being toevah they are), fortune telling, haughtiness (Really, if you feel like doing a bit of reading, try tho Book of Ezekiel, it's a laugh riot - there are flying saucers and everything), eating with Shepherds (which brings up a whole bunch of questions on its own), women wearing trousers, remarriage and... Wait for it... Sodomy - A man lying with a man, as he would with a woman.

Which brings me to the trigger for today's Blog.  My good friend Nathan, shared a piece on Facebook about the Dr Laura letter - Which for those who haven't read it, is included below.

As a note, this is a real letter, written to a real person, but not by James Kauffman, He has a web-page about it and everything.

-oOo-

On her radio show, Dr. Laura said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Schlesinger, written by a US man, and posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as quite informative:

It also shows that once you've read The Book of Ezekiel, take the Book of Leviticus out for a spin - But have a dry pair of trousers ready to change into afterwards if you have a weak bladder.


Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.


Your adoring fan,


James M. Kauffman,

Ed.D. Professor Emeritus,

Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

-oOo-

Note: To the Religionites who may or may not be reading this, I don't mean to offend, I mean to entertain.  I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make me the subject of a... Erm... Whatever the Christian version of a Jihad is... Possibly a crusade I suppose, or perhaps inviting me to a bake-sale and then not letting me eat anything with Jam or Cream in it.

Only a bit of fun - Yeah? So no stoning to death for me please, if at all possible.