Top Blogging Tips from Wales’ Top Blogger

I seem to have made an enemy. Or at least, I hope I have. I’m beginning to find that blogging at The Telegraph is like slipping unnoticed through the back door of an old folks’ home and settling yourself down in an armchair. Sooner or later, somebody turns to you and asks your opinion of ‘that lovely Judith Chalmers’. To which you respond: ‘Looks good for her age.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ says the resident. ‘A lovely woman. I once played bingo with her at New Milton's hospice.’ And so it goes...

My crime, if it was a crime, was registering the name A. Aaron Esq, which (apparently) put me unfairly at the top of some list of Telegraph bloggers. I felt moderately bad about the comment, left at the end of my piece on Alan Titchmarsh. It made me realise that perhaps not all Telegraph readers are in the mood for a serious deconstruction of the Titchmarsh myth:

I do like Alan... used to watch all his efforts with Tommo and Charlie, great stuff.... but what concerns me is the name of this Blogger, very cleverly slotting himself in the top most position of the "A"s...... makes you wonder about MyT [My Telegraph] .... makes you think.... Right, I am off to the snooker match now, we are away tonight, 38 mile round trip, and I am driving. See you all tomorrow !! from www.sotonsnooker.com

Which led me to think about myself and what exactly I would claim to know about blogging. It made me think about an odd thing that happened today, which I didn’t blog about earlier because, to be honest, I don’t have time to write about every little incident in my daily life. Somewhere in this rambling mess of a brain of mine, I have the understanding that, when blogging, one has to be selective. There’s just the slightest chance that the world isn’t going to be interested in the news that the postman arrived five minutes earlier and wore a different pair of trousers than normal.

In my role as one of Wales’ most outspoken but prolific bloggers, I've been asked to give a speech to the local community’s Young Unwed Mothers Action Group, on the occasion of the launch of their new blog, ‘Banged Up in Bangor’. I was obviously as touched by the invite as I was keen to get out of it. I’ve not been a stripper for all these years without learning to keep well away from unwed mothers. They’re an overly fertile bunch. One minute you’re shaking them by the hand, the next you’re being asked to urinate into a test tube for a paternity test. It’s not that I’m worried about the outcome but they don’t make test tubes for a man like the Chipster. To be more blunt: I tend to end up with a wet hand and the sort of mopping up operation that usually qualifies for government disaster relief.

I would have explained all this to Gabby as we listened to the offer on the answer phone but since she’s started working as a traffic warden, she’s become big on local issues. Before I’d had chance to commit excuse to brain, she’d dialled 14713 and told them I’d be more than happy to go along and contribute a few words. She also gave them a verbal warning about the parking on Victoria Street and told them she knew where they live.

‘That’s so good,’ said Mrs. Morgan, the organiser of the local unmarrieds, as I took the phone from Gabs. ‘We hope you can tell us some interesting things about Westminster life and what it’s like supporting West Ham.’

I didn’t know how to tell her that I don’t support West Ham. I didn’t know how to explain that I wasn’t Iain Dale. It’s not the sort of new you like to break to unwed mothers. However, I took the phone from Gabby and thought to sort things out. Heavy on the honesty, light on the detail: that’s the Chipster’s way.

‘You do realise that I’m not actually…’ I began.

She wasn’t listening. ‘Of course, we’ll pay you sixty pounds for your trouble,’ she said.

‘I’ll be there at seven thirty, Mrs. Morgan,’ I said, saying a thank you to Saint Iain of Audi. ‘And what about that Craig Bellemy? We’ve got a handful there, haven’t we?’

‘We do indeed, Iain,’ she said. ‘We do indeed…’

I rang off and turned my mind to the speech I was meant to give. It was a matter of coming up with something intelligent to say about blogging, without letting on that they had the wrong Dale.

I’m rarely lost for words so I knocked the following together in half-an-hour last night. What it lacks in polish, I think it makes up for in wisdom. I’m thinking of offering it to the other bloke as an intro to his next guide to UK blogging. This is the version I’m considering posting to My Telegraph this afternoon.

New Media, Same Old Bull

Blogs were created in the belief that we all have something to say. And at that point, it all began to go terribly wrong. The problem is that we all do indeed have something to say. Unfortunately, so many of us decide to share it with the rest.

I have no doubt that the less generous among you might say that this piece should itself be added to the list of things that shouldn’t have been written on or about the internet. You might like to include it with every blog post informing us that Aunty Madge arrived this morning, had a wonderful time in Bournemouth, though the sand left her a little chapped around her thighs. Interesting news, indeed, as were the details of her jaunt to Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, and Sway. Yet bloggers are a determined bunch. We don’t like to stop there. We like to include pictures with our posts. So, we get Aunty Madge to raise her skirt, throw a leg on the kitchen table, and ask her to give our Nokia a flash of her seriously chapped thighs. It’s even better if Uncle Horace is in the shot, pointing at her thighs, pipe clenched between his dentures, and a look of inebriated joy on his face. Where is big thinking about serious subjects compared to the trivial delights of Aunt Madge and her thighs? Big thinking is out of the question as we are so busy indulging this collective fetishism of detail.

How we escape ‘detail’ may well become the philosophical dilemma of the early twenty first century. We have a surfeit of information and perspectives. Critics are held hostage by opinions, which, we are told, nobody should really have in this pluralistic network of stances. Facts are rarely accepted as facts, in the face of other apparent facts that contradict them. George W. Bush has apparently committed every sin possible for a human being to commit. Which is particularly impressive since he’s actually a Thuban lizard from Alpha Draconis. In a non-literal sense, every other blog lies somewhere between Aunt Madge’s thighs and Alpha Draconis. It’s a frightening thought.

Websites like MySpace and YouTube are supposed to free us from the old media. We can all be stars because we have the chance to reach a larger audience. Only, of course, they don’t. Or at least the great unwashed 'we' don't. Held up as a great example of the new media finding new talent, Lily Allen is the daughter of Keith Allen. Was it a sign that talent breeds talent, or that the old media merely use the excuse of the new media as a way of doing what they have always done: looking after their own?

And for the rest of us: the simple truth is that the more we are able to communicate, the more it appears that the majority of us have little of significance to say. Writing about our daily lives is the surest way of killing off the blogosphere. It will become the dumping ground of trivial observations. Blogs have already become synonymous with the worst kind of diarrhoea, produced by the fingertips and spewed unedited into the world.

The Stripping Kinnock

I just had to post this update since I’ve got exciting news. I’m off to Washington next week to attend the World Stripper’s Convention!

The tickets have just arrived and I’ve now booked my flight. By an odd quirk of coincidence, I’ll be there at the same time as my less-tanned namesake but I doubt if we’ll meet unless he decides to come and take in the best conference in town.

However, should any of you be in Washington and want to see me get naked, I’ll be performing on the second day and I’ll be doing my Welsh miner routine. It’s probably my least favourite routine but we’ve all been asked to do a show that represents our countries. It’s really a shame since I don’t think I look that good with my face covered in coal dust and perhaps it isn’t in the best taste to pretend I have miner’s lung as I go wheezing around the stage. But it’s too late to create a new routine, though I would have quite liked to have done one themed around Neil Kinnock. In my mind, he's always been one of the biggest Welsh icons. I’d go up on stage and shouting ‘We're alright! We're alright’ before whipping out my opinion pole to test the audience.

Now I think about it, I wonder if I couldn’t cobble together a few moves. What would it take to transform myself into a stripping Kinnock? I’ll have to give it some thought.

Anyway, I’ll have more news closer to the time and of course I’ll be blogging throughout my trip.

Hear Me Roar!

I have to be quick. I’ve just read that the key to blogging is brevity.

It's kind of hard concept for a man like me to understand. My whole career has been based around making the strip last as long as possible, which, were it blogging, would amount to me running on stage, quick wave to the crowd, whip off my thong, and once round the audience giving my white meat more rough treatment than you’d find in a Bernard Matthews rendering plant.

In, out, and off to rapturous applause in 37 seconds.

So, I have to be quick…

Okay, Chipster. Stay focussed.

Focussed on what I wanted to say, which is my report about Blogger TV on 18 Doughty Street.

I watched if for the first time tonight. Being new to this blogging world, I’m catching up on what we bloggers are supposed to do. I’ve been worried about my lack of readership. I still can’t get people to link to me and 75% of my audience still arrive from Mexico on the back of a search for ‘the chipendales’ (there are two ‘p’s in Chippendales, my Mexican friends). I had hoped that Blogger TV would address that type of issue for me. How to become widely read inside two weeks. That sort of thing.

Because I was still feeling a little physically drained after my bout of flu, I decided to get in bed before nine and listen to four eminent bloggers discuss the tools of the trade.

Only they weren’t discussing tips on blogging but whether we bloggers are really pub bores.

It was horrible moment. Lying there naked, derobed except for a slight covering of peppermint scented baby oil, I felt myself go limp with the realisation that… I don’t think I can bring myself to even type it.

That I'm a bore?

I’ve been accused of many things in my time: being an exhibitionist, a thrill seeker, a magician of the thong, and even the country’s sexiest Lib Dem (except for He Who Shall Not Be Named). But I’ve never been accused of boring anybody. Well, not in that sense of the word but we won’t go there.

Yet I see our problem. Political are about politics. Is there anything as pitiful? I mean look at it. Politics has a lower audience than crown green bowling. Which means that if I keep mentioning crown green bowling, my readership will probably skyrocket.

Crown green bowling. Crown green bowling. Nice shot there, Stan. Nestling up to the jack, you’ve played a blinder! Beautiful line Mrs. Green. How’s you cat? Oh, did you hear my knees crack… The trouble with young people today…National service. Hang em! Fancy another custard cream Mrs. Green?

Ah ha! Sorry. Got carried away pandering to my new audience. (No, not you, my hombres, you want 'chippendales' with two p's).

But as I was saying, political blogging is not an activity for the reader. Even the Chipster, with days left empty except keeping himself moist for his evening shows, doesn’t find the time to read that many political blogs. I don’t understand what they talk about and I’ve never heard of most of the people they quote. Then there’s the fact that I find them dull, except when there’s a bit of controversy at play. Which is why I’ve come up with my brilliant plan to liven things up around here.

I’ve decided to start a blog war.

I don’t know who I’ll rage my war against. Auditions will begin shortly but the nomination process is now open. To make this fair, I want my blog war to be a peaceable affair with a party who agrees to open hostilities with me. The terms and conditions will be mutually agreed upon. No personal insults about the quality of our blogging. I was thinking about choosing some arbitrary concept and arguing at great length about it. Topics to choose from should include:

The pros and cons of Pot Noodles.
The meaning of the word ‘quixotic’.
The literary career of Jeffrey Archer.
The cultural impact of vests.
Jimmy Saville: Creepy or Geeky?
Modern twentieth century poetry.
The pros and cons of Blog Wars.

These are just for starters, to get us thinking about how we might develop this plan. I might just change my mind about this in the morning but, at this point of time as I’m about roll over and go to sleep, it sounds a pretty sound idea to me.

Is This Blog War The New Stripping War?

I have a great feeling today and it’s all thong.

Wow! The tablets really worked last night. I’m feeling more like myself today. Funny how the sickness took me to places I’ve never been before. And I’ve had a hankering for classical music that just wasn’t right, so today I’ve put on the Rolling Stones and I’ve got back to practising my full catalogue of stripping routines. I’ve just finished a five minute warm up which ended with my sending my underwear flying fifteen feet across the room and coming to rest exactly where I’d aimed, hanging from my UK Stripper of the Year award

Not that I think that everything had happened over the weekend was lamentable. I mean, I wrote something. I discovered something. And for a while on Saturday night I thought I was a giant cactus baking in the Arizona desert. But for that we can just blame a bad reaction to the antibiotics.

And doesn't the world seems a better place this morning? I was happy to read that my namesake has issued a plea for the blogging war to come to an end. It’s about time that we come together as a community of bloggers and stop this senseless war.

It resembles to my own disagreement with Tom ‘Greasy Whiplash’ Iceland when he accused me of lying when I denied calling him a ‘nude nihilist’. I didn’t even know the meaning of the word but his accusations still came thick and fast. Then he started on Gary ‘Wierdo’ Forks, revealing the poor man had had buttock implants during his time at university. The whole thing grew terribly out of proportion (much like Wierdo's buttocks after the implants) and soon North Wales' stripping community was fighting among itself and became something of a laughing stock.

As you know, The Chipster is a man of peace and hates to see grown men quibble over things as trivial as politics or who first came up with the idea of dangling a handbag from between his clenched buttocks. The world is simply packed with too many good things, and with so many ladies to please with our gyrations, there’s more than enough room in the world for Chip Dale, Tom Iceland, and Gary Forks.

Do I Use The Word 'Thong' Too Much?

I was talking to my FRIEND, Iain Dale, just the other day, asking him if he thought I used the word ‘thong’ too much in my everyday speech. Iain paused a moment and said, as quick as a flash because he's smart like that, that he thought… Oh, well, perhaps I shouldn’t tell tales of FRIENDS. You know… those people who don’t intend to sue a man for every thong he owns.

You can tell that the Chipster is in fine fettle this morning and Bangor has never looked more lovely. I’m sitting typing in nothing but my favourite pair of T Backs while Gabby’s gone off to London to buy herself a new voice box. She’s so precious but what else could I do for my little Romanian petal? I'm being a bit too generous, perhaps, but freedom feels so bloody good when you know you won’t have to flee to Romania chased by the Tory blogosphere.

Many thanks for the many emails of support I’ve received. It took me all of five minutes responding to both of them last night. It’s good to know that there are so many secret thong wearers out there. The Chipster has had to enable comment moderation though. It’s my blog and it’s my right to delete comments when they don’t fit with my policy. If you want to talk about underpants, jockey shorts, or god forbid, boxers, then go elsewhere. I recommend Bloggerheads or Guido. And if you could all see some sense and vote Lib Dem, then the Chipster would be most grateful. Remember: it’s the only party with truly progressive policies such as free body oil on the NHS.

Now that I feel reborn, I know I should say something about contemporary politics and the heady world of Westminster. Unfortunately, the batteries running low on my laptop and I’ve still to read the morning papers.

More later, my string gusseted brethren.

I Am Not Called Iain

The streets of Bangor are ominously quiet this evening. The stench of public humiliation mixes with the sweet fragrance of female hormones gone awry. In many a home tonight, the ladies of the town lament my non-appearance at the Green Dragon Tavern. I sit here, waiting for the phone to ring. I’m sure there are powerful forces watching me work.

It would appear that the Chipster may have offended his famous namesake, Mr. Iain Dale (no relation). Now the world of Welsh exotic dancing is in turmoil and Gabby is crying in the corner of the room. She thinks this will have a bearing on her application to stay in the country. I just fear that I'll have to flog my collection of valuable thongs on eBay to fight a court case. What am I to do? Are the any lawyers out there who could tell me if I have a leg to stand on? And no, madam, *that* is not a leg. I am only a man in a thong. A big loveable man in a thong who never meant to hurt anybody.

Gabby, bless her little East European heart, says she’ll help smuggle me into Romania next time she goes there on tour with his sister, but I don’t know if I want to leave my wonderful Wales. Have you seen the quality of Romanian thongs? I’d rather rot in an English prison.

Looking at the design of my blog and that of Mr. Dale’s famous site, I was shocked to see some similarities. Coincidence follows me around so much. First there was this bloody facial resemblance I have to He Who Must Not Be Named, and now this! I’ve spoken to the cheap little bastard who built my webpage and he now admits that he was inspired by Britain’s top blogger. Knowing that I’m the country’s top Lib Dem stripper, he thought it a good idea to pay homage to a Tory blogger. What did he call it? Cross pollination? I could smell whisky on his breath. And he calls himself a Welshman!

I’ll have to sleep on this tonight. In the words of Julie Andrews: tomorrow’s just a thong away. Thanks for the support from those that emailed me. I’d just like to assure everybody that I’m no Iain Dale. Nor am I a sock puppet. And I am most certainly not somebody called Glyn Davies.

You can guess as long as you like but I am the real Crispen ‘Chip’ Dale. I just don't know for how much longer...

Thong on!