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.

Late Night With The Chipster

Contractually, as you know, I’m not allowed to reveal myself fully to you on this blog. There are some things I have keep back for the live show. That means there are no pictures of my famous Neil Kinnock routine, no video of my thrusting hips or swinging genitals, and definitely no shots of me sans-thong. This leaves with a predicament when it comes to new visitors. If they don’t live in Wales, they probably haven’t heard of the Thonglateer Extraordinaire. They won’t have attended any of my sell-out shows. They won’t have experienced the smell of pineapple oil drifting from the stage before I come running on to the theme tune from The Persuaders.

It’s partly why I feel it’s imperative that I finish my autobiography as soon as possible. People who haven’t experienced the Chipster live should at least know about his remarkable rise to the top of his profession. They should understand my charity work, my political work that should have rightly been rewarded with a place of that list.

I understand, therefore, why Non-Working Monkey should doubt my claim that I’m the biggest name in Welsh stripping. If only she had done a little research on the internet, she’d have found countless stories of my nude exploits. I really shouldn’t have to wake Gabby up at half-past one in the morning, just so she can come and snap a picture of me in the living room. But for once that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Gabby was not happy.

‘A******g monkey?’ she said. ‘You want picture for a ******g monkey?

‘It’s not a real monkey,’ I replied, my cap literally in my hand.

‘I should ******g hope not,’ she replied. ‘You want to hold banana while I take picture?’

I explained about the contractual reasons why my banana couldn’t shown, even for a monkey.

She snatched the digital from my hands. ‘I take******g picture but then you let Gabby sleep. I up early in the ******g morning. Cheeky Girls go sing at hospital for sick children.’

‘Then make sure you sing them the hokey ******g cokey,’ I said, sourly striking the pose you see in the above picture. And as you can also see, I even made a banner just to prove it was tonight and for Non-Working Monkey.

For some reason, Gabby took the picture in black and white but since I only discovered this after she’d gone to bed, I figured I’d post it as it is. Not only is it more artistic this way, it saved me the trouble of rousing a previously roused Romanian. If any of you like the shot, I’ll be having 8x10 glossy photos made up, available at the usual place at the usual rates.

Dorothy Wordworth's Thong

I should be back in Bangor tomorrow. It will something of a relief given day I had yesterday. I thought I’d found a quiet spot away from my troubles and away from the influence of Grasmere’s tourism board, which has increasingly proved over the last few days how allergic I am to the word ‘twee’. Not many things could have forced The Chipster to drag himself up a mountain but I’d had enough of the Dorothy Wordsworth pin-cushion dolls and novelty play dough poetry kits. I could taken another person spontaneously reading sonnets to me or telling me how they had spent an hour sitting among daffodils and trying to find a rhyme for rheumatism.

I just had to get away.

I chose one of the smaller hills, thinking it would attract less attention, and I soon discovered a secluded spot – I’d call it a dell but I don’t want you clever types leaving comments about fairies – where I thought I’d enjoy the heat of the rare hot afternoon.

I stretched myself out on a tuft of heather and began to enjoy the warm kiss of the sun on my naked body. I must had been lying there nearly an hour, oblivious to the world, when a party of schoolchildren suddenly appeared on the cliff above me. Turns out the spot was one of Alfred Wainright’s favourite bits of the Lake District and is well known to ramblers. There were a few screams as dozens of children began to run down the rocky slope.* The sound of scree slipping merged with the noise of camera phones snapping open. Teachers were shouting at me to get my clothes on but I was already panicking that uncopyrighted footage of my naked body would appear on YouTube. It still might. I grabbed what I could of my clothes and ran off, losing my thong in the process.

So, like I said, tomorrow I’m going home. If any of you should happen to find a bright orange thong on some remote Cumbrian fell, I’d be grateful if you could post it back to me. And if you see any footage of YouTube, I’d appreciate it if you could send me the link.

Wordsworth has a lot to answer for.

* This originally read 'rocky slop', which is clearly ridiculous. In fact, it's an oxymoron and nobody can run down an oxymoron. Thank you Mopsa for spotting this deliberate mistake. I wrote this diary entry in a state of great agitation. If you've never been chased by teenagers in search of valuable video footage for YouTube , you won't understand why I'm such a wreck today.

The Other Side of Washington

I'm so sorry. Once the drink hit The Chipster's system, it pulled a plug and he slept a good five hours.

It was probably for the best. Now my fingers are hitting all the right keys and I feel up to telling you what happens when a naive Welshman accepts an offer to perform in a place he doesn’t know. I should never have taken that job on the other side of Washington and I'm disappointed with myself for failing to heed the first rule of stripping: you should always get to know the person who has asked you to get naked.

As you might recall, I’d had some offers to do some freelance work here in the US after my spectacular success with the Neil Kinnock stripping routine the other day at the conference. Well, tonight I went to my first booking and it taught me a very important lesson in humility. I probably won’t leave my hotel room again until it’s time for tomorrow’s flight and I intend to stay here listening to my MP3 of Tom Jones singing about the green, green grass of home.

The offer of work came from a man I think it only wise to call ‘Bill’. He’d come up to me after my routine and offered me $5000 for a single performance. I won’t go into too many details but he appeared to be the typical good-hearted American. Pleasant. Dignified. Wholesome. He even claimed to have Welsh relatives. He was also tall, heavy, barrel chested, and fighting two losing battles with a heavy paunch of a stomach and what I guessed was a dwindling growth of hair on his head. He’d remedied the latter by shaving himself bald and the former by wearing loose fitting clothes. If you need to picture him more clearly, think of him as I thought began to think of him: as a bald Dom Deluise. Anyway, Bill bought me a drink after the show and explained how much money there is in ‘the Washington circuit’. And since I got on well with the guy, it was only natural that I would agree to do at least one of the gigs he’d set up for me.

The address he gave me was on the other side of the city. I never thought much about it at the time, but I did think that the address was unusual. Again, I have to be careful. I don’t want to spread rumours about people but the place didn’t sound like the typical club for exotic dancing. They usually have some exotic if slightly sleezy name attached but this was only an address.

At seven o’clock last night, I took a taxi from my hotel here in the centre of Washington DC and fifteen minutes later it arrived at the address on the city’s suburbs. It was only when I got there that I discovered the reason why the club lacked a name. It wasn’t a club at all. It was a private residential address.

I don’t want you to misunderstand me, though. I’m not saying it was a normal house. This was a private estate, sealed off behind iron gates. The taxi dropped me off just as a long black limo turned up and the white iron gates swung back. The music and laughter of a party drifted down to the road so I slipped inside, nearly catching my bag of clothes and props on the gates as they closed.

The house was what we’d call a mansion back home in the UK. Here it was one of the smaller places, in a few acres of lawns, tennis courts, swimming pools. I could see that Bill had done well for himself and thought many happy thoughts as I walked up to the house.

I was wondering what Gabby would say about my earning $5000 in a single night. I was so full of these thoughts, I didn’t hesitate when I reached the open front door. I just walked right in and made myself at home among the revellers.

After ten minutes of searching, I finally found Bill, who welcomed me with typical American sincerity. He threw his hands around me and dragged me to the bar where he poured me a drink of something brown and expensive.

‘So glad you could make it, Chipster!’ he cried. ‘We don’t often get somebody from the old country come to entertain us. Come on through and meet my friends. I’ve been telling them all about you and that great routine you did the other night.’

You’ll probably see why I was feeling so pleased with myself. This was just fantastic luck to make such a friend in my first visit Stateside, and it was only natural that I played the grateful guest. I smiled and fawned as I was introduced to more people than I can ever hope to remember. It probably amounted to about forty people, all of obvious wealth and all around Bill’s age, which put them in their early fifties. It all felt rather odd, given that I was there to perform an exotic dance,. but for $5000 I wasn’t looking to complain. I’ve said before what an open and tolerant society American appears to be.

‘So, when do you want me to perform?’ I asked Bill after about an hour of sitting chatting with his guests. I was still feeling slightly out of place among so much wealth. I still carried my bag of costumes and props and I wasn’t dressed for a party, stuck in my faded jeans and a Bangor tourist board t-shirt.

‘Oh, we want you to dance for us as ten o’clock on the dot,’ said Bill. Which relaxed me. It probably relaxed me too much. I knocked back my drink and then knocked back a few more as I spent another hour getting to know some of Washington’s elite.

When ten o’clock finally came round I was well oiled – in the alcoholic sense – and feeling extremely limber. I probably wasn’t in a fit state to dance but I had a job to do and there was still a small matter of $5000. Bill told me to go and get ready upstairs and promised to ring a bell when they wanted me. I was to come down the stairs and perform on the lower steps, which was good enough to me. For that much cash, I’d dance anywhere and in front of anyone. Excited by the prospect, I raced up the stairs and quickly changed into my Neil Kinnock gear. Then I waited for the bell to ring.

It felt like I waited ages before a strange electronic chime came echoing from out of the ceiling. Now, as you know, The Chipster rarely needs a cue to perform. It was showtime!

I came out of the bedroom and found the house in darkness. I got to the top of the staircase and looked down to where a circle of light illuminated the bottom steps. This was it. As I entered the light, it was at once unreal and yet so very familiar. Slightly drunk, I started my act. I missed a few of my moves, avoided the difficult turns, and without my prop lectern, I didn’t give them my ‘we’re alright’ opening. But still, I danced as well as I’ve ever danced when slightly drunk at a party.

And all was going well until the exact moment I pulled off my thong. I expected the usual roar of appreciation or a round of applause. Only, at that precise moment, just as I had reached the climax of my act, all of the lights suddenly came on!

I mean, every light.

The room was flooded with light.

Bright, bright light that left no place for neither shade nor shadow. But what was odder than anything was Bill. He came bouncing towards me, a huge grin on his face and the whole of huge corpulent body naked. Did I mention he was bouncing? Well he was bouncing. And not only was Bill bouncing along as naked as American’s faith of democracy, but every one of his guests was stark naked too. I was standing naked in front of forty naked Americans. You can imagine my horror. They don’t prepare you for moments like this in the Bangor boy scouts.

Luckily, they do prepare you for moments like this when you join the Lib Dems. I attribute my party membership with the reason why I kept some wits about me. I held onto my thong like my life depended on it, even as I recoiled at the sight of so much white flesh coming towards me. That’s when Bill grabbed me. I tried to move back up the stairs but his grip on my arm was too strong and grew stronger.

‘What’s the rush, Chippy, old pal!’ he said. I could feel him brush against my leg. I didn’t dare look down.

‘I’m not that kind of stripper!’ I protested.

He laughed. A broad kind hearted American laugh. Nothing on earth has every struck so much fear into me.

‘And what kind would that be, Chippy?’ he asked. ‘What kind of stripper are you?’

My mouth was thick with fear.

‘I have a Romanian girlfriend,’ I explained.

‘That’s good, Chippy,’ says he. ‘I’ve got somebody here with some Romanian blood inside them. Perhaps you’d like to meet him?’

The smell of alcohol and sweat was suddenly too much. My head began to spin as Bill guided me towards a female corner of the room that looked to have suffered particularly badly sagging in the five centuries they must have amassed together. ‘Don’t tell me that you men of Wales don’t know how to party!’ cried Bill and pushed me into the arms of his grateful guests.

The smell of rich perfume and aging desire brought me around. I dragged myself from the cloying arms, scrambling for a clear space. Hands had reached to but had slipped from the slight oil I always use before I perform. A women beside me screamed with delight, which only helped to work me free of my confusion. My situation was this: a door on the other side of the room stood open, but to get to it I would have to work my way through a throng of naked bodies including that of my host who was watching me with his arms spread as though ready for my dash for freedom. I looked the other way to where a window was open and looked out onto the garden. It was only open a foot or so but I could only see the green of the grass beyond it and in the distance, the gates to the estate. I didn’t waste a moment. I ran for the window.

I jumped head first through the narrow gap and I barely made it. A terrible pain bit into my loins as I caught myself on the sill. More pain came from my rear where the window catch scraped skin off my buttocks. Perhaps it was the drink, perhaps it was the fear, but I smiled at the pain. I was happy to feel alive, to feel the fresh air on my skin, and to hold my thong in my hand.

At this point, you must be wondering how it is that I always seem to find myself fleeing naked through the streets at night. Believe me, I’m beginning to wonder that too. Once I’d jumped through that window, I ran for the gates and without a thought about my modesty climbed over them. Only then did I stop and pull on my thong, and wearing only that, I carried on and ran for the highway.

Two hours later, dusty, scratched, mocked by passing drivers and having narrowly escaped some 'Texas fun' with some guy who drove a yellow pickup truck, I was worn out by running when I finally managed to flag down a police car and tell them my story. I had to make a complaint at the police station, though they’ve told me that there’s little chance of a prosecution since I’d gone to the house voluntarily. I think they didn’t want to get involved and looks were exchanged when I gave them Bill’s description. It wouldn't surprise me if he was something bif in the city and, in fact, the cops seemed only too happy to get rid of me. They gave me hot coffee and a pair of those white paper overalls they give suspects. And then they even drove me back to the hotel.

So I’m now back in my room and I’ll be glad to catch the plane back tomorrow. My Neil Kinnock costume is no more, lost out there in Washington DC’s suburbs. All I can say to you is if you live in Washington DC, or visit this city, and you do see a big fat bald man wearing a ginger wig with extensive bald patch, then don’t approach him. And for goodness sake, don’t accept an invitation to any of his parties.

It’s been a traumatic experience but I’ve just found an old copy of Jules Verne’s ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ in the hotel foyer. I intend to read it until it’s time to come home. I don’t know what got me through this terrible episode but I’ll be glad to see Wales again. I’ve really missed Gabby, despite her habit of hoarding root vegetables. But I do think I’ve performed well and that I’ve been a credit to the country.

And in a strange way, though I think I’ve done you all proud, I think that Neil Kinnock would be proudest of all.

America really did love to see him get naked.

Back To The Grind

If Valentines Day was a holiday for the country’s stripping community, yesterday was the day when we began the great clear-up operation, putting right the wrongs that were done in the name of thonglateering by the many enthusiastic amateurs over one long and greasy evening.

The body count was higher than normal this year on account of some cheap Chinese thongs that had got into the country and had caused an outbreak of crotch strangulations around Cardiff. With news like that, I felt like I was performing an essential public service taking to the stage at The Green Dragon Tavern. I felt like how I imagine doctors feel when attending an emergency. There was a job that needed doing and only the Chipster has the tools and the perfectly timed moves to get it done.

The Tavern was packed and the atmosphere heavy with expectation when I went out on stage. I was wearing my pinstripe suite as I was going to give the audience my Tory MP routine. It’s a popular routine which involves the discreet use of a large blue rosette that I cleverly deploy to cover my vitals at every stage of the act. It ends with a quick burst of Land of Hope and Glory, at which point I throw the rosette to the audience and stand with my hands on my hips giving a few victory hip thrusts before running from the stage. What can I say? It’s one of my more popular routines.

All of which makes me sad to learn from my much less flexible namesake that the Tories are thinking of dropping the rosette in favour of a bit of ribbon. A bit of ribbon! What’s a man meant to do with a bit of ribbon? Has David Cameron ever considered how much flesh a rosette covers? Not even Teddy ‘Little Finger’ Grayson could cover himself with a bit of ribbon so you can guess what problems that Big Chip Dale will have.

But this is the problem with politicians. They meddle in things that don’t concern them. I worry next that they’ll damage all my acts my banning plumbers from carrying sink plungers and policemen from wearing helmets. That rosette was one of my most popular props and I’m sorely disappointed to learn that I’ll be losing it. I’ll be writing to David Cameron to ask him to reconsider given the damage he’ll be doing to the nation’s strippers.

As for last night, the ladies went home more than happy and I came home to accusations of being a nihilist. But more on that later…