He grabbed my arm, but not as hard as Michael Parkinson

On Saturday the 5th of January 1974 a strange thing happened.  From a small cupboard in the studio that had previously bought the world Crossroads, two men tried desperately, and often failed, to do continuity between all of the normal Saturday morning selection of kids cartoons and suchlike - it was never meant to be much of anything (And there are some that'd say that that's exactly what happened) But the six-year-old Dandy was a devoted fan even if his parents weren't.

The men were Mr John Asher and a certain Mr Christopher John 'Old Strawhead' Tarrant (OBE, but not at the time) and the show was TISWAS.

Now you've all heard of TISWAS, well you will have done if you're based in the UK and happen to be of a 'certain age'.  For those of you who haven't, go and have a look on YouTube. What started as a mostly improvised bit of experimental segue-ing turned, over the next eight years into a world-beating, childhood-transforming, new-star-making slice of television that was to be the template for pretty much every 'anarchic' kids TV program that came after it. (OK, the last series was a bit pants, but that was why it was the last series I'm guessing)

Without TISWAS there'd literally be no SM:TV or Dick n' Dom - And I leave it to you guys to decide whether the world would have been a better place if that had happened.

It introduced the younger generation to more 'traditionally mature' performers like Frank Carson, Norman Collier and... Erm... Bernard Manning?

And, it launched the career of recent (at the time) New-Faces winner Lenworth 'Lenny' Henry. Who, along with his parody of newsreader Trevor MacDonald (the brilliant Trevor MacDoughnut) managed to sail his way through segments that would be considered almost illegally racist today with backdrops of african scenery including a native dwelling bearing a sign 'This is a mud hut' - It was a simpler time, before political correctness and the Belgians stamping all over everthing that makes Britain great.

There was also a pre-Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy - Still called Sylveste at this time in his career.

It's at about this point, you should be thinking to yourselves "But why is he going on about a kids program that was cancelled before most of us were born?"

Well, I'll tell you.

Yesterday, (or the 19th of October 2014 - If you're not reading this today (which is the 20th October 2014)) there was an event held in Birmingham to celebrate the 40th Birthday of TISWAS, and I was lucky enough to blag a ticket.  It was organised, as I understand it, by the great minds behind the two major TISWAS groups on Facebook TISWAS Online and TISWAS and Saturday Mornings on ITV, and it took place in the upstairs room of the Apres Bar in Summer Row (Which is a cracking venue for this type of thing as both the gents and ladies toilets open onto the dance floor, handy for filling buckets of water)

Here's a picture of us all trying to figure out how stairs work
(C) TISWAS Online

Should you know the true identity of your humble blogger, you will have no difficult in picking him out by his lovely lumberjack shirt and the shine coming from the top of his head.

So, what was it like?

Well, it was hot... So hot in fact that I spent most of my time out on the terrace with the filthy smokers (Which in fairness are exactly the sort of people that TISWAS should be attracting).  And everyone started off being very reserved.  John Gorman was there when we arrived.

John Gorman and 'A Fan'

And we had a couple of beers - To keep up with the 70's theme, the bar sold Tuborg Lager, that took me straight back to the days where waking up in a ditch with the taste of stagnant water and jubblies in my mouth was a common occurance.  We missed the entrance of Bob Carolgees, Chris Tarrant and Sally James as we were taking in the bracing Birminghamshire air on the verandah busily trying to be too cool for school.  But we heard the cheers, and they really were deafening, there were a lot of card carrying superfans there, for some of them it was the third or even fourth time that they'd crawled of of their parents basement and blinked into the bright sunlight. (This is not true, 99% of the people there were great, friendly people who were as normal as you or I, the organisers had seen to that.)

(Well, you anyway.)

(Probably.)

There were some unexpected faces there too...

From Left to right: An unconfirmed shoulder, Lee Bannister, Ian 'Sludge' Lees, Rebecca Drury (Professional Compost Corner flower and partner of...) Matt Lewis (The little fellah that sang 'Bright-Eyes' dressed as a rabbit, who is now a fireman I think someone said), Chris Tarrant, Bob Carolgees, Sally James, John Gorman and Den Hegarty.

Some more beer was drunk (as I was being detained at British Rail's pleasure, so it seemed only right.) and the flanning started.  Now, if you're a 'flan' virgin, it's effectively the same as that comedy staple, the custard pie, or just a paper plate covered in eye-stinging-to-the-point-of-blindness shaving foam which caused a lot of people to spend the rest of the day looking like this:

My good friend and fish inquisitor @jamaallamaa

You'd have thought this was about as low as things could get?  Well no... Not really.  We were treated to fan renditions of popular TISWAS staples, The Dying Fly (A dance where you lie on the floor and wave your extremities in the air), and The Bucket of Water Song (Where you get wet, very, very, wet) and after another pint or so, it was time to wobble my way back to the half-complete New Street Station to stare in confusion at the Departure boards until one of the Rail staff helped me to my train.

It was a great day, one that I'll remember for a long, long time... Unless I go to near one of those magnets that you get at a scrapyard, then the plate in my head goes hot and I have to re-learn the words to 'Grandma we love you' all over again.

Thanks to the organisers for giving me the opportunity of getting innapropriately close to Sally James and for being able to tell Den Hegarty that he used to scare the poop out of me when I was a kid. (I also had a chat with David McKellar about who used to forget their lines most often.)

These were some of the reprobates that enabled my tomfoolery:

Marc Neun, Pete Thomas, Toby Riding & a couple of other people

If you see them in the street, you should shower them with money, flowers and assorted luxury food items (But be careful because at least one of them is a vegetarian)

P.S. Hastogs, the people who produce all the Chimping Dandy merch also produced all the commemorative T-Shirts for the day

P.P.S. The title of today's post is just something I over-heard from one of the other 'Guests'... Or at least I'm fairly sure that's what she said...

Для чудових людей України

Перш за все, я можу тільки сказати спасибі за підтримку 'The Chimping Dandy'
так довго. Ви натхнення.

Насправді, ви натхненням для цієї посади. Мені просто цікаво, чому ви б читати відро для блог про випадкових речей, які часто не роблять дуже багато сенсу?

(Я, ймовірно, слід вибачитися і отримаєте мого жахливого українською, все це було переведено 'Google Translate'. Англійська мова є єдиною мовою я вільно говорити, з можливо трохи французька, німецька, іспанська та Клінгонською.)

Так що я б дуже вдячний, якби ви могли залишити коментар, просто дайте мені знати, що тримає вас, хлопці повертаються. Може бути, я міг би зробити більше?

У страшній українському можливо?

Або, можливо, ні.

Звичайно, є ймовірність того, що ви є носієм англійської мови просто жити в Україні, і це добре теж. Але питання досі стоїть, з якого дива ви читаєте цю впертий сміття?

Спасибі за читання. Я дійсно був би вдячний, якби Ви відповісти.

-oOo-

OK, for those of you who aren't as fluent in Ukranian as I am, the title of this blog is: 

'To the wonderful people of the Ukraine'

And the body of the text reads:

First of all, can I just say thank you for supporting The Chimping Dandy for so long.  You're an inspiration.

In fact, you're the inspiration for this post.  I just wondered why you would read a rubbish blog about random things that often don't make very much sense?

(I should probably apologise now for my terrible Ukranian, it was all translated by Google Translate.  English is the only language I speak fluently, with maybe a little bit of French, German, Spanish and Klingon.)

So I would really appreciate it if you could leave a comment, just to let me know what keeps you guys coming back.  Maybe I could do more of it?

In terrible Ukranian perhaps?

Or perhaps not.

Of course, there is a possibility that you are a native English speaker just living in the Ukraine, which is good too.  But the question still stands, why on Earth would you read this opinionated rubbish?

Thanks for reading.  I really would appreciate it if you would reply.

-oOo-

Maybe we'll find out why the Blog is so popular in The Ukraine - If it's as fruitful as when I asked why we were getting so many hits from Russia, we'll never know, because precisely nobody replied to my queries then.  Are people in The Ukraine known for being more chatty?

Maybe it's the same person?

Maybe they were in Russia, but are now in The Ukraine? - Ah... If that's the case... I wonder?

Maybe I've put my foot in it with the Security Services again?

But even if I have, I've learned that the Ukranian word for 'Klingon' is 'клінгонов'... Which is brilliant. Not that I can pronounce it of course.

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.'

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...

It's like talking to the wall.

Welcome team.  I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but with writing a couple of books (Yes, actually writing them, rather than cobbling together stuff from this blog and palming it off on all and sundry as original work.) and the day job, things have gotten away from me a bit.

As far as the books go, I’m still finishing stories for ‘Forever Girl & Other Stories’ that I’m trying to get out in time for Christmas 2014.

And Book 1 of the Windspider Chronicles is in need of a major re-write and some cover art (If any of you fancy painting a full-colour Steampunk female airship pirate captain with her power-armoured younger brother in the background? Volume 2 will have the opposite, volume three will have them standing together). It’s looking like an Autumn 2015 release at the earliest.

And my children’s book ‘Mummy where’s my Soul?’ about a ginger kid and his pet dinosaur wandering through the pantheon looking for the titular spiritual construct is still in the early planning stages, still trying to decide who’s going to be most offended if I’m honest.

-oOo-

So, to today’s subject.  It’s something I’ve covered before, a subject I like to talk about because it’s impossible to get it wrong.  That’s right.  My favourite subject, THE FUTURE!

I’d like to talk about a specific part though, something that a lot of us have already experienced in a small way.

Talking to your appliances and them talking back to you. If you’ve got a reasonably modern smartphone, this is part of your everyday life.  But as time goes on, more things will do this, more of your household items will think they know better than you, is this something we should have to stand for?

Imagine for a second you’re a chap called… Erm… I don’t know… Maybe Dave? – Well, a lot of people are aren’t they? I mean, they’ve even got their own TV Channel and everything.  So, you get home after a long shift at Spacely Sprockets and really fancy some cheese on toast (Grilled Cheese)

Dave: Crap! I’m hungry, Mr Spacely really gets on my ass sometimes, could just go for some cheese on toast.

iFridge: I’ve got some of that Cheddar you like Dave, probably just enough for a sandwich.

Dave: Great, thanks, [Opens the fridge and sees that the little bit of cheese that he has left has been pushed suspiciously to the front] we got any bread?

iCupboard: You have half a loaf of Farmhouse that your Mum bought you last week when you felt ill and… Two slices of thick white [Two cupboard doors open automatically to display the choices]

iGrill: [Apologetically] Ah, I’m sorry Dave, I’ve started my self-clean cycle… You were late and you normally bring a take-away home on a Friday, I just assumed…

Dave: Don’t worry, I’ll make a normal sandwich… Hang on [Eyes the toaster]

iToaster: Awww Hell No!

Dave: Look, all you have to do is lie on your side!

iToaster: And how many times have you used that line?

Dave: Here, just… Owww!

iToaster: You did NOT just try and invalidate my Warranty!

Dave: You burned my finger!

iToaster: Self Dee-fence Honey, any court in the land would agree with me, you’d be banned from owning kitchen appliances for life.

Dave: [Points at a non-existent something out of the window] Look! A flying Halibut! [Tries and fails to grab the toaster and turn it sideways]

iToaster: [Yells] Help! I kid you not I will set fire to your raggedy ass in your sleep!

Dave: I’ve dropped the cheese on the floor now [Looks sullenly at the smug toaster] I hate you…

(In my mind, Chris Rock played the iToaster, or possibly Wanda Sykes, which is only slightly racist.)

-oOo-

But it’s not just appliances that will have personalities, I think that eventually everything will, even things that you wouldn’t even consider normally.  I heard on the radio some months back that it costs the local council thousands, if not millions, of pounds every year for them to sort out people putting the wrong rubbish in the wrong bins. This would be the perfect opportunity for some cut-price sentience, each bin would know what you were supposed to put in it and have some method of figuring out what you were attempting to throw away.  For ease of use, each would have a different accent perhaps? 

Your garden waste/compostable bin could have a deep West Country accent, ‘Hedge Trimmings? Yarr just the thing innit? Gorrany more?’ – Although that might be your pirate bin, where you throw away your unused pieces of eight and dubloons.

Your recycling bin could talk like a hippy, possibly Nigel Planer’s character Neil from ‘The Young Ones’, ‘Ooooh, Heeyy, yeah! Baked bean can mannnn! You’re helping to really save the planet Daaave! ’

And your normal bin? The one that doesn’t want your garden trimmings or your recycling? The one that sits there in the corner imperiously telling you what you can and can’t throw away without being fined?

Well, it’d be French wouldn’t it?

Dave: Why won’t you open? I’m trying to throw stuff away.

iBin: Non, Ah shall not open for you. What ees eet that you are even throwing away you peasant?

Dave: It’s a… Yoghurt pot.

iBin: Ees eet  plastique?

Dave: Er, I suppose so.

iBin: Zen eet ees le recycling, non?

iRecycle: Oh yeaaah Maaan, that’s totally my baaaag.’

Dave: OK, [Moves to recycling bin] What? Why won’t you open?

iRecycle: awww bummer! There’s still, like, yoghurt in it maaaan, that’s food waste!

Dave: Seriously?

iRecycle: Sorry… It’s The Man’s rules! [Whisper] Fight the system! Boomshanka!

Dave: [Moves to compost bin] Food waste!

iCompost: Olroight moy lover? Oh that’s mahhhvelous [Lid opens for yoghurt leftovers and closes with a comedy burp]

Dave: [Moves back to recycling bin] What’s wrong now?

iRecycle: You need to wash it maaan.  It’s not me! It’s him  [Recycling bin shrugs towards normal bin]

iBin: Oui you feelthy animal! Wash your recyclables before you recycle them, what are you, a tramp?

Then you set fire to your bin and pay the hefty fine. Then you keep setting fire to them until they send you one that sounds like Ray Winston.

How cool would that be?

See you soon Brothers and Sisters!

*Yes, I realise that I missed a huge opportunity by not having something say ‘What’re you doing Dave?’ I thought it was too obvious though.

A traditionally Post-Feminist Dichotomy

Before continuing, I'd just like to let you know that I am wearing a NATO issue kevlar helmet and flak jacket, and throwing rocks at me isn't going to work, so you may as well not bother.

It's a deeply held belief amongst men that no matter how hard you try, you will never understand 'Women'.  I agree, to an extent, in fact I'd go further... I'd say that no matter how hard you try, you will never understand 'Other People'... But forget I said that last bit, because I'm lazy, and we're talking about women, and given the option between a cheap shot and a cogent argument, I'll take the banana skin and the comedy trombone noise every time.

I work in an office, a head office in fact, for a company that describes itself on its internal motivational posters as 'Lifestyle and Image Consultants', but everyone else just calls us hairdressers of course.  And if you've been reading this sorry excuse for a blog for any length of time, you'll know who 'we' are and will have some idea of the high calibre of our rank and file employees.

Hairdressing, traditionally, is the domain of the fairer sex.  In our office and in our salons there are at least ten women for every man (In a statistical sense at least, they don't apportion them out to us at the Christmas Party or anything... Well, they didn't at the last one I went to, although I did leave early.) The only place that this isn't the case is the management team, where it's pretty much a 50/50 split. Our MD is also a woman.

In fact, the only place where women are outnumbered by men is, you've guessed it, the IT department. The woman/man ratio in there currently sits at about 1/5 - I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

We also have a fair old selection of people (in fairness, mostly people of the male persuasion) whose sexuality is... erm... How does one put it delicately these days? Ah, not alligned with their more traditional biological gender role.  And they mostly tend to be of the sub-genus Extravagantisimous fabuloso, if one catches my drift.  Which, of course is both perfectly fine by me, and at the same time none of my business.  Some of my closest friends are in relationships where their dangly bits won't fit together without taking a long run-up. (Apart from the occasional accidental vacuum lock between females, obviously)

There's a pretty heavy 'Empowerment' vibe running through the entire business too, people are expected to lead from the front and so forth, manage risk, take responsibility for themselves and follow interminable new pop-management doctrines passed down to us by our colonial overlords on a weekly basis without sighing and having a bit of a scoff under their breath in the kitchen.

What I'm really saying is that 90% of the job roles are filled by people with feminine characteristics. And of that group of people, 90% are fully empowered, they perform their given duties with equal, if not greater efficacy than a more masculine person would, as you would expect in these modern times. Most of them are rightly proud of their achievements.

So, my question is... On the few times a year that we have a delivery of half a ton of new promotional material (leaflets, posters, cut-out boards etc.) which gets dumped on the ground floor and requires manhandling up the stairs to the main office, because there is no lift, where does everyone disappear to?  It's like the skirting board opens up and swallows them all.  Do they hide in the cupboards? Does this magical bodily synchronisation that they all keep banging on about kick in and they all trot to the toilet en masse? How do they all re-appear once they hear the sound of the last heavy box hitting the luxiourious axminster flooring like a flock of self-righteous starlings?

Believe it or not, I didn't get into IT for the myriad box-moving opportunities.  No! It was for the fame and constant glamour!

Men and Women, 100% equal?... Yeah, right up until the point where they encounter something heavy, or sticky, or smelly... Or an earwig.

Pah! If you didn't all smell so nice I'd have nothing to do with any of you.




Yes, I have used the word 'Traditional' rather a lot, that's to subconciously con you into thinking that I'm all modern and forward thinking... But I'm really not.

Escalation

I woke up this morning at about 04:30, about an hour and twenty before the alarm went off.  You know that feeling when you wake up, but you don't know why?  You look around to see what's different, if there's the smell of smoke, or a man with a big knife standing at the bottom of your bed.

The light was on and my wife's side of the bed was empty and cold.

Now, I snore, I've been told that I sound a little bit like someone slowly cutting their way through through a particularly bad-tempered goose using a rubber hacksaw.  So my first thought was that the better half had decamped to the comfy sofa on the lounge.  After donning my least scandalously gusseted pyjama bottoms, I forayed into the bowels of Dandy Towers.  Past the stables I went, listening to the hypnotic droning of the Alicorns as they slept and down through the kitchens where I startled cook as she stirred the morning's kedgeree, humming one of the tuneful yet haunting throat-yodels of her people.

But despite a damn-hard looking, she was no-where to be found.  Until that is, I took my search to the windy battlements.  The top floor of the Towers is the sole domain of the Mini & Micro Dandies and even a seasoned explorer such as myself thinks twice before entering into it. Luckily, as I reached the bottom of their grand staircase and started to ascend, I met the Mehmsahib and the Mini-Dandy coming the other way.

There was an expression of concern on the face of the former, and one of fading panic on the latter. Also, they were carrying sufficient bedclothes for an impromptue bivouac in the Library.

Mrs Dandy indicated that she had everything under control and that I should retire to my bed.  I considered her advice and chose to wholeheartedly ignore it and sally-forth into a line of questioning of positively Sherlockian proportions, 'What's happened then?' I asked her.

'There's been an escalation.' She replied.

Now, all joking aside, regular readers will know that Dandy Towers is haunted by my late Mother.  It's nothing new, our previous stately pile was similarly blessed, you've probably read the story about the time the Mini-Dandy met her Grandmother, despite her having inconveniently died some fifteen years previously.

Still fewer of you will have heard the tale of Piper, our second ghost.  Actually, so few of you might have heard that, that I may as well retell it here.

I think it was last year when it started, odd things happened that made you do a double take.  You would hear doors close, despite the fact that you had already closed them moments previously yourself. There would be noises that you could easily convince yourself were footsteps, that could have just as easily have been the wind, or the house settling. It was unnerving, but nothing more.

Then the whispering and the giggling started.  Those are noises that it's more difficult to explain away. The Mini Dandy started hearing people call her name behind her, almost out of earshot.  Then doorhandles started turning of their own accord (which let me tell you, puts the wind right up you the first few times you experience it.) And she then began to say 'Bye!' to the Mini Dandy whenever she left the top floor and came downstairs.

Then she started shouting 'Mum!' and 'Dad!' (Also pretty perculiar when the entire family's sat in the lounge watching TV and someone calls your name from downstairs) And that's about where we were until last night.

Oh, no, I tell a lie, the Mini Dandy's bedroom door opened recently and she asked who was there.  The little girls's voice saying 'It's me.' was not exactly what she expected.

Anyway, back to the escalation.

For a few days, my daughter had felt like she was being watched.  Not the normal type of being watched that she was used to, by my dead Mother and ghost Piper, this was different.  She said that it felt like a man.  Of course, we all automatically assumed that it would probably be her Grandfather, who passed away earlier this year.  And she didn't feel as if there was any threat or anything like that, it was just somehow 'different'

Last night, she went to bed wearing a new necklace, one that I had bought her.  She awoke just after 4:00 to briefly see it hanging in the air in front of her face, before it was snatched away, to be found laid out perfectly on the floor over the other side of the room.

She was a little shaken.

As you can probably imagine.

I'm still trying to think what I should do next, the Micro Dandy's Godparents know the County Exorcist, maybe we should seek his advice?

Or some kind of roving, freelance Medium, specialising in ectoplasmic hoovering?

I'll keep you in the loop.