Boris and Johnson

I've never understood the reason why somebody might want to go and stand in a wet field and listen to some outdated rockers screaming their lungs out half a mile away. However, I've still decided to offer my services to this year's Glastonbury festival. With a low number of big name acts, I understand that the punters aren't buying up tickets as they normally do at this time of the year. Perhaps they can't hire the helicopters or they're all out of green Wellington boots and hunting sticks...

Whatever their reason, my new Rolling Stone's inspired routine is sure to bring them back. 'Two Stones in a Pouch' is perfect for a festival venue and it's certain to delight even those at the back of the crowd whose vision is obscured by golfing umbrellas, inflatable sheep, and the effects of hemp cigars. Not only do I attract a large following to my gigs (I'm big among Welsh traffic wardens), I'm also easy on the environment. Not only is my coconut oil biodegradable but it's friendly to small animals. My new pair of pet squirrels are testament to the fact. Never will you have seen two such well oiled critters.

My squirrels? Oh, you probably don't know about them. They are Red Squirrels and I call them Boris and Johnson. They also form part of my act. Gabby managed to catch them in some woods near Bangor and in six weeks she'd hand reared them. I suppose the word 'broken' is a more accurate way of describing the process. After forty two nights of screaming at them and making them suffer sleep deprivation, they were finally domesticated. Their training too much less time and now I can run around on stage with the pair of them nestling in my posing pouch. I've even dyed myself down there to make a matching threesome, though I've not gone so far as to follow Gabby's suggestion that I call it Alvin and dress it in a small sweater. That idea was ludicrous. After all, a squirrel is not technically a chipmunk.

Speaking of ludicrous ideas: as inspired as my new act undoubtedly is, I won't be taking my squirrels to Glastonbury. That would just be crazy talk and you'd think I'd lost my wits. Honestly: who has ever heard of squirrels performing at Glastonbury? However, if you're in the Bangor region, we'll be performing at the Green Dragon Tavern tomorrow night.

If you come along, don't forget to bring some nuts and throw them at me on stage. It will make for a nice spot of role reversal.

Chocolate Chip

When Gabby poked me with the end of a broom this morning, I knew it was time for my triumphant return to the world of blogging. There were too many things that needed to be said.

'Chip, you get out of bed right now!' she scolded as she pressed the handle into my right buttock. 'You dirty dirty man! Dirty!'

I could see the reasons for Romanian disgust. I'd gone to sleep a little too quickly last night and the thick chocolate mousse that covered a good deal of my torso had hardened in the night; and I hadn't had chance to explain any of this to my darling partner.

The 'why' had been my first successful booking since I went dormant a few months ago and began to pile on the pounds. Last night, I performed at the Green Dragon Tavern with the world première of my Oompa-Loompa strip in which I begin dressed in white overalls and with an orange face, and end up rolling around in a inflatable pool filled with chocolate. It's less Dahl and more Dalí with a touch of the Béatrice Dalle once I get my underwear off.

How the women of Bangor loved it and loved me. Such had been my success that two hours at the bar had left me totally drunk and with only the wits to get back to the flat. When I got home, around three o'clock this morning, I crawled into bed and fell into a deep and blissful sleep.

Now everything is explained and I'm washed, I can say it's good to be back and such a relief to be taking off my clothes again for a living. A full pouch last night has paid off months of debt as well as doing so much for my self-esteem. For a few weeks in January, I even had trouble finding thongs to fit me but I can assure you that everything is now normal down there. Ship shape and Bristol fashion, as they say, except, of course, there's nothing down there that's shaped like a ship.

Just a large stealthy submarine with a full compliment of hip thrusts that are fully armed and aimed in your direction.

As for this blog, I hope to be writing more often. I'm starting work on a most interesting project that I might just share with you...

Awoken: A Ghost Story

Yesterday is simply too complicated for me to go into great detail and I don’t think any of you really want to hear what happens when a stripper manages to offend the whole of Bangor’s unwed mothers with a silly little remark about the cooking times of buns in ovens. It took me some time and a free demonstration of my skills as Wales’ top stripper to bring them back on my side and by the time 2 o’clock came around, all was well with the world. The ladies loved me again.

I got home late and in a strangely relaxed mood. I sat down for an hour and penned the following little short story which I’m considering putting up on the Telegraph blog. I’m not a man to go in for these literary competitions, though I often take great delight in completing the entries. It’s not that I hate the idea of losing, but I do worry about winning. Not, I’ve ever won a thing for anything I’ve written, but for the highly esteemed Blogpower Most Literature Wordsmith award, which has since become enshrined in the form of a tattoo. Not that I have a tattoo, you understand, but Gabby volunteered to have it for me. I don't know why I'm telling you any of this given that I'm sure you've all heard the story of how James Higham’s portrait was recorded for immortality on the left cheek of the cheekier of the Cheeky Girls.

I’m off to soak in the bath while you enjoy or endure my weak attempt at supernatural fiction for Halloween.

-------------

Awoken

I awoke to ghoulish laughter.

My mind strained against the lock of my eyelids, my neck against the numb hold of sweat that had soaked my hair into the pillow. My spirit was listless but my body awake, angry, confused, and when my eyes opened, they did so with an almost audible gasp that equated to vision.

The boy was standing at the bottom of the bed, his face contorted by laughter until he saw me wake and then it reformed itself into a look of calm bemusement. Ten years old, perhaps a little older, the boy was pale, fraught, nightmarish. I could hardly look on his face, marked as it was by sunken eyes like twin tender beds where dead bodies lay buried.

He was dressed for theatrics, wrapped inside a black cape and chewing on a set of plastic fangs, a grim totem of childish games and the role he had chosen to play. My attention seemed to change him and the teeth trailed saliva behind them as he spat them into his hand.

‘You’re awake,’ he said.

Just like that; bold and uncomplicated, as though a strange man waking up in his bed was nothing out of the ordinary.

I tried to speak but found nothing where I had last left my voice. Panic, fear, a sense of betrayal: they were coarse fibres, tangible like a noose around my throat.

‘I’m dreaming,’ I must have finally muttered.

‘You’re not afraid?’ he asked, looking down at the grin he held in his hand. ‘I guess you’re not. It’s not as though they’re like real teeth.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ I said. ‘But you need to tell me where I am.’

‘Lost,’ he said.

Lost? The question had to have been little more than a look in my eye but he seemed to know it by that alone.

‘This isn’t your place but I didn’t mind you resting a while,’ he answered. ‘You look sick. Mother always used to say that we help people who are sick or have lost their way.’

I could not bring myself to ask the easy questions. Where. How. Why. They sounded too direct when they formed in my mind. I feared that there might be an answer to each.

‘What is this place?’ I mouthed, feeling no better about the words I’d chosen.

‘This is where the undead make their home,’ he said in an assumed voice like that of a revenant spirit. Then he laughed and held up the teeth. ‘And you don’t belong here.’ He looked towards the door. ‘They’ll be here soon, so you’ll have to go back. They can’t see you. They can never see you.’

‘Go?’ I asked, raising myself. The movement sparked sensation in my body. I recognised it. Warm, languid, perhaps a touch of the opiate. For the first time, a thing made sense. There had been a time, a short time, when my problems had taken me by unawares. I had succumbed to temptation of the easy fix, the ten minute solution of the spoon and lighter. But that had been so long ago and a habit that I had formed and then unformed, even if I couldn’t remember how.

For the first time, I looked beyond the boy and at my surroundings. The room was familiar. I remembered that it had once been my bedroom. A toy aeroplane hung from the ceiling and twisted in an endless tailspin. The wallpaper, yellowed, had bubbled in places. Cold moisture saturated the corner of the room where I recognised the window, the recess where a seat overlooked what I knew was a garden, an apple tree, a place where a stream broke in a crooked line towards the house. In the recess sat a large pumpkin with a cruel razor slash of a mouth. Each, in a way, were the form if not the detail of something I remembered as my own childhood.

I wanted to ask if he thought he belonged to my world but he anticipated my question.

‘I’ll see you again,’ he said and before I could stop him he ran out of the room.

I struggled to my feet, more rolling out of bed than standing, but I found myself balanced on legs weaker than straws. I was in no condition to go after him, no condition to go chasing a ghost around a house it had taken for its own. Yet that was what I did… in a fashion.

The bedroom door fell towards me then the world rolled around to a small landing, stuck with the pall of gloom, bad wallpaper, cheap carpet, the familiar taste of dog in the air.

The boy had paused at the stairs.

If he was a fiend, he was a minor fiend with a touch of the amateur dramatics. He held his arm across his face, speaking from behind elbow and cape.

‘You’ll never catch me,’ he said before he took flight down the steps two at a time.

An imbalance of wall, banister, vertigo followed and I was at the top of the staircase.

‘Wait,’ I whispered to the figure below me, ‘you must tell me. Do I know you?’

But he did not stop. One. Two. Three. Three steps took him across the hall and he was at the front door.

He waited as I slowly navigated my way into normality. After the semi coma of a sleep, I was beginning to find myself again. I recognised the hall, though not the modern hat stand dressed in a pair of black stilettos, a pink umbrella, and a navy blue overcoat with a folded copy of the Daily Telegraph standing proud in its pocket. I didn’t wait as I lumbered past that prop body. I wanted to reach the boy who had stepped to the threshold of the house. I don’t know how but I knew that if he escaped, I would never catch him.

‘You have to wait,’ I pleaded. ‘Your name. You have to tell me your name. Prove to me who you are. What are you doing here? What did you want?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll see you again,’ he promised and returned the teeth to his mouth.

With a stroke of an arm, the cape caught the air and the vampire flew, the light exposing the thinness of the fabric that made up his cape and then the sun blazed as it touched him. Light evaporated his body as I too reached the door, swinging shut behind him.

I thought him gone until I then saw him running down the garden path, his cape flailing behind him as he played. But then I saw no more. The door closed despite my feeble attempts to stop it as wood and handle passed straight through my long dead immaterial hands.

The Romanian Gambit

Gabby had some interesting news for me yesterday afternoon.

‘Chip?’ she said, ‘I want to become a man.’

I dropped my lunch into my lap. ‘I beg your pardon?’

She put her hands on her hips, tears in her eyes. ‘Gabby wants operation to become man.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s what I thought you’d said,’ I replied when I came around in the ambulance twenty minutes later.

On the drive home from the hospital, the situation became more clear to me.

‘I read in paper that men have more chance to become rich and successful,’ she explained. ‘I thought, if I become man, I might become rich and successful.’

‘Rubbish,’ I scoffed. ‘This has more to do with your dream of getting into the SAS!’

She blushed and I knew I was closer to the truth. There have been recruitment brochures for the Parachute Regiment falling through the letterbox for days. It had got to the point that I’d been laying out smoke markers for them so they would know where to land.

‘So what if it is?’ she asked. ‘Can’t a girl have her dreams?’

‘But Gabs,’ I said, cradling her in my arms. ‘Do you really want to have your things altered just so you can be dropped deep behind enemy lines in Afghanistan with a kit full of knifes, guns, and booby traps? Is that what you want?’

‘But Chip, I want to fulfill my potential.’

The poor girl had me there. What’s the point in being trained to the highest level of combat readiness without having chance to try it out for real? All the years she’s spend learning karate and judo, the knife fighting lessons, the years she spend in the Romanian commando school become proficient in light arms. It is all to be wasted?

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I said. ‘You are clearly cut out to inflict the severest punishment on our enemies. But you wouldn’t be happy just to record another Cheeky Girls album?’

She shrugged. ‘Will you still love me if I become a man?’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Well, now, you see… Of course, you know, live and let live. That’s my motto. I’m liberal, you know, and I believe that we should all have the right… you know, to… to you know… Ah…’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘well, now, you see… The thing is Gabby, much as I love you for yourself…’

‘Chip wouldn’t love me?’

‘Look,’ I said, trying to get my words out before the very unmanly tears began. I wasn't so sure they wouldn't be my own. ‘I’m certain there’s a way around this. There has to be a way to make you happy without the need for such drastic changes.’

It took the rest of the day, dozens of phone calls, and a last minute dash into town for an interview, but, before the sun set on a rather relieved Bangor, Gabby declared that she was happy to remain a woman.

‘This is wonderful,’ she said, coming to the breakfast bar this morning. ‘Do you like?’ she asked as she gave me a spin in her new uniform.

‘Without a doubt, you are the sexist traffic warden in Bangor,’ I said before I pushed a contented spoonful of Alpen into my mouth.

‘That’s good,’ she smiled. ‘I give you ticket for car parked on single yellow. You have twenty eight days or I come after you and I know where you live.’

My Birthday by Chip Dale: An Account of The Missing Six Hours Compiled From Contemporary Sources, Friends, Family, and Police Records

Sharp. There’s no other word that adequately describes myself early on the evening of the 13th October, 2007. Freshly oiled, shaved, and with the anti-fungal cream still damp between my toes, I was in no mood to take any fashion prisoners. This was going to be a seek and destroy mission against the entrenched sticks and squares at the heart of Bangor town centre. From my vast wardrobe, I’d picked out the right clothes for the job. My killer lime green suit was to be assisted by a bright blue t-shirt with a large luminous lemon on the front and a mission to pacify the opposition. The logo beneath the lemon read, ‘Well Wrinkled’, as indeed was I down below where, hidden from view but not from mind, my loins were wrapped in my favourite thong, cut in silk with a single diamond sewn onto the front of the pouch with my name beneath it. It’s a Grenva, which means, as you probably know, it was made by Europe’s premier thong makers. Some people say they are pouch makers to Prince Philip, himself, though nobody has been able to prove as much.

With the star dressed for the evening, the secondary cast were also doing their best to look good for such a special occasion. Gabby wore a little figure hugging dress that did little to hide her womanly assets nor the razor-sharp stilleto strapped SAS-style between her buttocks. My agent for six years, Danny Piles, turned up at seven thirty, dressed in a full tuxedo with a tasteful purple cummerbund. Ten minutes, the three of us walked into Rotters.

I’d chosen to celebrate my birthday at the local nightclub in the belief that most of my friends would make it. I was not to be disappointed, but as soon as I appeared at the door to the disco, the room erupted with cheers from people I’d never before met. Apparently, the news had gone around Bangor about my open invitation to celebrate my birthday and scores of people thought they’d come along to press the Chipster’s flesh and get that most pious of individuals monstrously drunk.

Deluged with offers to buy me a drink, I was soon necking bottles of spirits with more enthusiasm than the not inconsiderable alcoholic community of Bangor. Men with purple noses and stains on their trousers would have been unable to keep up with me as I sucked Bangor dry of the liquid hard stuff. Soon I was overcome by the emotion of the evening and things began to get hazy. Luckily, Danny was on hand so we might now put the last minutes of my sobriety at around eight o’clock:

You were out of your skull by nine, Chip. That’s when you began to call yourself the best blogger in Wales and threatened to beat up anybody who said differently. We all laughed but then you turned nasty when a stranger called you Iain. Gabby managed to calm you down but I think you weren’t yourself after that. The rest of the evening was tainted by that incident.

As easy as it is to take Danny’s account as the truth, Andrew Morris, the barman at Rotters, tells a quite different story.

I’d say you were already blotto by eight thirty. I’ve never seen a man pour so much vodka down his throat in such a short space of time. You told me you were the best stripper in Wales but you were disappointed that people always think you are Lembit Opik. You said you’d always wanted to meet the man just to see how handsome he is. Then you began to ramble on about the state of Korean rubber and how you once taught Chuck Norris to throw a thong with his big toe. I just thought you were pretty far gone and I didn’t think you were going to last the night.

You might have noticed that the two accounts don’t add up. Or, at least, they don’t until we get to one important detail: both Danny and Andrew confirm that I’d begun to take my clothes off by nine thirty.

‘You were dancing topless with all the ladies around nine forty five,’ says Danny.

Andrew puts it a little earlier than that. ‘You didn’t have your shirt on when I saw you around nine thirty and it wasn’t much later than that when somebody told me that you’d got completely naked and were asking people to rub ice cubes on your lemons.’

However, Gabby tells a different story.

Chip, you embarrass me for last time. No more drink. You take clothes off for money and not for hobby. I’m just amazed you lasted until ten o’clock before you get naked. Those girls are just cheap. I don’t know what you see in them, with their big fake boobies. I saw you dancing with them. Hands all over them. You lucky I didn’t come over and cut it off. But it was your birthday…

Victoria Niles was my dance partner, so I thought perhaps it would be best to ask her the time I disrobed. I only know this because I was lucky to find her phone number written in lipstick on the inside of my thigh. She managed to confirm Gabby’s part of the story.

You were pretty drunk, Chip, but we all were. I can never say no to a hot body and a gorgeous face. And you were so naked. And it was kind of sweet the way you were drooling over me and kept asking me if I thought newts were fish or reptiles. It was your way of connecting, I guess.

Eleven o’clock seems to be the point when the action moved outside the club. A notice from the local police station asking me to drop in this morning to pick up some items of lost property gave me chance to talk to the two officers who stopped me around that time. Said PC Smalls:

We were responding to a report that somebody was standing naked on the end of Bangor Pier playing the trombone. We were too late to catch you there, but we did find you later standing in a fountain outside The Royal Tandoori Restaurant. You were wearing noodles on your head and were telling everybody you were Tommy Dorsey but, to be honest, sir, you weren’t doing a very good job with the trombone. You were much closer to Tommy Ball.

His partner, PC Timbleby, has five more years on the job and is a grade 4 pianist. His version sounds much closer to the truth.

It was definitely Angels by Robbie Williams and for a beginner on the trombone, you were doing a first class job. It was a shame about your being naked in a public place, otherwise we could have left you alone. You put your thong back on and that was the last we saw of you.

What happened to me after that is harder to explain. I apparently rang Danny on his mobile at twelve o’clock to ask him about seaweed. Again, the details elude me but Danny seems to think there was some method to my madness. ‘You were not alone but I have no idea who you were with,’ he says. ‘You were insistent that you needed to eat seaweed, though I could here voices in the background that sounded Chinese.’

I’ve rang around the local Chinese restaurants and none of them serve seaweed. Gabby too is at a loss as to my whereabouts.

I go home at eleven o’clock when you didn’t come back from club. I in bed and first thing I know if finding you on computer this morning. There is mess in hall, which Gabby clean up and Mr. Morris from downstairs says you sick on his decking. That is all Gabby know except Chip is stupid stupid man.

Even though my thong has been returned to me and I remember a few more facts about the evening, I have failed to fill in a few missing gaps. I don’t know who the trombone belongs to or how it came into my possession. My enigmatic mention of seaweed at the end of my last post of the evening is also unexplained. I’m beginning to think I should leave it like that. Perhaps I don’t want to know the truth, in case I discover the police are investigating a man seen swimming with Bangor’s dolphins with the hope of finding romance.

Tony Curtis's Pineapple Chunks

Because I consider myself a professional, I rarely talk about my life on the stage. To you, it might seem exotic, but for me, it’s just a well hung normality dressed in a leopard-print thong. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of it (and there, I think, you have a most perfectly appropriate euphemism for the tools of my trade) the business of stripping is pretty routine.

I get to the club about half past nine at night and go straight to my dressing room where I strip off and rub myself down with pineapple oil. Then I choose an outfit for the character I’ll become for the evening. It usually depends on my mood and what kind of humour I’m in. I know that if I dress like a postman, I’ll have plenty of remarks about pushing envelopes into slots, delivering packages, or filthy comments about the size of my sack. My plumber outfit doesn’t get half as many comments and the policeman’s fewer still. My traffic warden gets the least, with the ‘you can write my ticket any time’ being about the best I can expect.

At five to ten, I usually go and stand behind the curtain at the edge of the stage and watch the end of the warm-up’s act. As it get closer to my moment to perform, I begin to feel the familiar sensation of nerves. It’s not the fear of failure as much as the anticipation of mediocrity that worries me, but as soon as I hear the first strains of the theme to The Persuaders, all my doubts disappear. The adrenaline hits my system like a drug injected strait into my thong. I’m suddenly the most confident man in the room as I run out to the sound of female glands snapping open to release the pheromones that rise above the crowd like a great cloud of animal musk.

Over the years, I’ve got my act honed to perfection. The Chipster’s magic is in the detail. So, as was the case last night when I was dressed like a cowboy, I’ll run onto the stage, pull out my imaginary pistols and point them at a few ladies at the front of the crowd before blowing smoke from my fingertips. The ladies love that authentic cowboy touch. As I say, it’s the details that are important. Only then do I begin the slow and elaborate dance number that will end with a thong flying into the back row ten minutes later.

In that respect, last night was pretty much like a normal night. Even when I was stood waiting behind the curtain, I could hear that the room was buzzing, loud with the excited ladies of Bangor’s income tax office, all waiting for The Chipster to make his usual 10PM appearance. I didn’t disappoint John Barry’s Persuader’s theme put me straight into the zone. Adjusting my cowboy hat one last time, I jumped out into the spotlight and my hips hit the rhythm straight away, swaying to those great sweeping strains. In my mind’s eye, I was Roger Moore about to dance with a bald Tony Curtis. And there, I think, you have another most perfectly appropriate euphemism.

So, I danced. My hips swaying, my hips thrusting, my thong swinging, my buttocks clenching. It was a typical routine expertly performed and the ladies loved it as the ladies always love it. After ten minutes, the thong had gone and our old friend, the oily Tony Curtis, was bouncing around and loving being the centre of attention.

Then it was time for me to end my routine and get Curtis out of the room.

The way I usually finish my act is to choose the one lady who has looked the most enthusiastic throughout my performance and to reward her with a special shake of my hips. Tonight I picked out a woman in the front row who had a most unbelievable look of rapture in her eyes. She couldn’t stop staring at me.

I slowly wiggled my way over to her.

‘Show the Chipster some love,’ I said as I took her hands and placed them on my hips.

‘Oh!’ she squealed suddenly, her eyes not blinking as they took in the sight but her hands immediately squeezing my hips. ‘Shake if for me honey. Show Shelia the good stuff.’
And then, as is usual, her hands slipped down and grabbed hold of my buttocks.

That happens most times and I’m used to having my behind pawed. I just think of it as a massage and the ladies usually enjoy it. she smiled as the ladies always smile. Only unlike most woman, who usually look to their friends for encouragement, this woman couldn’t take her eyes off the little bald headed monster called Curtis.

‘You go the moves, honey,’ she said, giving me another squeeze.

None of this stuck me as being all that odd. I was in a familiar role and I was only too happy to dance at bit longer for somebody who seemed to have a particular thing for the Chipster.

Only, I must have been grinding my hips for a minute or so before I noticed something moving at the side of her chair. I didn’t give it much mind at first, it being so dark in the room, but then it moved again and I saw a head pop up beside the woman’s lap. It was a dog. A big, dumb, friendly-looking dog!

Now, there’s a strict ‘no animals’ policy in force at the Green Dragon. Not that we usually need to stop people bring pets into the place, but you never know with some of these lonely women. Sometimes ‘Little Fifi’ can’t stay at home without ‘Mumsy Mummy’. Only, this wasn’t the sort of dog you’d call Fifa. It was a hefty beast, a bit bedraggled, and, besides, it had a jacket on.

I say it was a jacket. It was actually more like a bright yellow sash with reflective patches.

That’s when I realised that it was a guide dog. And the woman who had been nose to chin with Tony Curtis for the last few minutes was obviously its owner. It was no wonder she’d be starting so intently as Curtis. She didn’t even know he was in the room. The woman was completely blind.

I looked down at her smiling face, a bit shocked at my predicament. It altered my plans. There was no way I could just pull myself away from a blind woman who was so clearly enjoying herself. And she had quite a grip on my buttocks. I doubted if I could get away if I’d wanted to.
I looked around at all the other woman who were shouting, whooping, and enjoying themselves. What could I do? I looked at the dog and the dog looked at me. That’s when I thought I better make the most of a difficult situation. I thought I’d show a bit of kindness to her dog and use that as my chance to run for the stage.

I gave the dog a friendly pat on the head and the dog, all friendly, licked my fingers and carried on licking it until I pulled my hand away.

Only now, of course, my hand is all wet and I’m still trapped in the grasp of a woman who could see neither me nor Curtis. I thought I’d give it another minute of dancing, so I looked to the ceiling, took a deep breath and started on some hip thrusts which just made every woman in the room scream even louder. All that is except one. She just kept on staring. And then she started to tickle me.

I don’t know how to describe this politely except to say that she was tickling the balls of Tony Curtis’s feet.

I know what you’re thinking and I thought it too. Tickling a man there, even a stripper, is such an odd thing to do. In fact, it had never happened to me before. A lady might occasionally try to touch something that shouldn’t be touched but that’s part of the business. Rarely do they tickle the balls of Curtis’s feet. What made it odder was that all the time she was tickling me, she didn’t take her hands from my behind.

That’s when I realised that there was no way the woman could have been tickling me.
I suddenly went cold. I could barely bring myself to look down, fearing what I might see. But as the tickling before more enthusiastic, I realised I had no choice. I had to look.

I immediately saw what had happened. In moving her legs apart to pull me closer to her, the woman had left a large gap through which her guide dog had pushed his head and was now busy, down below, licking me clean of pineapple oil.

I really don’t know if I can go on…

This is getting into areas where I never thought the Chipster would go. This is the stuff you hear about from friends who ventured into the wrong newsagents in Amsterdam. You don’t expect to see a stripper dancing for a blind woman while her guide dog licks pineapple oil from a stripper’s business accessories. Or at least, you don’t expect to see it going on in Bangor. All I do know is that strippers have lost their licenses for doing lesser things with animals.

I was in a precarious situation. Not only was I facing profession ruin, I didn’t fancy pulling myself away from the animal too quickly. If you’ve ever tried to take a bone from a hungry dog, you’d know that they’re likely to take a last nip at the departing meat. It made this one of those situations in which legends are born. Unfortunately, it was also the sort of situation in which legends die. Or at least have something bitten off.

I decided the best policy was one of negotiation.

‘Excuse me,’ I said to the woman.

‘Oh, you’re not going?’ she asked, her hands tightening on my behind.

‘No, no,’ I said, ‘I was just thinking – and I know this is an odd time to ask you this – but do you happen to own a dog?’

‘I do own a dog, yes, why?’

‘And did you bring your dog with you this evening?’

‘I did,’ she smiled.

I nodded as I tried to concentrate. ‘And did you leave your dog at the side of your chair?’

‘I always do. Macca’s never far away.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ I said. ‘I think it’s your dog that’s currently licking me.’

‘Licking you?’ she asked. ‘Licking you where?’

I struggled as I tried to concentrate. ‘Higher than my knees, lower than my nose,’ I said, thinking that the situation was bad enough without being vulgar about it.

‘Oh,’ she said, apologetically, ‘he can be so naughty.’

My hips froze. ‘He?’

‘Of course he’s a he. That’s why I call him Macca,’ she explained. ‘I named him after Paul McCartney.’

Things could only have got worse if was actually the ex-Beatle licking me clean down there. I felt my stomach clench and my hips slow to a gentle grind.

‘Well, he seems to have a taste for pineapple oil,’ I said.

Her face peeled apart as a smile spread across her face.

‘He loves pineapple,’ she said proudly. ‘I always give him pineapple chunks in his bowl. He loves pineapple chunks.’

‘Yes, well, there are two chunks I hope he doesn’t fancy chewing.’

She suddenly looked impatient as I tried to ease myself back.

‘Oh, don’t stop now,’ she said, ‘I’m enjoying this.’

I felt like crying. ‘Is there anything else he likes except pineapple?’ I asked.

‘He loves chocolate drops.’

‘Well he might get an extra big chocolate drop if he doesn’t let me go,’ I said, feeling my nerves get the better of my stomach which clenched and made my bowels shift uneasily. ‘I don’t suppose you have chocolate drops in your bag?’ I asked.

Her hands slid from my body but by now I didn’t dare more.

‘I think I do,’ she said, feeling for her bag. ‘Here you go,’ she finally said, handing me a small bag of milk chocolate buttons. ‘What you going to do with them?’

I ripped open the bag and filled my hands with the chocolate treats.

I barely looked down. I didn’t think I could bear to see what the dog was doing. Instead, I lay my hand next to the dog’s head and waited.

I seemed to wait an age before he moved. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tony Curtis look as happy as he did when the dog went for the nibbles. I grabbed Macca by his collar, took his owner’s hand, and placed one into the other. And then, with the briefest wave to the crowd and ran to the stage. I didn’t even stop to pick up my clothes.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ asked Stan, the stage manager as I flew past him. ‘You were a while out there.’

I couldn’t explain. From somewhere below the stage, a dog gave a long mournful howl, as though regretting the biggest pineapple chunks never to have graced his dish.

A New Enterprise

At last, some good news about The Chipster! I’ve found a new source of income. You might know about the trouble I’ve been having lately. Since the EU introduced new regulations on thong usage, the exotic dancing isn’t paying like it used to and I’ve been keeping an eye out for alternative means of supporting a Romanian and her twenty seven chickens. Now, the search is over. Two nights ago I was offered a tempting proposition.

I'd just finished doing a routine in the Shangri-La when a guy I knew from the old days came up to me and complimented me on my physique.

‘You’re looking great, Chip. Been working out?’

‘Every day,’ I said, causally flexing a bicep.

He nodded thoughtfully as he smashed a bottle of lager across my head. When I didn’t flinch, he seemed to take that as a good sign. Of what, I wasn’t quite sure.

‘You have thick skin,’ he said.

I said that I hadn’t noticed.

‘I could do with a man of your unique qualities, Chip. You’re strong like a lion, lithe like an eel, and you don’t cut easily.’

‘Like a Tesco chease and onion pastie?’ I quipped.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Want to earn some money? I mean serious cash?’

I didn’t need asking twice.

‘Well come to this address at nine o’clock tonight,’ he said, scribbling a number of a house near the Bangor docks down on the back of a beer mat. ‘You might want to bring somebody to help you. Preferably somebody with a gentle touch and some medical training.’

I had just the person sitting at home, writing obsessive letters of complaint to the Guinness Book of Records about their unwillingness to consider world records involving razor sharp knives. I told Gabby about the chance of work and she was excited and agreed to help. Not only does she pride herself on her gentility but she’s had five years of medical training at the Romanian territorial commando school.

‘It good Chip get job,’ she said, as we left the flat at eight thirty. ‘You be able to buy car like you want. Perhaps get Mini.’

The thought did excite me. I don’t own a car and the fact that I have to walk or cycle everywhere is good for the heart but less impressive when it comes to my employability. Thoughts of money, success and a larger carbon footprint ensured that I was buzzing by the time we reached the old warehouse. The harbour was silent except for a few drunken merchantmen coming up from a Russian trawler moored by the warehouse.

At the warehouse, we were met by two bulky guys standing guard at the door. One checked my name on a list before the other led us inside and through to an office at the back where my old friend met me.

‘Chip! So glad you could come. People were excited when I mentioned your name.’

‘What’s the gig?’ I asked. ‘Some kind of stripping, I assume?’

‘Stripping? No. Not unless you prefer to fight naked.’

‘Fight?’

‘The game’s bare-knuckle fighting,’ he said. ‘No gouging, no punching below the belt, and no elbows. Other than that, you can do what you want.’

‘I won’t let you do this,’ said Gabby. ‘You must protect your looks, Chippy. Let me fight instead.’

Perhaps I’ve been watching too many John Wayne films lately but I couldn’t let Gabby fight my battles. As for my looks, I had enough confidence in my fighting skills to know I couldn’t get too hurt.

I stripped down to my thong and emerged in a warehouse full of punters. It was there that I met my opponent: a Russian sailor, six three, and probably seventeen stone. He had a scar like a sickle running down his face and into his bottom lip. His name was Sergei and a tattoo on his arm boasted that he’d taken the lives of ten men in the ring and at least two dozen more outside.

I won’t deny that the first three rounds were painful. I’ve not fought in years. I studied the martial arts back when I was a rather wayward teenager. It’s to my shame that I was once considered the best street fighter in Bangor. That’s before I discovered dance and changed to the ways of the thong. This, however, was different. There was money at stake and the continued happiness of a Romanian pop star and her feathered companions.

I held in there, my guts making up for my ring rustiness. Gabby gave me good advice but my reflexes were too slow, honed to the drunken mauling of overweight legal secretaries on a pub crawl. Not ex-Soviet merchant marines with a perchance for headbutting.

About the fourth round, I began to regain my edge. I’d cut the Russian over his eye and I was bruised but fine; my friend's observation about the thickness of my skin proving a good one. A few jabs set up my right hook which lifted the Russian off his feet and set back Glasnost by a decade. The fight was over and the cries of ‘Chipster’ rang around the old warehouse.

I’m fighting again on Sunday when I’ll be up against the Welsh gypsy bare knuckle champion. You’re all invited but the location is still a secret. I’ll try to email you with details sometime on Saturday, so those of you who can make it, I’d welcome your support.

The Seed Pods from Outer Space

Alien pods. Or at least, that’s what Gabby thinks they are.

They began to appear two days ago but only really came to my notice when I took off my thong last night and found dozens of the things hidden deep inside the pouch. It was as if they’d gone there for the warmth and humidity. Gabby went pale when I showed them to her.

‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ was all that she would say and shook her head slowly.

I had hoped for more of a reassuring explanation from a woman who spends most of her days down by the allotments.

Today there are hundreds more of them. They are literally floating through my window and, even as I type, the odd one will settle on my keyboard. Are they seeds? Are they insect? Are they even of this world. I don’t know what they are and I need help. There aren’t many trees in the area and we’re at the top of a three story building. Yet these little things keep dropping from the sky, as though making the final stage in some interplanetary trip.

Before I wake up to find that everybody in Bangor has been replaced by an unthinking zombie, could somebody at least alert the authorities.

The invasion has started, I tell you. They are here among us!

Music To Drive Dogs Crazy

It has been a beautiful few days here in North Wales. Few places on Earth look as good when the weather is just right. When the sun catches the crests and curls of the sea and a breeze comes in off water with an invigorating aroma able to bring fresh resolve to lowest spirits, I'm happy that I made Bangor my home.

Yet it is common knowledge by now that The Chipster had a bad Monday. I think we’re all on friendly enough terms to admit that I can be a bit moody. You have probably come to expect these occasional lulls as I go to my corner and sulk about all that’s wrong with the world. You also know that they pass, eventually, and I spring back into the common herd, my thong sparkling like a beacon of goodness.

And this is when I’m usually at my weakest.

‘Chippy,’ said Gabby as I sat down at the breakfast table. She ran a finger over my neck and under my chin which totally distracted me from the Times crossword. She knows, you see, that I’m quite ticklish, and I felt weak and foolish when I gave an involuntary giggle as she touched that point of my neck where I’m most vulnerable.

‘What is it my love, my world, the reason my heart occasionally murmurs?’

‘You promise you won’t shout?’

‘And what reason would I have to shout on such a beautiful day as this?’ I asked before I spooned some Alpen into my mouth.

‘Well, you usually get annoyed when I ask you if my sister can come and stay with us for a few days…’

A raisin ricocheted off the toast rack and went flying out the window.

‘Gabby? You don’t mean…’ I gasped.

She went to tickle my chin again but this wasn’t the time for it. I parried her finger back with my spoon.

‘She’s coming up today and I said she could have the spare room.’

‘But Gabby?’ I began…

But there was nothing I could say. Looking at that face, with the old scars from the many razor fights of her youth, I couldn’t say no to my dear Gabby. Just as I couldn’t say no to you, my dear thonglateers, should you decide to come to visit North Wales’ top stripper. I could only hope, however, that if you ever did invite yourselves, you’d be good enough to leave your twin at home. Especially if your happens to be called Monica.

‘Gabby!’ she screamed as they looked at each other across the concourse of Bangor station.

‘Monica!’ screamed Gabby.

I’d slipped behind a telephone kiosk, where I’d hoped to be safe from the effects of these lethal sonic weapons fired in an enclosed space. But these were the advanced models. They seemed to transmit the coordinates of their targets by telepathy. No sooner had Monica finished kissing Gabby sister than she turned to me.

‘Chippeeeeeee!’ she screamed and came rushing at the kiosk which I swear jumped out of the way leaving me in the open.

My legs buckled as one half of a Romanian’ supergroup threw herself at me. Before I even hit the floor, my face was wet with kisses.

I could only take it in good humour and try to break free from her hold.

Back on our feet, I didn't feel like I'd just taken part in the Romanian version of WWF Raw.

‘It so good to see you!’ Monica squealed.

‘It so good to see you!’ squealed Gabby back at her.

‘I have much to tell you,’ squealed Monica.

‘I have much to tell you too,’ squealed Gabby.

'You look lovely!' squealed Monica.

'You look lovely too!' squealed Gabby.

'And doesn't Chippeeee look good!'

'Chippeeee look very good!'

That’s when I knew that no matter how much the sun might shine, this is going to be a long long week.

The Bangor Sun God

It’s gloriously hot and sunny here in North Wales. I’m just back from the newsagent, where I went clad only in my thonged Speedos and flip flops to buy the day’s outpourings of Fleet Street. I’ll be soon tanning myself in the communal garden we have attached to the flats.

If I’ve been a little quite for a day or two, then you have to just forgive me. The tax forms have been giving me serious trouble, but now I’m back in the groove and full of determination to advance the Chipster cause in the coming weeks. I’m encouraged by the fact that with the British sailors unable to tell them their tales, the newspapers will find themselves with a few column inches left to fill. I intend on contacting them later on to sell them the full story of my time in solitary. I can see the headlines now: ‘A Easter in Tax Hell’.

My cousin also arrived last night. Bags on the doorstep. The smell of the farmyard lingering in the hall. I’m going to write up the details of The Farmer’s visit but I just want to get some suncream on this skin of mine. Give me an hour or two to let these fingers hammer the keyboard and I’ll deliver you a full account of The Farmer and why I say that North Wales must take his threats seriously.

The Chipster Uncovered

In the end, I’m glad I struggled to my adult learning class this afternoon. It was one of those funny episodes that can easily cheer up an aging thongman’s week.

Mrs. Rust began the lesson by taking the register. There were twelve us in class this week and mine was the second name to be read out. When she’d finished, Mrs. Rust closed the register and the first thing she did was turn to ask me about the best way to treat a fungal toe infection. What could I say? I had no way to avoid the question and so, in my guise as a chartered manicurist, I tried to answer her the best I could.

I should never have lied last week about what I do for a living. I’m useless at pretending to be something I’m not. Which is perhaps why I nearly gave the game away when I suggested that a cure might involve, as a last remedy, the surgical removal of the infected toe.

‘You’d recommend the amputation of a toe in a case of athlete’s foot?’ she asked, shocked to the last twist of her already grey hair.

‘Oh,’ I said, loudly so the rest of the class could be sure of my authority in this matter, ‘that’s only in the rarest instances. Grown men have been known to lose legs when athlete’s foot has gone untreated for too long.’

Well, she fell silent for a few moments before she started the lesson. I thought I’d got away with my sham but I soon realised that she doubted my story when she announced that we’d be reading the Auden poem which begins ‘At least the secret is out’.

At Last the Secret is Out

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and into the square the tongues has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

We silently read the poem a couple of times before we went though it as a class, but it didn’t take long before Mrs. Rust began to ask me some very odd questions.

‘What kind of secret story might be “delicious”, Chip?’

‘Why do you think it’s the lady who dances and the man who drinks, Chip? Wouldn’t it have been a better secret if it were the other way around? Why might a man want to keep it a secret that he likes to dance?’

‘Do men always have a wicked secret, Chip?’

After half an hour of this, it had all became a bit embarrassing and I’m sure the rest of the class were beginning to suspect that some hidden meaning lay behind all these innuendos.

In the end I could take it no longer when she asked: ‘Do you think men keep secrets because they’re ashamed, Chip?’

‘Ashamed?’ I answered. ‘Ashamed! There’s no shame!’

And with that I jumped up on the desk.

It was quite a sight to see. Even with a bad back, I began to grind my hips as I started my world famous inverted thong strip.

‘Is there anything to feel shameful when you’ve got a body like this?’ I asked as I began my routine by revealing my magnificent torso. ‘Is there anything to be shamed about when you’re Chip Dale, Bangor’s most famous Thonglateer Extraordinaire?’ And with that I did my patented hip thrust that usually drives the ladies crazy.

Of course, I didn’t give them the full strip. There were women in that room who were there to read Jane Austen, but I was down to my underwear when Mrs. Rust brought the class to order.

‘Thank you for setting us straight, Chip,’ said Mrs. Rust with a knowing smile on her face.

The class roared their disapproval as my impromptu performance came to an end and I settled myself back in my chair, suddenly feeling like I was Mrs. Rust’s star pupil.

‘You never struck me as a man who understands toes,’ Mrs. Rust explained as she waited for the room to fall silent. ‘Not with hips are as lean as a Shakespearean sonnet and thighs with all the meaty presence of a novel by Sir Walter Scott.’ And with that she opened her book of poems. ‘Now, Chip, what can you tell me something about this poem’s rhyme scheme?’

Slip-on Shoes

Believe it or not but The Chipster’s not known for his fashion sense. To be fair, it’s not called for in my line of work. It’s a bit like asking a bus driver if he has good cufflinks. It doesn’t help him drive a bus. Well, the same’s true of me and my clothes. Some say I’m scruffy and some prefer not to t say anything at all. I draw the line at wearing tracksuits but I never go so far as to wear a suit if I can help it. I suppose that I’m conservative in my choice of clothes, like a poor college lecturer, until we reach my thong. When we get down there, thongs usually get interesting. The rest usually end up thrown on the floor somewhere.

Yet the one place where I do insist on buying quality is in my choice of shoes. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ll soon be jetting off to Washington. I’ll be on my heels most of the time when I get there so I thought it was about time I bought myself a pair of shoes. A good pair of shoes. I skimped when it came to buying my last pair. I bought them from eBay. Worst bargain I’ve ever made. For the last couple of months, my hips have been aching whenever I walk more than a mile. And when shoes start to affect a man’s capacity for hip thrusts then you know it is time to act.

I’d been putting it off too long but when I found myself hobbling through Bangor today I made a snap decision. I walked straight into Clarks, which happened to be the closest shoe shop. They may not be known for being at the forefront of fashion but fashion had led me to buy the black leather boots with the narrow steel toe caps that have been crippling me for too long. Today was the day when I gave up trying to ‘wear them in’ and I bought myself a plain pair of black slip-ons.

It was a world of difference and I’ve been jaunty ever since. I gave my boots to homeless guy I met in town. So if you ever see a bum hobbling around Bangor in a very impressive pair of boots, you’ll know I’m telling the truth.

The odd thing about this whole event, and the reason I’m telling you this, is that I’ve never bought slip-on shoes before. It’s like the world has suddenly started to revolve the other way on its axis. With boots, you come to expect them to be easy to put on and take off. But I’ve always bought shoes with laces. I don’t know. They always seemed to give me sense of reassurance. By buying slip-ons today, I overcome a psychological block I’ve been suffering all these years.

Why have I always bought shoes with laces? What do laces symbolise? There’s a part of my brain that likes the comfort of laces. But then another part of me is attracted to the freedom of the slip-on. It’s one of those struggles between reason and passion, between fate and chance.

I bought slip-ons today and the world suddenly seemed to open up to many more possibilities.

For Sale: Robin Reliant

It's time to get rid of the old girl. I mean my car, of course, not Gabby. Though if you give me an extra £50, I'm sure we might work something out. I've had some good times with this car (and with Gabby too) so I like to think it will go to a good owner. The picture is a bit deceptive. The blue is more of a cyan than you see here and thanks to a joy rider, it's currently parked at the bottom of Bangor's habour. What else can I say? It's the bargain of the year!


For Sale: Reliant Robin 1.0 Sport (petrol), manual, 1968 plate, solid roof (some rust and barnacles), aquamarine blue, tape deck, squeaky driver’s seat fully adjustable in two positions, mock leather interior, old rug, some body oil spillage on seats, RAC atlas (1982), collection of old Lib Dem stickers, includes fee brick to stick under wheels when parked on hill or slight incline, spare wheel (punctured), 290,000 miles, some water damage. £2000 new. Yours for £50 if willing to collect from bottom of Bangor’s harbour. The ladies will love it!

The Wrong Team

I am a man of serious nocturnal habits when it’s the night of the Super Bowl.

The Bears are being turned over by the Colts and I’m getting progressively drunk. I’m not a heavy drinker but for big sporting occasions I buy myself a bottle. Tonight’s deal is a shot of whisky each time Chicago lose points. My Romanian conscience has gone to bed. She hates sport and doesn’t understand drinking. Some might say it’s one of her virtues. I say it’s an inconvenience.

So that’s why I find myself sitting here by the window overlooking Bangor, which sits below me, silent but for dogs who seem to share my insomnia. Their shadows pass through the sodium yellow glare of street lamps. The whole town is dosed in the glow like petrol. I have a feeling that a spark could set this place alight. I also feel like being that spark. Or maybe a dog will set it off. Dogs must get tired of the same routines. I know I do.

I made it as far as the fourth quarter before my mind began to unwind on its thread. It’s been a high scoring game and not for sober minds. It was never meant to be Chicago’s night but now I want them to defy the odds just to save me from myself and this bottle. The clock runs down. I get more drunk. More points go the Colts’ way and I look to the windows where I see myself cast onto the night. I’ve looked better but so has the night. In the morning, it will be a thing we will both work hard to should forget.

How could I have got it all wrong?

And how could half the country get it so wrong about Tony Blair?

Like a football statistic that helps you make a bad bet, 56% of the country think that Blair should leave government now. It’s not a figure worth quoting. Would any gambler take odds so close to even money? And why do the public think their opinion matters? Don’t they understand the rules of the game? Don’t they know about the rules of all games?

Blair loses like Chicago. There’s the same amazement of that something so bright could end so dismally. But that’s just part of the game, the old game. All politicians live by a clock which begins to count down the moment they arrive in office. It’s not for the public to say when it will end or whether he get overtime. You wouldn’t poll a crowd to see if a match should end at half time. So why think it significant to politicians? The game plays out, quarter by quarter. That’s the way it’s always been.

And now the Bears have lost…

I’ve turned off the TV and I am now gazing out over the harbour. Lights are strung out along the coast. Another day lies somewhere at their end. I would reach out and begin to reel it in but I know that’s not how this game is played.

Because there’s always a game and there's always another clock counting down somewhere.

Fear and Trembling

There’s a time in the day, for usually about eight thirty in the morning, when the mind is most receptive to bad news. It’s usually before my first drink, when my body’s juices are at their lowest and no amount of effort can get them flowing. That’s why I usually turn on the TV as soon as I wake up. I give myself over to what Kirkegaard would have called ‘the strength of the absurd’. And of course it doesn't do any harm in helping to drown out the sound of a certain Romanian who snores like a bison.

I’m fanatical about knowing the day’s headlines. Knowing how much worse the world has got while I was asleep allows me to decide if I’m going to go through the day fearing something large and unimaginably evil.

Which makes it a bit odd that I head straight for something large and unimaginably evil.

Murdoch owns Sky News but it’s still the first channel I seek out, though these days, perhaps for nothing more than my notorious infatuation with Kay Burley. I find my sympathies towards Sky are lessening with each passing week. They have become too caught up in an endless cycle (or should that be recycle) of the same four or five stories. Which is why I usually then turn on BBC News 24.

The BBC might have their bias but at least it’s varied bias.

Then it’s onto the minor channels, which includes the best news channel of all. EuroNews should come with a guarantee that you’ll see something there that won’t have seen anywhere else. Unfortunately, most of it’s in French and they have too many pieces about Belgium street artists but I do enjoy the variety.

Which brings me on to my point.

Irrespective of the channel, today’s headlines were all about bird flu. It put pay to my usual hard-boiled breakfast. It was Alpen and a freshly squeezed orange for me this morning. Yet as I was chewing my mouthful the sawdust and berries, I began to realise how much of my fear was put there by the media.

The difficult bit about fear is that it happily fills the huge gulf that sits between ‘possibility’ and ‘actuality’. It’s that great imagined somewhere were we get struck by asteroids, the Chinese decide to invade, or Simply Red decide to bring their tour to Bangor. I suppose it’s an indulgence of people who don’t live with the immediacy of a real threat. I can’t imagine what it was to live in London during the Blitz with the real chance of sitting under a bomb sights. What should happen if Mick Hucknall decided to take the flat above?

But I guess we don’t know until it happens. And we can’t know. We shouldn’t know. And people shouldn’t make us feed our fear so they can also provide it’s tonic in the form of hours and hours of reassurance.

For the moment, we should live our life taking some comfort from the insanity of it all. Hucknall probably wouldn’t be able to find Bangor on a map of North Wales. And I should live happy with that fact and the million others they never tell me on the news.

Oscar Tips Golden Thongs

As one of Wales’s top entertainers - Tom Jones claims he sells more records but I know who the ladies really appreciate - I often get privileged insider knowledge about the film industry. Being a very generous man (and read that how you like), I don’t see why I shouldn’t share my Oscar tips with you.

This year, all the smart money is going with Helen Mirren. The Chipster’s tip: Put all your money on The Queen. I don’t mean that literally. And I don’t mean thrust wads of cash down the front of Her Majesty’s dress. I mean bet a some notes on The Queen winning a few gongs at the Oscars. Mirren has never won an Oscar but she’s living with the top Hollywood honcho who directed Ray and as Gabby always says, living with a successful man is bound leave its mark on a woman. I’ll definitely be tucking a little something away for Helen. And for Gabby too. She’s such as sweet thing…

For best film and director, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scorsese finally gets the nod. In my opinion, he’s not yet made the definitive Scorsese movie involving a hot male thongman from Bangor and his Romanian girlfriend caught in a passionate romance while chased by the Welsh Mafia. But it’s also getting boring waiting for him to win an Oscar and if they don’t give him it this year, he might as well come and retire in Bangor instead.

Eddie Murphy might be the surprise winner in the Best Supporting Actor category. The academy will probably want to reward him for the fact he never made a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie. The Chipster’s second top tip: Eddie Murphy should make a fourth Beverly Hills Cop. The third one was so terrific! I’ve never seen a strip joint captured on film with such realism.

For best picture in a foreign language, I expect Efter brylluppet will win. They make good films in Denmark and good bacon too. My instincts tell me this will win. I know nothing about the film but my favourite thong smells vaguely like bacon. It is obviously an omen.