Fear and Loathing in Bangor

Agonised flares dive skyward, falter, then blister; their innards breaking through in an eruption of incandescence. Bangor dims and falls silent again. Minutes pass. A solitary scream hints at violence, corruption, deceit, or ecstasy. A dog wakes, howls its own sterilised cry; a city cry, a backyard cry of chains, water bowls, and cold concrete nights. Nobody replies. There’s nobody awake but a man writing long into the night and with only a silk dressing gown and a thermal thong to warm him.

And whisky. There’s always whisky.

The man is achingly handsome. His skin radiates life, as though lit from within by a divine illumination. Composed, refined, he is something more than the city. Something more than human. He is godlike in his every move. He shifts in his chair, gazes at the ceiling, scratches himself, sniffs his fingers, and savours the smell of pineapple or ambrosia that taints his nails. Only then does he reach for a glass and pour himself a drink. Liquid tops the glass lip and drains to his desk; a gin-soaked desk, whisky-savoured wood, and absinth-bled knots and whorls. It has known many drunken nights and even more words slurred over by a numb tongue and blurred fingers. Only these words tonight are different. They are clear. They are precise. The man has come to a very great decision and whisky has played only a moderate part in his making it. And how do we know all this? Because it is I: Chip Dale. I’m describing myself.

I inhabit these calm moments when the day’s troubles are rolled up in bed and dreaming sweet Romanian dreams to the sound of small arms gunfire played to a Euro-pop beat. It makes me understand the opportunities I have before me. I am a somewhat humble man, gifted in places between the hips, and ably supported by buttocks that the good Lord himself might have whittled from walnut. Yet I realise now that my greatness is diminished by my unwillingness to recognise it as such. It is greatness and damn any of you if you can’t see it for what it is.

At some point, a man serious about his career in print journalism learns that there’s little to be gained by wearing a cutaway muscleman vest with ‘Top Stripper in Wales’ stitched in purple sequins. He realises that he needs something more appealing to the intelligentsia of Kensington and Chelsea. What is a man to do when surrounded by blogging luminaries? If such people are to believe in a man, then he needs something more to hang on his wall other than his poster of Samantha Fox, circa 1981.

And how does such a man achieve recognition? How does he announce his greatness to the world?

That is the easiest part. He applies to become the new visiting professor of stripping at Bangor University.

Only that won’t be my title. I will be Professor of Ecdysiastics, which, I think you’ll agree, immediately gives the idea merit. It perks up the pecks, stiffens the nipples, and tightens the rear. This is a new Chip Dale I've today proposed to the good people up there at the University. This is a Chip Dale on the move, family friendly, eligible for grants, and likely to sleep through a conference by day before getting monstrously drunk at night when two hundred pounds of sexually active tweed will come alive and give chase to the slowest of the nubile postgraduates.

And if, for some as yet unknown reason, I don’t manage to become Professor Chip Dale at a Welsh University, I’ll look further afield. Manchester is rapidly becoming the place to be if you want some upward mobility in your career. Only last month, the University of Manchester announced that Martin Amis has become a professor at their new school of Creative Writing. Today, Salford University announced that Johnny Marr, the Smiths guitarist, is to become a visiting music professor. I’m sure they could fit me in once they realise how much extra research funding I could generate in a university accredited thong.

After all, what is academia but a more socially acceptable form of lap-dancing? You shake your proposals in the faces of some funding body, who, if they like what they see, stuff a handful of cash down your pouch. There, you have in one easy to remember image, a metaphor for higher education in the UK.

As much as I’m looking forward to my rise to a Chair of Stripping Studies, I can see that there might be some of you who question the validity of my vocational qualifications. But celebrity professorships are nothing new. The only difference is that a person’s fame used to be incidental to their role within the academia. Professor Tolkien had a reputation as an expert in Anglo Saxon studies quite incidental to his authorship of The Lord of the Rings. The same is true of Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor Stephen Hawking, and so many more. Even Simon Schama was a Professor at Harvard, after a decade working at Cambridge and Oxford, before he gained intellectual credibility with his shows on the BBC after Gardener's World.

Some might scoff at those of us who call ourselves Professor, but does anybody really doubt the academic credibility of Dr. Raj Persaud who is ‘Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry’? I think not. People might point out that his professorship comes from Gresham College, but that college has been established for centuries and has an interesting history, even if it's not a university in the traditional sense of having students and awarding degrees. But look at what the man has achieved in curing people. This intellectual snobbery has gone on too long. Look at the relatively lowly Dr. Paul McKenna Ph.D. He hasn't even got a chair, though he's made many a man believe he was one. But even he was already the nation’s top hypnotist before he got his Ph.D. Are we to look down on a man just because he could make a woman bark like a dog?

And would you look down on that demi-God you will soon know as Professor Chip Dale from the School of Ecdysiastics, the University of Bangor? My thesis, ‘Hips, Ankles, Joined at the Knees: A Study in Leg Dynamics in Ecdysiastic Flexability’ will be published by Oxford University Press next month. I recommend you read it. It will be followed by a tour of the country’s universities afterwards, with full demonstrations, disco lights, and a chance to buy a thong with the crest of your favourite university printed on it.

Now just dim the lights, turn up the Barry White, and let the good Professor teach you a lesson...

Happy Birthday Big Chip Dale

Rather hard to believe, isn’t it, that this dapper young Goth with slight acne and a mild fungal toe infection would later become the Welsh stripping sensation known as The Chipster? And it all seems so many years ago now. Long before I damaged my spine lifting that overweight traffic control officer at her hen party. Long before I met Romania’s answer to Combat Barbie. And before I began to tell you all my stories here at Chip Dale’s Diary. Not all of you have been with me along the way, so I think it falls to me, as the longest serving resident, to be the first person to wish myself a very happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Chip, old sport!

Since it’s my birthday, I’m sure you’re all wondering what to get me. Perhaps you’re thinking of something in fur, large in the pouch, and with a couple of straps the width of dental floss. Well, you can forgo the expensive gifts unless the seats are in leather and it goes from nought to two hundred in nine seconds. Can money buy love? Well, I suppose it can if you happen to play in the right of midfield for Manchester United. However, here are Chipster Central, I want simpler things. A few comments would be nice but some success beyond my stripping career would be even better.

I’ll be out of communication range for much of the day as I’ll be hosting a little drinks party for a few friends at the local. Feel free to drop in if you’re in the area. Not only will you get to meet some of the biggest names in Welsh thongdom but, of course, the drinks are on me!

Thonglateer Extraordinaire Chapter 1, Part 3

Eventually, my relationship with Flora waned and we went our separate ways. We had, by that stage, got to know each other on a very intimate level, though with the python always in the room I’d say the sex was good but not great unless you were into wildlife. The end slithered into view once I told her that there was one too many pythons involved in our relationship. She took it as an insult to her pet. I just claimed it was justifiable pride in my body.

Now the years have eased the hurt, I can see that so much of my success is owing to Flora. Without Flora, the stripping phenomenon known as The Thonglateer might not have happened. Flora was the first person to teach me that stripping is an art. Some argue that wiggling your hips and waving your genitals at an audience doesn’t take that much skill. The same people have never tired to make a living out of it or they’d know how easy it is to take an eye out. The physics involved in matching your hip thrusts to the natural swing of your testicles would make Einstein pale. Not that I suggest that Albert ever waved his pipe at an Austrian audience but I think you get my drift, if not my swing.

Stripping isn’t easy, even for a young man born without a single natural inhibition. You might even say it was more so until Flora who taught me that the tease is more important than the nudity. For the rest of my skills, however, I owe a huge debt to the second important person in my professional life.

‘You must have a mentor,’ said Flora after she’d come back off stage one night shortly before we parted forever. She was naked and the glitter of stardust rode the sweat slaloming down the twin inclines of her breasts.

‘I have you, don’t I?’ I said, helping to uncoil the python from her shoulders.

‘I can’t teach you everything,’ she answered as though bothered by my presumption. ‘You need somebody who knows the ins and outs of male dancing. Here,’ she said, thrusting a piece of paper in my hand. ‘Go to him. He’ll teach you everything you need to know.’

The name on the paper was that of Tony ‘One Eye’ Buchanan, one of the old school dancers who had fallen out of fashion with the rise of the techno-strip. Flashing lights, the return of disco beats, and advances in smoke machine technology: they had all led to a new breed of dancer who replaced those who still practised the traditional form of the strip. Men like Buchanan had fallen foul of the new tastes. A man had to have something more than a couple of glittering baubles. I hadn’t heard of him in many years and doubted if he was still alive. I was sure his baubles no longer glittered.

A day later, I said goodbye to Flora at Bangor station and headed south to Cardiff where I intended to find the greatest stripper in living Welsh history, the ‘king of the testicle swing’, Tony ‘One Eye’ Buchannan.

My search didn’t begin well. On a damp, unbecoming morning, I was mugged outside Cardiff station and had my belongings taken from me. I had tried to fight back but it was another hard lesson. Knowing how to strip like a karate master doesn’t mean you can fight like one. Two guys roughed me over, took my notebook full of ideas, as well as three pairs of my best training thongs. It took all of my resolve not to drop my shoulders, walk back into the station, climb on a train, and return to the safety of Flora. But something in my heart had been stirred by the very thought of being taught by a stripping legend. Picking myself up, I checked that I still had my money rolled up in the security thong I always wear on long journeys, and with the scrap of paper still lodged in the deepest corner of my pocket, I set off, walking to the outskirts of a grey and unwelcoming Cardiff.

It took me three hours walking through the rain before I finally reached the house. It was a huge disappointment. Standing on a dingy corner at the edge of the city, the house was more like a mausoleum in a city of crypts. It resembled the home in the TV show ‘The Munsters’. In the wet murk of an afternoon in early Autumn, the house carried foreboding as though it were a mere undercoat to the more overt threats it possessed. I wondered if this was what became of all the great men who personified dying forms of art. Had all the great silent comedians retreated to similar decaying houses in unvisited corners of cities?

A pizza box packed against the gate leaked old cheese and grease over the hinge but did nothing to prevent the yawn of metal as I pushed the gate open. I walked up the overgrown path, my feet sending a brown ale bottle rattled across the concrete before it rode the cushion of lawn’s unmown edge.

The door opened before I reached it.

‘Who are you?’ shot a voice.

I barely recognised him. A grey vest, a body that had grown slack with age and abuse. His six feet six inches were no longer the embodiment of male power. They were a testament to how tall men can sometimes dwindle horizontally. He was stick thin, the flesh nagging his bones like wraps of wet cloth.

‘Are you One Eye?’ I asked.

He looked at me with his bright blue instincts shining bright in the dying light. ‘Nobody had called me that in nearly five years,’ he whispered. His voice recovered with a lean spring to volume. ‘What do you want? I ain’t doing gigs any more, if that’s what you’re after. And I don’t care how many bottles you’re offering me this time. And if you come again, I’ll report you to the RSPCA and tell ’em what you’re wanting me to do to those poor donkeys. I won’t do it again, I tell you. I won’t do it again!’

‘No, no,’ I said, hastening to explain myself. ‘Flora Betteridge sent me. I’m Chip Dale. I want you to teach me to become the best stripper in Wales.’

The figure wavered as he examined me.

‘How old are you, son?’ asked One Eye, finally, his mouth in slack lipped amusement.

‘Seventeen,’ I said. ‘I’ll be eighteen in October and I want to be ready.’

‘Ready?’ he laughed, revealing teeth once perfect but now chipped as though they had been chewing on bottles for too many years. ‘You want to be ready for what?’

‘Ready for the ladies,’ I answered truthfully. ‘I’m going to dance for them on the night of my eighteenth birthday and I want them to know that I’m already the best stripper they’ll ever see.’

The skin on his arms rippled as he laughed.

‘They’re tear you to pieces, son,’ he said and moved to close the door. ’Go on. Clear off and don’t come back wasting my time.’

I stepped forward, full of that indignation that had sent my old career’s teacher to a life in Bangkok brothels. ‘If you won’t teach me,’ I said, ‘I’ll dance on my own. It might take me years and I might make mistakes, but I’m going to learn to dance the old way. And I’m going to become the best stripper in Wales.’

He leaned on his door and sucked air between a gap in his teeth. ‘Sheesh,’ he said. ‘You know I was one considered the best dancer and you have the guts to come to my door and tell me that!’ In a single motion, he pulled a set of dentures from his lower gum and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He then rubbed the teeth clean on his vest as he inspected me. The teeth returned to his mouth with an audible liquid sigh. ‘You’re too damn cocky to teach.’

‘I can be humble,’ I said. ‘But if you won’t teach me then I’ll…’

He waved down my protests and looked to the street. It had started to rain again and my already wet clothes had begun to repel more moisture.

‘Come on inside,’ he said. ‘If I’m going to interview you, we might as well be comfortable and dry. You like pizza?’

‘I’m watching my weight,’ I said, thinking it a good thing to say.

‘You’re full of the right answers, aren’t you kid?’ said One Eye, closing the door behind me and pushed me on through the house.

‘So, you’ll teach me?’

He stopped and gaze me the eye as though taking my measure. ‘You might have something about you,’ he said and nodded me through to the front room.

The interview was the oddest I’ve ever had in my life. It took place in One Eye’s living room, a museum to the old days of male peelers, as we men of the thong were known in the old days. Bill posters were tagged unevenly on all the walls and over the windows, and various props of the stripper’s trade littered the room. The were workman’s helmets, cowboy outfits, a full set of plumbers tools. A faded Zorro mark was hanging from a mirror frame, and a Red Indian costume was moulting in the corner of the room where it would die now that Rain Dance routines are no longer considered acceptable in the days of the modern Native American.

A full length photograph of One Eye, mid strip, caught my eye, hanging above the fireplace as if providing evidence of what this shambling mess of a man had once been. His hair having thinned and gone grey, One Eye had lost nearly everything that had once made him the dream of every Welsh housewife. Only his eyes remained, those bright blue pools that rarely showed warmth but had convinced so many women that he was the answer to all of their dreams, if only for a night.

‘Sit yourself down, Chip,’ said One Eye, settling himself in a seat in front of a large TV screen. ‘You like The Bill?’

I said that I didn’t own a TV.

‘Best show on the box,’ he said and smiled as though waiting for me to add something. ‘Well, you’re not here to talk D.C. Lions, are you? You want to be a stripper and you want old One Eye to help you. Is that right?’

‘I want you to be my mentor. I want you to teach me everything you know.’

‘And what would I get for doing you this very great service?’

I felt in my thong where I had five hundred pounds. He seemed to misinterpret my gesture.

‘You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re into that sort of thing, my lad,’ he said. ‘I’m always been one for the ladies and nothing else. Not even donkeys, though the money was good and I was a little drunk…’

‘No, no,’ I said, pulling my money from my trousers. It was the only money I had in the world and looked so miserable in the glow of his TV screen. ‘I can pay you, if that’s what you want?’

‘Money?’ he laughed and raised his hand to the room. ‘Why would I want money? I’m happy with everything I’ve got.’

‘Then teach me and prove that you did it right all those years,’ I said, inspired by the room and the posters. ‘If you teach me, I can show the world that there’s still room for men who can dance sexy and don’t need smoke and mirrors to entertain the ladies. I can prove to the world that baby oil and a plumber’s wrench is all that it takes.’

He nodded as I gave my speech and at the end of it he reached down to the side of his chair and brought out a bottle full of clear liquid. He pointed it at his lips, paused as he noticed me watching him, and them casually tossed back a swig of what I later discovered was vodka. He immediately yawned and his eyes began to water.

‘You have to know what I want before I agree to teach you,’ said One Eye his lips pulled tight into a grimace. ‘You understand this isn’t going to be easy? I ain’t no schoolteacher. You live here with me. I work you hard. You learn hard. And then when you’re done learning, you work to pay me back. You work to tidy this place up. Make it look respectable again.’

‘You want me to do your housework?’ I asked, feeling insulted that the skin that I had worked so hard to keep tender, even during my geological days, would be jeopardised by manual labour.

‘If you want to be the best dancer, you’re going to have to work for it. And I’ll be wanting you to fix my plumbing. And any odd jobs. The roof needs repairing and then there’s the drains that need cleaning.’ He laughed as the disgust began to register on my face.

‘You think that’s a bad deal?’

‘It doesn’t sound good,’ I replied.

‘Well if you think that, you got no right to claim to be the best stripper in Wales. How do you think you can strip like a plumber if you’ve never worked as a plumber? You think you can take off your clothes and look like a grocery delivery man if you ain’t delivered groceries? No you can’t. It’s impossible. Not until you’ve gone out and walked the beat can you even begin to pretend to be a real policeman.’ He nodded his head. ‘I’m going to teach you, Chip, and by the end of my training, you’ll have wished you took some easy job working in a bank. You’ll come to hate me but when I’m done with you, you’ll be the best male stripper in Wales or my name ain’t Anthony ‘One Eye’ Buchanan.’

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.

Thonglateer Extraordinaire

Because I’ll be busy for the next few days as I sit and stare unblinking at a computer screen, I thought I’d keep the blog active by offering you all a sneak peak at my latest opus. It’s called ‘Thonglateer Extraordinaire!’ and I think it’s the most honest account of life on the North Wales stripping circuit. It also happens to be my autobiography.

Gabby is the mastermind behind the book, and she’s even designed a cover for it in anticipation of our flogging it all my gigs in the next year. The first chapter covers my early life and the training that goes into becoming a successful man of the thong. Today, I’m posting the first part of chapter 1.

Thonglateer Extraordinaire!
By
Chip Dale

Chapter I

The Five Mysteries of One Eye Buchanan

I’ll mention it only once so we don’t have to mention it again: yes, I know who I look like.

I’m sure it’s as much a curse to me as it’s a blessing to him. But believe me when I say that I know nothing about the Liberal Democrat’s policy on second homes in Wales and I’m also certain that Lembit Opik doesn’t know the first thing about indulging female fantasies involving pots of home-made raspberry jam and a plasterer’s trowel. Or if he does, I’m sure he keeps it out of his manifesto promises.

Which just backs up the point I’m making: I’m not him and he’s not me. I mean, if I was him, would I be stripping for a living? Okay, perhaps I would. I really can’t say. I’ve not met the man. But I do know myself and I know the path I have taken to become the most successful male stripper in Wales. And if that’s the story you want to hear, then you’re in luck. That’s the story I’m about to tell.

The path that led me to my start on the Welsh stripping circuit began one October night in the nineteen eighties when a baby was born with unusually well-defined abdominal muscles and a delight in shaking his unreasonably large genitals at all the nurses. There, you might say, the legend was born and I’ve hardly changed since. I’m still covered in baby oil, only now the nurses are often drunk, it’s usually Friday night at the Green Dragon Tavern in the heart of Bangor’s town centre, and instead of my blanket, I’m to be found swaddled in a plumber’s outfit or dressed like a bare-arsed cowboy.

With the name Chip Dale, I suppose stripping was in my stars, or at least as far as taking your clothes off for a living can be said to be augured by an alignment of the spheres, if you’ll excuse the early and totally unwarranted descent to the double entendre. There are few jobs that a man can do in Wales when he’s blessed by fantastic good looks, a body sculpted from Italian marble, and a personality to match. The fact that I disliked underwear from an early age merely added to the unusual set of circumstances which led to my declaring to my family on my sixteenth birthday that I was moving to Bangor to become the best know thongman on the face of the Welsh earth.

For the record, I was christened Crispen Walter Dale. I normally tell people that my mother was inspired by the St. Crispen’s Day speech from Henry the Fifth but I intend to be nothing less than honest with you. I was actually named after the Crisp’n Dry adverts from the seventies. My mother had an addiction to fried potato snacks, which is probably why I was known from an early age as Chip.

My life as a stripper began in my formative school years. I’d always take longer than the other boys whenever we changed for gym and I remember the PE teacher once putting me on report for taking off all my clothes when we were only meant to be changing into our pumps to watch some actors perform Shakespeare in the gym. But that was me. I knew what I wanted to do with my life and I took every opportunity to prepare for it.

It was, I see now, an unusual decision for a young man to make but stripping was my calling and I could never betray it. I remember once being given one of those computerised career tests just before I left school. When my results came out of the printer, I was shocked to see that it had recommended veterinary work. I demanded to see the career’s advisor and I marched indignantly into his office to ask him why male stripping wasn’t an option. He just turned white.

‘Why would you want to become a stripper, Dale?’ asked the man in a grey suit and topped by a wayward combover.

‘Well, sir, I think I have what it takes.’

He ran a finger around his collar, looked nervously towards his office door and then slapped down his hair which had leapt up in apparent shock. Only then did he stand up and quietly close the door before leaning his weak back against the frosted glass which magnified the rattle in his chest.

‘And what do you think it takes to become a stripper, Dale?’ he wheezed.

‘A big personality, sir.’

‘A big personality?’

‘Oh yes, sir. A big personality and rhythm.’

‘Rhythm?’

‘To dance, sir. I don’t reckon you can’t be a male stripper if you can’t dance.’

‘I suppose not,’ he said, his throat suddenly sounding quite dry. He walked slowly back across the room and sat down at his desk where he began to sort career pamphlets for people wanting to work at the Bradford and Bingley. The poor man. I can see now that he was well out of his depth. I don’t suppose he would have known what to say if I’d gone in there wanting to become a nuclear physicist or a Bavarian bugle salesman. ‘Well, so long as you think you’ve got what it takes,’ he muttered finally and shifted his glasses on his nose. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t like to stand in your way, Dale, but you must understand that I can’t recommend this choice of employment. You never heard it from me.’ He briefly smiled and gave me a flash of tobacco stained teeth. ‘You’ve not considered office work? The Bradford and Bingley offer a very reasonable pension plan.’

‘Office work?’ I shifted uneasily where I stood. ‘I don’t think a big personality and a dexterity about the hips suit the Bradford and Bingley, sir.’ And as if to prove my point, I demonstrated the Chipster’s hip-swivel that would later become one of my signature moves.

‘So, you don’t like the idea of office work at the Bradford?’ he laughed, hesitantly.

‘Of course not, sir. I was born to strip.’

‘Were you? Well, good luck to you, Dale. We all have out crosses to bear and I can see that yours is bigger than most.’

‘You can say that again,’ I replied and gave him another thrust of my hips.

‘Yes, well, could you please stop that now?’ he asked, the slight flush that had reappeared on his cheeks now disappearing for good. ‘And I’d prefer it if our little conversation doesn’t go any further than this room. Wouldn’t like it said that I recommended a lad take his clothes off for a living.’

‘I quite understand. I don’t suppose you get many people coming in here saying they want to become a male stripper.’

He laughed and took off his pen top for no apparent reason before realising his mistake and screwing it back on.

‘No, no, you are quite unique, Dale,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘But so long as you think you’ve got what it takes I don’t want to dissuade you. To tell you the truth, dissuading people isn’t my job. I’m here to give you all positive vibes.’

‘Oh, I’ve got positive vibes, sir.’

‘I can see that, Dale. And good luck with them. Good luck with your big personality, your sense of rhythm, and your positive vibes. I can see that you’ve got what it takes to be… to be… er…’ He looked down a paper on his desk as he almost whispered. ‘A male exotic dancer.’

‘Of course, sir. I don’t suppose it does any harm having an enormous penis.’

He looked at me long and hard. ‘No, Dale,’ he said, with a look of utter envy. ‘I don’t suppose it does you any harm whatsoever.’

I was given special dispensation to leave school early that day and I never went back. Nor did Mr. Morris who I’m told arrived at the staff-room complaining of feeling unwell and went home soon after lunch. He was never seen again. Some say he retired to a monastery but others say he went to live in Thailand before he died after spending five years indulging in untold carnal delights. Some say he just back a Liberal Democrat. I don’t like to think my interview had anything to do with his disappearance, though when the nights are long and my spirits depressed, I often think of Mr. Morris, his grey suit, his combover, his weak chest. I wonder if the Thai air did him any good, or whether once touched by Chip Dale’s dream, he couldn’t live with himself. In a way, you might say that just the dream of being the Chipster had killed a lesser man.

Holidays

The twins have gone off for the day so there’s not much ‘action’ to speak of. I didn’t venture to ask where they were going. I prefer not to know. All I can assume is that tourists in some Welsh hotspot are suffering the ‘hokey cokey blues’ today. Our thoughts should be with them.

To be honest, I welcome the break. After yesterday’s outbreak of birdy flu, we all came home and enjoyed a quiet dinner. I say ‘quiet’ but the reality was much louder than that. Glasses were shattered, headaches induced, and neighbours annoyed to the point of threats. But it does bring me nicely onto the subject of today’s post. I’ve decided to talk about my holiday plans for this year.

The Chipster doesn’t ‘do’ holidays. In fact, you could say that I rarely get beyond Bangor unless it’s work related and involves getting naked for notes of a large denomination. You might remember that I went to America earlier this year, but my experiences there should give you a good indication of why I don’t go chasing the sun. I’m also extremely careful about my skin. Though I might not be as tanned as other thonglateers, I proud to say that I have better complexion down below which is where it counts in my line of business. There’s nothing worse than a stripper with a wrinkled kneecap.

This year, I’ve been giving serious thought to spending a few days down at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival. To begin with: it’s in Wales, so I wouldn’t need any extra booster shots before going and there’d be no problems with my trying to understand foreign laws relating to the wearing of thongs in public. They’d take me as I am and there’d me no words said about it. Secondly, I might also find an agent or publisher willing to take a gamble on a man light in the loins and heavy in his verbiage.

However, I’m a bit dubious about the whole ‘literary’ scene. These bookish types don’t strike me as being my kind of people and they might not take a man and his thong seriously. My last week, when not working around birdy flu, has been spent going over the draft to Big Chip Dale’s first novel. I thought it time to see what damage I’d done to the English language, but I only got half-way before desperation set it. I just don’t know if I have it in me to get to the end of all 96,000 words. The fact that it makes me smile amounts to nothing when it comes to asking the opinion of people who judge things by themes, narratives, and depressing endings involving lakes, little girls, and a dog called ‘Scamp’.

Perhaps I’m just not confident enough to be a real writer. I look good up on stage and can handle any situation that arises. But sit me down in front of a typewriter and I become a bag of undiluted worry. Many are the times I’ve had to deal with overexcited grandmothers wanting to wipe down my sweaty buttocks with their soiled underwear, but ask me to defend my use of a semi-colon and I go to pieces.

So, if it’s not the Hay festival, it’s probably Romania for the Chipster… Romania…

Gabby wants me to go visit her family and the time’s approaching when I’ll have to admit that I’d prefer to not travel into Eastern Europe. My dislike of holidays began when I was part of a cultural exchange programme a few years ago. The Iron Curtain may have come down but male stripping didn’t go down too well with those ex-KGB types. I was warned never to return and since then I’ve vowed never to travel anywhere in the old Soviet Union. I don’t know if Romania still have me on their books but I’m not willing to risk it.

So, this is how I’m spending my afternoon. Making holiday plans and getting nowhere.

Which, when I think about it, might be as good a holiday destination as any…

The Trouble With Edwina Currie

I discovered Gabby in a black mood this morning. She was sitting at the kitchen window with her air pistol, shooting at sparrows in the garden below. I made my way slowly around to the fridge, having discovered on many previous occasions that it’s dangerous to disturb a trigger-happy Romanian with a handgun.

‘So,’ I said, as I began to squeeze my morning orange, ‘are the sparrows biting today?’

Crack. The distant squawk of wildlife, though I can’t dismiss the possibility that it was the postman.

‘Edwina Currie thinks I have talent,’ said my death-dealing buttercup as simple as an accusation gets before noon.

‘And so do I,’ I replied, but inwardly steeling myself for an argument I knew I simply would have to win.

‘So why won’t you lend me money?’

‘I haven’t got a penny to spare,’ I said. ‘My financial thong is empty. And if it wasn’t, we can do better things than pay somebody to publish your poetry. Vanity publishing is just that. Vanity. When they see your genius, somebody will offer you good money to publish it.’

She frowned, fired, and a starling suffered a mortal flesh wound.

‘Edwina said…’

‘I don’t give a damn what Edwina said,’ I cried. ‘You have to still to learn some things about the British. We’re a nation who like to see people make fools of themselves.’

‘So why did she say I was good poet?’

I hadn’t the spirit to explain the rest of what the needlessly profane one-time Junior Minister for Health had to say on the matter of poetry. I merely regretted that the bad language she’d been recently displaying on my blog hadn’t been put to more use a decade ago when she should have been more vehement in explaining the dangers of under-cooked poultry. I might never have suffered the food poisoning that led to my dismal A level results, eventual rejection from university, and led me to my current low paying work as a male stripper.

These were the distracted thoughts that went through my head as I snatched the pistol from Gabby’s hand and managed to shoot myself in the foot.

‘Damn that Edwina Currie!’ I cursed, falling on the floor as blood made an early appearance over the Chipster’s slippers. Even then, I was proud of myself for not resorting to profanity, even as I felt the blood begin to seep between my toes.

‘Chippy? You okay?’ asked Gabby, rushing to my side. ‘It okay if we don’t publish poems,’ she added, cradling my head. ‘I’m not good at rhyming yet…’

‘Shot… foot,’ I gasped, feeling suddenly faint with the pain.

‘No, no, that not good rhyme,’ said Gabby, apparently oblivious to the serious nature of my injury. ‘Cut rhymes with foot. Soot rhymes with foot…’ She went silent and I believe I passed out for a few minutes. The next thing I remember was Gabby slapping my face and forcing a piece of paper into my hand.

Gabby shot a sparrow, then a thrush,
Then poor Chippy shot himself in foot.

‘Does this rhyme?’ she asked.

I was beyond caring. My foot was a congealed bloody mess the likes of which have slapped many a certificate 18 on a film. Tears ran down my cheeks and pooled on my lips. ‘Help me,’ I pleaded. ‘My foot…’

‘Pah,’ said my Romanian humanitarian looking at my yellow slippers, now completely covered with Chip Dale’s finest O positive. ‘Gabby uncle once shot foot off with shotgun. He did not stop work until he pick up every potato on field.’

‘Please…’ I begged.

‘Finish washing up,’ said Gabby, dropping my head onto the tiled floor. ‘I want to finish this poem before we go.’

An hour later, I was in Bangor’s emergency room waiting for a nurse to bandage my foot. A doctor has just pulling a lump of pellet from it, which Gabby had taken as a souvenir. ‘I think I make into earring,’ she said, holding the bloody mess up to a lobe.

‘It suits you,’ I replied over lips parched dry with suffering.

‘So, do you think Edwina Currie would read my collected poems?’ asked Gabby. Now having turned her attention to a box of scalpels she’d found in a drawer, she began to juggle three.

As I watched the razor sharp blades arc through the air, I thought of the nine hundred pages of tightly typed manuscript sitting at home, waiting to be discovered like an extra forty cantos by a Romanian Ezra Pound.

‘I’m sure she would,’ I said with a grimace or a smile. ‘I’m sure she would…’

King Leer: An Extract

Do you ever feel like there are too many words in the world? Writing a blog is like flushing so much effort down the drain. Each day requires more effort and at least one more chance to flush good words away. Which is why I’m working on my first novel set in the nightclubs of North Wales. These words are 'keepers' which means that they don't disappear to be immediately forgotten in the white noise of the blogosphere.

I’ve been struggling for a title but after yesterday’s English lesson, I came up with ‘King Leer’. You see how it’s a clever play on words?

This is an extract from the first draft and occurs early on in the story when my hero, Crispen Leer, meets a mysterious Romanian girl during an audition. It’s not based on real life events, nor is it biographical. It’s a novel of mystery and unhinged love. Think of it as ‘Blue Velvet’ but with more references to coal fields, Romanian midget smuggling, and thong adjustments. I hope it will be written, sold, and published in time for Christmas as I think it will be a perfect gift for all the family.

––––––-

The girl was Romanian and try as he might, he could not overcome the great feeling of wanting to possess her; wholly, without compromise, from the yellowing top of her bleached blonde head to the cracked tips of her nicotine stained fingers.

Crispen leaned at the bar and washed the last of his ginger ale around the bottom of the bottle until the barman returned.

‘You’re in luck,’ said the man, slipping the notepaper back across the counter. He smiled a wide unpleasant smile as welcoming as a razor wound. ‘He said you should wait around. He’ll see you in half an hour.’

‘Does that mean I get an audition?’

The barman’s features collapsed. ‘Listen, I just deliver the message. It’s up to the gaffer if you do your thing.’

The edge of disgust in the man’s voice was hard to ignore but Crispen had lived long enough in the trade to know that not the moral life of a male stripper would never be the first thing any man would imagine. He shared the man’s apathy to the world. He shared his disgust with himself. There was really no reason no to.

He instead turned his attention back to the girl. She’d finished setting up her mike stand and had positioned a small cassette deck on a stool to her side.

She stood behind the microphone and waited as intro beats ticked off and the music began. He recognised it as a Depeche Mode song but couldn’t remember the title. When the girl started to sing, the lyrics didn’t help. They came out strung across a unrecognisable scale that wasn’t wholly melodic.

It took his ear a minute to understand the girl’s problem. Her voice was smoothed like brushed metal and emitted no warmth. Every note glided from her throat as though untouched by her being and the words held a natural pathos that froze on the ear. Studying her performance, Crispen wondered what it would be like to live without the constant rain of emotions. Rolling drops of sentiment came dripping from him when he performed but, with her, emotions existed without form and without function. They were as alien to the girl as the words she was struggling to pronounce. He slumped a little heavier against the bar. The girl’s failure only made his longing the greater and he immediately hated himself for feeling so drawn to her.

After three verses, she shook her head and pressed the stop button on the deck.

‘Not bad,’ said Crispen, stepping forward to the stage. ‘You have a natural gift.’

‘Do I?’ she asked, her voice as impassive in speaking as it had been in singing.

‘I think you phrase things wonderfully,’ he replied. The truth, he thought, was that she sang as impassionately as a cold front which descended on all who lay before it.

‘You can tell my English bad?’ A finger traced the line of her brow and pushed a tendril of blonde hair over her ear.

‘It gives you character,’ he said. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

She looked to the microphone. ‘I should practice,’ she answered.

Crispen was relieved as soon as she declined his offer. Did he really want to know more? What was there to know except that he was looking for affirmation in any place which wasn’t of the ordinary?

She dug a packet of cigarettes from out of her bag and quickly lit one with a lighter she had hung around her neck on a chain. It was that kind of detail that made him go weak at the knees.

‘But you buy me double vodka and we have deal,’ she said, blowing a cloud of smoke over him. Its chill was beguiling.

Anonymous Peril

‘Arses on toast…’

I came across that line, late last night, and I’ve been unable to shake it free from my brain. It just about summed up my Monday; the day when I finally learned that it’s not always wise to follow the advice of somebody who posts comments anonymously to a blog.

There’s some evil mastermind out there, possibly the very person reading this right now, who nearly cost the Chipster the contents of his thong. Their plan was fiendishly simple: suggest to a gullible well meaning sort of man that he might be able to serve the community by performing for the old folk. As you know, I’m always willing to ‘do my bits for the community’, as I described it to Gabby as I packed my duffel bag. You also can’t deny that I’m a less annoying version of Bono and, when push comes to shove, have tighter buttocks too.

The Beryl Reid Nursing Home is one of the better good causes. It has become Bangor’s premier resorts for the geriatrically inclined and was the first place I thought to contact when Anonymous put the proposition to me. After all my bitter posts of the last few days, I wanted to do something that might make you all love me a little more. That’s the only reason I hastily arranged to dish out a bit of free hip love. I rang up the home and asked them if they’d like me to go along and dance for the old ladies. It surprised me that they hadn’t immediately hung up.

‘What kind of dancing do you do, Mr. Dale?’ asked the matronly sounding woman on the other end.

‘Gyrations,’ I explained. ‘A few hip thrusts, lots of long-distance thonglateering, ending with the ladies having a brief one of one with the master of ceremonies before I stuff him into my hat and run naked from the room.’

The phone fell silent for a few moments. ‘Well, it’s jigsaw night but I don’t see why we can’t fit you in,’ she said. ‘How about seven o’clock?’

I arrived at ten to the hour.

‘Chip Dale?’ asked the woman who came out and met me in the car park. ‘My name’s Jenkins. Fiona Jenkins. I’m the staff nurse. We spoke on the phone…’

I shook the hand of the nurse who reminded me of a scaled down version of Dawn French. She didn’t so much have a bussom as forward firing artillery.

‘I was hoping we could have a word or two before you perform,’ she said. ‘There are certain things I should tell you.’

I held up my hand. ‘I’m fully aware of the special requirements,’ I told her.

‘You are?’ she asked. Her brows came together in one of those puzzled frowns which included giving me an inspection from head to toe that couldn’t have been less invasive if it had been a bed bath. I think it was my bright yellow leather jumpsuit as much as anything that had her confused.

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘You’re going to tell me that some of your older patients are very frail and I shouldn’t get them too excited.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, unable to hide the appreciation from her voice.

I nodded. ‘I’m fully up to speed on the latest government guidelines on exotic dancing for the over seventy fives.’ I plunged my hand into my duffel bag and retrieved the pen I’d brought along for that very reason. ‘Here you go,’ I said.

She took the pen from me and inspected it with another confused look.

‘It’s a highlighter pen,’ I explained. ‘It glows bright yellow under an ultraviolet light.’ I delved again into the bag and pulled out the portable UV light I use for the gigs when I wear my luminous thongs. ‘All I want you to do is to go through my audience and give each lady a mark out of ten. One tells me to keep my hips away and ten means she could remove my thong with her knitting needles.’

‘You want me to do what?’ she spluttered.

‘Write the numbers on their foreheads!’ I said, growing a little infuriated at the woman’s lack of imagination. ‘That way, as I dance around the room, I’ll simply check out their number and give them the right amount of hip juice.’

She looked at me long and hard.

‘It’s a non-permanent marker,’ I added.

‘Oh, fair enough,’ she said and tucked it into a pocket.

There were twenty OAPs in the room and the whine of hearing aid feedback set my teeth on edge. It took me five minutes to clear an area, arrange the lighting, and for Nurse Jenkins to go around the room and mark foreheads. Then it was time for my dance.

I pressed play on my mobile concert system and the first bars of Tom Jones’ Delilah was met by the muttering complaints of twenty senior citizens turning down their hearing aids. Only then was there a smattering of applause, though even there, I can’t be certain it wasn’t dentures settling.

I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
She was my woman
As she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind

I danced for fifteen minutes, Deliha making way to Sexbomb and then The Green Green Banks of Home. It was hot stuffy work, but never let it be said I shirk my duties, even when I’m working for nothing. I made my way along the lines of ladies who responded with the usual appreciation. The numbers glowed bright on their wrinkled brows. I don’t hold with anybody who argues that you have to be of a certain generation to enjoy a good thong show. Some of these ladies were well into their nineties and I’ve never been so pawed as I was last night.

Eventually, I was down to the thong and the business end of the strip, as you might say. So far I hadn’t gone through my usual routine of having ladies thrust legal tender down my tender areas. The numbers had all been low digits and I really thought that was too much. And to be honest, the whole evening was meant to be my bit for charity. I really didn’t want to rob them of their every farthing. That was the home’s job.

Only, as I was entering the final stages, the ladies started to complain. It seems that they were eager to see the whole show. Purses had appeared and a line of fivers were ready for the pouching.

As you know, I’m not a man who likes to disappoint his crowd. I reluctantly began to work my way down the line, receiving the money with my usual thanks and a thrust of the hips. Finally I reached the end of the line where the oldest of the residents was sitting in a wheelchair. A large number 1 shone in the middle of her forehead. I didn’t know if it was safe to approach. A number one is usually a no-thong zone. It’s actually a government rule punishable by heavy fines.

‘Come on over here sonny,’ said the woman, gesturing me over. I couldn’t say no, not to that woman with a kind look on her gaunt features. She grabbed my hips and stationed me before her wheelchair. ‘It’s for charity,’ I told myself as I looked up at the ceiling and waited for the deposit to be made in the First National Bank of Thongland.

Finally, I felt the slightly feeble fumbling around my thong come to an end and then a smart slap stunned my rump restarted my engines and I carried on dancing.

Or I would if something hadn’t sent an excruciating pain through my groin.

I collapsed on the floor, the agony being so great that my body was just convulsed. It was eye watering. The whole of my world was a fiery ball, pain and heat and agony… I managed to get a hand down my thong and felt something sharp bite into my fingers. Gently, I pulled the object away and felt the pain subside immediately.

I looked down to my hand where the upper set of a pair of dentures smiled at me.

‘Who did that?’ I screamed. Only the woman screamed even louder as they congratulated themselves on a job well done.

‘Do you know how dangerous that could have been?’ I asked, not letting it go. ‘Do you know what damage that can do to a man?’

‘Oh, don’t be such a cry baby,’ shouted one. ‘It was only a joke.’

‘It was a love bite,’ shouted another.

‘Come over here and I’ll kiss it better,’ should a third.

Finally, the woman in the wheelchair waved to me. ‘Give me those back,’ she said. ‘I only have two pair.’

Despite everything, I couldn’t rage at her. The number one glowed dangerously on her forehead. I handed her the teeth back and to my eternal revulsion, she slipped them back in my mouth where they then beamed at me a second time that evening.

‘Hmmm…’ she said, smacking her lips together. ‘Coconut oil.’

After that, I decided that the thong would stay on. I got quickly dressed and stormed out of the home, determined that I would never dance again for charity. Nor, might I add, will I ever take advice and suggestions from anybody who leaves anonymous comments on my blog. I’ve a good mind to disable anonymous comments. After all, anonymous comments nearly disabled me.

Thong on…

The Farmer Part I

This is the true story of a man who smells of pigs.

If the truth be told, he also smells of cows but that’s hardly pertinent to the story I’m about to tell. Nor does the news that he shares a close working relationship with sheep have any bearing on what follows. It would be as well if I hadn’t mentioned any of this at all as the only thing that should concern you as you read my account of the last few days is that the odour of the pig clings to the man. He goes nowhere without it.

The man’s full name is Randy Lewis Dale but we all call him The Farmer. That alone should tell you so much about him. My cousin is a man stuck somewhere at the tail end of his thirties and deep in his farmyard ways. He keeps pigs, sheep, and cows down there on the south east coast, though I’ve never been too sure where you should look for his estate. I haven’t been inclined to ask. He’s the sort of person who wouldn’t be satisfied if he merely told you his address. He’d have to invite you over for a few days among the hooves and horns and that’s something you’d be best advised to avoid. The Farmer is an odd man. He’s the oddest man ever to have churned milk into butter or chew a straw in a vaguely thoughtful way.

He arrived on my doorstep on Wednesday evening. I can’t say I was surprised. We’d had enough of an advance warning.

Half-way though Emmerdale, the breeze had shifted and had begun to blow from the direction of the station. That’s when Gabby mentioned a strange smell. I naturally checked all the usual suspects. I went to the fridge and tested the milk. I poked the goldfish to make sure it wasn’t gills up to the ceiling. Then I looked down the back of the sofa to see if any stray thongs had been abandoned there, as they so often are. Finally, I caught a touch of that fateful breeze and immediately recognised the smell of pigs. That’s when I knew my cousin was in town.

Having hid the booze and removed my priceless collection of posing pouches from the spare room, I was just about ready when Gabby mentioned that the smell had got so much stronger. That’s when the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to find The Farmer looking and smelling like a true rural Dale. Even I was a little taken aback by the sheer scale of my English relative. He’s a big haystack of a man; rosy cheeked, calloused hands, coarse hair piled up like bails of well seasoned straw. I welcomed him in and introduced him to Gabby who was good enough to ignore the odours of the countryside and give him a welcoming peck on the cheek. Only, no sooner had these pleasantries been delivered than my normally hearty relative collapsed on the sofa and began to weep big rolling puddles of tears. They were tears so big you could dip sheep in them.

‘Oh Chip!’ wailed The Farmer through the sobs that sounded like an aspirating diesel engine, ‘I’m a man left broken my the buxom brigade! The world of the nubiles has deserted me. No longer will I roll in the hay with Glenda! The days of trysts in my tractor have come to an end! She’s left me, Chip. She’s left me for another man!’

That’s how he talks. Full of buxom wenches and assignations in barns. It made it even harder to know what to say. Instinctively I knew that his wife could only have left him for a man who didn’t smell of so many harvests and that could only be a good thing. Not that I thought it sensible to share this conclusion with The Farmer. In the maelstrom of his tears, he’d begun to gnaw at the arm of the sofa and, as you know, that’s a delicate emotional state for both man and chair.

‘What am I to do Chip?’ he asked after he spat out a mouthful of stuffing. ‘Am I to ever tend again to a nymph on a bail of hay? Is the land of totty beyond me forever?’

‘Have you tried boxes of chocolates?’ I offered.

‘Chocolates!’ spat Gabby. ‘You! she said, prodding The Farmer. ‘Chip’s cousin! Are you man or mouse? Have you tried punching man? You tell him leave woman or you put him in thresher.’

The Farmer patted her hand kindly. ‘If only it was as easy as a simple case of violence,’ he said. ‘She left me so suddenly I don’t even know where she’s gone.’

‘But surely you had some signs,’ I noted. ‘You must have seen that the romance had gone off the boil.’

‘Signs?’ sighed The Farmer. ‘I suppose I should have known it was all over when she refused to help me birth Gloria.’

‘Gloria?’ asked Gabby who was clearly in touch with this rustic tale. I admit that I was casually indifferent to any answer he could possibly give. Once you’ve seen a man try to chew a sofa’s fabric, you tend not to hold out much hope for what he has to say.

‘Gloria is a sow!’ he answered. ‘She’s the most glorious sow in existence. Took top prize at the Hartford Country Fair last year. Specially commended by the judges for having the best teats they’d ever seen.’

I’ve done some odd things as a stripper but I had to admit that I’d yet to judge a sow by its teats. Somehow, once you’ve been enlightened to the fact that grown men run competitions for that sort of thing, you tend to look at the world a little differently. You really do. However, rather than press the teat issue, I thought it best to get to the nub of the matrimonial dispute. In that direction, at least, I knew I might find an explanation for The Farmer’s arrival in Bangor.

‘So, you’re saying that Glenda left you because you asked her to act as a midwife to your pigs?’

‘You make it sound strange,’ said The Farmer. ‘You make it sound unreasonable.’

Personally, I thought ‘unreasonable’ sounded like a word that summed up the whole affair. I’d begun to feel in absolute agreement with the poor woman’s predicament. To be sure, if The Chipster’s ever found in the room with a heavily pregnant sow, you can bet your last dollar that the sow will have to tend to her own needs, and I care little that my well oiled arms are so suitably fit for birthing.

The Farmer’s cheeks billowed out as though he reminded himself of the irrational fear his wife had towards a pig in labour.

‘She said it made her feel ill,’ he sighed and indignantly rubbed the back of his hand across his nose. In the process he picked up something sleek and long. Images of Gloria birthing came to mind.

‘It is unfortunately hard to understand the female mind,’ I agreed, casting a quick glance at Gabby who was listening with a scowl draped like a velvet curtain across the blank recess of her features . ‘They have the oddest dislikes and some of the strangest moods.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Gabby is ever alert to even the slightest criticism. As soon as she felt my eyes on her, she responded like Romanian air defences.

‘Nothing odd or strange,’ she protested. ‘I help birth animals many times in old country.’ And with that, she was up from her chair. ‘I show you,’ she said. ’I show you. I have photo in room of me with hands up a…’

‘Thank you, Gabby,’ I quickly interjected. ‘We can do without the instruction manual.’

But it was too late. My Romanian princess was off to search her albums for the photo of her elbow deep into some animal.

‘Good woman you’ve got there,’ said my cousin with a fixed smile. ‘She reminds me of Glenda in so many ways.’ And just like that, The Farmer opened act two of his story of marital woe. ‘It’s a shame I can’t find a woman as good as that,’ he said. ‘If only I could find somebody to love me. Some place where I can stay for just a few days…’

I knew he was fishing for an invite but I wanted to see how far his lure ran.

‘If only there was somebody who could help me. Some member of the family who believes that a family must stick together. If only I knew generous relative in Wales who wouldn’t see me without a roof over my head…’ He looked at me with his eyes welling up with more tears. ‘Oh, don’t make me ask, Chip,’ he gasped. ‘I had nowhere else to go. You just have to say I can stay a few days. Just until I get my act together.’

‘But what about the farm?’ I asked. ‘What about the animals?’

‘All gone,’ he said. ‘I’ve sold everything.’

‘Everything?’

‘Everything.’

‘But what about Gloria and her prizewinning teats?’

‘She’s gone too. They’re now the property of to Tesco. That’s if she’s still around... She’s probably in a hotdog right now.’

This was all a bit too much to stomach. I looked uncomfortably towards the kitchen and my deep freeze. I buy all my hotdogs from Tesco. The wouldn’t taste any better knowing about teats.

‘When exactly did Glenda leave you?’ I asked, trying to regain a grip on the situation and find a reasonable excuse for denying my cousin sanctuary in my home.

‘Last June,’ he said. ‘It’s been a horrible few months.’

‘Months? But that’s nearly a year ago,’ I said, as sharp as that and mentally twice as quick. ‘Why come bothering us now?’

He fell back into his seat and turned his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Let me think… She left me in June. The divorce was finalised in November. I had to sell up in February. I finally moved out today. Only I have nowhere else to go. At least, not until the accountants sort out our finances. Divide the money…’

‘Yes,’ I spluttered, searching for a way out. ‘But, but… Haven’t you even organised yourself a new home?’

He never had chance to answer. Gabby was suddenly back in the room. In her hand she held a colour blow up you really don’t want me to describe.

‘Of course you can stay here, Chippy’s cousin,’ she said. ‘You welcome here. Chip will give you room. You sort out troubles. Stay as long as you want.’

And with that the issue was decided.

We chatted some more and Gabby forced me to inspect the photograph for a second and third time before I managed to calm the situation. The Farmer went off with Gabby to help tend her chickens and as soon as they’d left the apartment, Gabby’s photograph mysteriously had an accident with the paper shredder in my office. A man never needs to be reminded of the many places in the world where he never wishes to see his girlfriend’s elbows. And I’m sure it’s a sentiment I share with the world’s population of donkeys.

All this happened on Thursday evening but it was only later that night that the full extent of The Farmer’s problems came to light.

I began to suspect things when he began to ready himself for bed.

‘Anybody using the bathroom?’ he asked about ten thirty.

‘No, no,’ I replied, halfway through another of my Japanese films on DVD. ‘We don’t go to bed until late.’ I might have muttered something about his taking his time and running a bath but I really can’t remember. Gabby gave me a sharp look and I carried on watching Beat Takashi gazing enigmatically out to sea as a woman danced on the beach with a football.

‘Fair enough,’ said The Farmer and I heard the bathroom door close. As I’ve said before: the whole thing had passed beyond my caring. I was too intrigued in my film to thing about my cousin until about ten minutes later when I heard the bathroom door open.

‘Goodnight all,’ said The Farmer.

‘Night,’ I replied, my eyes still fixed on the TV screen.

And that’s when I heard Gabby gasp and I had to look up.

Nothing in my life had prepared me to see what I saw that night. Even as I sit here, the sun cooking my flesh on this pleasant Saturday afternoon with Bangor feeling like an enormously generous place to be, I cannot begin to understand the inner workings of my cousin’s mind. I like to think I’m about as liberal as liberals get, accepting all sorts in this world of ours. But never have I felt so utterly lost for words as when I looked up and saw my cousin standing there.

I didn’t so much mind that he had crammed the wild growth that covered his head into a hair net. What I found distracting was the rest of his body squeezed into a pink lace nightie. It was tied with pink ribbons over pinker nipples that gleamed with pinkness through the thin pink fabric. They resembled pink door fittings on a pink door. There was absolutely nothing prize winning about these teats.

‘What you looking at?’ he asked as I continued to stare at him.

‘What you’re wearing,’ I finally said, suddenly overcome with honesty.

‘Oh this,’ he smiled and ran a finger down the transparent pink gown. ‘It’s one of Glenda’s old favourites. It always reminds me of her.’ And with that, he waved a self-conscious goodbye and disappeared into the spare bedroom.

Even the TV had fallen into silence – a heavily subtitled Japanese silence at that – and I just sat staring at the closed bedroom door. Finally, with her typical resilience, Gabby came around from the shock the first.

‘Your cousin is a very very very odd man,’ she said slowly before she picked up the remote control and flicked the TV over to the Romanian News channel on satellite. ‘We have words for men like that but I don’t say them because I try to be English lady.’

Which was perceptive, in its way, as that appeared to be the problem with my cousin: he too was trying to act like an English lady. However, that was a problem for another time. I left Gabby watching an hour long special on the Romanian grain harvest. Sleep might not hold all the solutions but I knew that I'd had enough agriculture for one day.

The Security Thong

It has taken me a day or two to get my head around the events of last weekend. I made allusions to them yesterday, but only now have I found enough slack in my storytelling thong to tell you all about a dire episode full of lust and lethargy.

If you recall the start of last week, The Chipster had suffered a miserable few days. His spirits bottomed out around Tuesday, but then recovered enough to expend the last of his energy in one mad night of exotic dancing for the ladies of Bangor. The weekend had meant to be one of rest. You might say I was in the mood for contemplation not gyration, but that’s no excuse for what a happened.

Yet in order to understand everything, you must first understand a thing or two about thongs. You must know, for example, that I have two types of underwear: I have my everyday thongs and my performance thongs. Even if you’ve got a trained eye, you’d be hard pressed to tell much difference between the two types of underwear in my drawer. My everyday thongs hang a little lower and have stronger stitching. Performance thongs are delicate things, meant to fly with precision. They’re the Cruise missiles of thongs: they can take out a target to a degree of accuracy measured by the inch.

Now, among the many types of everyday underwear I own, I also possess a few pairs of what I call my ‘security thongs’. Think of a money belt but in the form of a posing pouch and you’ll have the idea. They have a pocket sewn into the crotch, allowing me to keep my valuables next to my valuables. I rarely wear them but, with Gabby up in Birmingham, I had been feeling a little anxious about getting locked out of the apartment. That’s why I’d been wearing my security thongs all week with the spare front door key tucked into the gusset.

Now bear all this mind when I tell you about Friday night.

I had decided to make an early return to the Green Dragon Tavern. My back was feeling stronger so that by Wednesday, I’d even been dancing around my apartment, throwing off my clothes every time I heard a tune with a 4/4 beat. When Friday night came around, I bounced up onto stage at nine o’clock sharp and began to do an effortless routine. Rarely has my dancing been greeted with so many gasps and whistles. It took me twenty minutes to go from business suit to birthday suit. The only problem I’d had was earlier in the day when I’d forgot to pack a pair of performance thongs in my bag. When it came time to dance, I’d been forced to do my act wearing my everyday underwear. It’s not the first time and I doubt if it will be the last.

At the finale of my ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ routine, I turned to the crowd and shouted ‘get ready!’ The room was immediately filled with female voices shouting ‘fire!’ and in one effortless motion, I dropped my thong, caught it on my foot, and launched it out into the darkness where it grabbed by a pair of welcoming hands. Before you could hear the gasp of astonishment from the crowd, I was off the stage, back in my dressing room and relaxing with a fruit juice and Kit Kat.

Unfortunately the thong had cleared the building by the time I remembered about the spare front door key still stuck in its hidden pocket.

That’s why I made my appeal on Saturday afternoon. And that was my fateful mistake.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, I was awoken by the front door opening. I groggily assumed that it was Gabby, home early after worrying herself silly about the hens I’d cruelly disturbed when I selfishly protected my heterosexual credentials by rejecting the offer of doped tomato soup from the poultry salesman who come onto me in a potting shed in the middle of the night.

I staggered from bed and opened the bedroom door, noticing through bleary sleep-soaked eyes that the clock said two thirty and that Amy Winehouse was standing in the hall.

Of course it wasn’t Amy Winehouse. It was the woman who looked very much like Amy Winehouse I’d met in the coffee shop a fortnight ago. Back then, she’d confessed to having a crush on Lembit Opik and seeing some resemblance, promised that she would be setting her sights on me. At the time, I’d run off, hoping to never see her again.

‘Hello lover!’ she said, and before I knew it, ran up to me and threw her arms around my neck. A metal tongue stud cracked into my teeth and something wet and wilful begin to thrash around my gums like a freshly landed trout.

‘Oh, Chip! I’ve missed you!’ she gasped as I applied leverage to her arms and slipped beyond her grasp. I couldn’t say a word. Tiredness clung to my body as I stumbled my way to the living room.

‘What are you doing here?’ I finally managed to ask, my mind still clogged with dreams trying hard to merge intimately with this nightmare.

‘Call me lover!’ she said and held up a hand. The spare key to the front door glinted in the darkness. ‘Don’t tell me you forgot about me! Oh, I only found the key this morning after you mentioned it on your blog. I’ve waited all day to surprise you. You are surprised aren’t you, Chippy, my love?’


‘Would you mind terribly if I asked you to leave?’

‘But I’m here for a night of lust!’ she cried and threw herself down on the sofa. ‘You promised me!’

I began to cry but they were the tears of a long yawn. ‘Well, that’s really quite wonderful but I really need sleep,’ I explained, thinking it better to avoid the issue of her sanity. ‘Lust is totally out of the question, I’m afraid.’ I nearly added ‘I only do it with the sane’ but I thought better of it and, besides, didn’t know if it was true.

‘You don’t like me?’

‘I’d like you if you left,’ I said, trying to smile.

My guest went pale but it could have just been the blood rushing to her hands which bunched into fists. ‘Leave?’ she howled. ‘Why would you want me to leave, lover? I’m here for you. All these years and we can finally consummate our love tonight.’

‘But I don’t even know you name,’ I said, turning on the lamp standing in the corner of the room. It pained my eyes buy cleared my brain. The weirdness of the dream levelled out to the normality of my reality.

‘Call me Esther,’ she said and peeled off her top. Lembit Opik gazed at me from the back of the snake tattoo that trailed across her shoulder and up her neck.

‘Well Esther,’ I said, thinking quickly, ‘if you’re so determined, who could say no? Perhaps we could have a drink before we get started. Loosen us up a bit?’

She followed me into the kitchen where I was searching out a bottle from the refrigerator. ‘Do you like wine?’ I asked, grabbing one of the narrow necked bottles we keep hidden behind the veg.

‘Oh, I love wine, lover!’ she said, wrapping her arms around my waist as I struggled with the cork to the bottle.

Five minutes later, she was back on the sofa and had already downed three glasses of the clear stuff with barely a drop touching her taste buds. I’d put on some music, if only to waste a few extra minutes, and the whole place was looking quite romantic.

‘What exactly is this stuff?’ she asked, finishing a fourth glass with a smack of her lips. Before I answered, I poured her another which was soon gone.

‘It’s potato gin,’ I explained as she finished.

‘Very good,’ she said.

‘It’s strong enough to take off your tattoos,’ I replied. ‘My girlfriend brews it.’

‘Your girlfriend?’ She laughed. ‘You have a girlfriend?’

‘She’s Romanian. Prone to terrible violence when crossed. You’re lucky she’s in Birmingham.’

‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be getting me drunk?’ asked Esther.

‘Oh, you’re beyond drunk,’ I assured her and stood up. ‘Are you coming to the bedroom?’ I asked. This was the moment when I would see if my gamble would pay off.

He eyes flared and she rocked in her seat. Then she just sat staring at her legs.

‘Why won’t they move!’ she moaned.

I said a silent prayer to Romanian moonshine.

‘You’ll be like that until the morning,’ I said, throwing her a cushion. ‘Just lie back and try to sleep. I’ll ring the police in the morning and we can sort this whole mess out then.’

‘You bastard!’ she screamed. Her eyes crossed and then closed. ‘You absolute…’

‘And God bless potato gin,’ I said to the shape, now unconscious on the sofa before I turned and walked merrily back to the bedroom.

In the morning, I made good my promise and rang the police who took a good hour to arrive but less than five minutes to take my guest away. They seemed to know her quite well and told me that they’ve arrested her countless times for causing a public nuisance by stalking celebrities in Bangor to appear in pantomime. I explained about the key, about her quite understandable fixation on Lembit Opik, and why she’d decided to sneak into my apartment. I also explained about the potato gin and how she would regain use of her legs in another twelve hours.

Gabby got back on Monday and I told her the whole story. She laughed about the whole thing over a glass of her moonshine. I even took a sip or two myself until my lips began to go numb. I really can’t remember much that happened after that, but as I always say: forgetfulness can sometimes be a virtue. I have the vaguest recollection that it involved Gabby singing her latest single.

Christian Charity

On most days, if you managed to grab me when I’m out about town, you’d find that when it comes to making charitable donations, I’m as generous as my thongs are unfeasibly large in the crotch. I might run a mile when it comes to Comic Relief (and, I should add, that's an unsponsored mile) but I’m always happy to do my bit for the lesser known charities.

You might remember that I was one of the founding members of the Erotic Dancers For Donkeys appeal. I’m proud to say that we saved one of Rhyl’s oldest creatures from the knacker’s yard and he can still be found painfully carrying sticky children for mile after mile up the sands here in North Wales. I also once did a sponsored nineteen hour thong marathon to buy the minibus which the local scout master subsequently used to ram raid the local off-licence during a drunken night out on the town. You might say that I helped him get his ‘criminal damage’ badge.

So, Charity is The Chipster's lifeblood, which is why, during an idle few minutes last week, I sorted through some of my old costumes. Even when I retire an outfit, they tend to be still as good as new. There may be a little bit of spoilage from all the body oil but not so much that they’re not wearable for everyday use. And since they’re all ex-stripper stock, every idem of clothing has the added advantage of having elasticated seams, easy to put on and even easier to take off.

Every six months or so, I’ll donate a few costumes to the local church, who are always quick to pop around and take them off my hands. I like to think that it’s the church’s way of saying that it has finally abandoned its outdated opposition to Lyrca, and between you and me, these charity donations have done the mischievous side of my nature no end of good, especially seeing the good Reverend Hope wearing my old black raincoat around town. It once use to feature in my 'Secret Agent' routine – the one involving the camera with the telescopic lens – so whenever I see him on a rainy day, I’m tickled in most unusual and slightly heretical ways. I don’t think it could amuse me any more, even if I thought of him wearing a dog collar and thong.

Today, the vicar’s wife came around before the evening service to pick up the bags of clothes I’d decided to donate. We’d gone to look at them in the spare bedroom where we got to discussing the price the church might ask for a pair of bright magenta hot pants I’ve worn only once. That’s when Gabby burst into the room and accused Mrs Hope of being Amy Winehouse.

Yes, I thought that a little odd, too, but clearly the poor girl had been reading yesterday's entry in this blog and due to her poor grasp of the English language, had assumed I was having an affair with a heavily tattooed singer.

‘You raven haired temptress!’ spat Gabby, impressing me with a couple of new words of English and the poetic use to which she put them. ‘You come steal Chippy. You not get away! You tattooed bãşinar!’

And if you learn nothing else today, you can at least assure yourself that you now know the Romanian word for ‘farthead’.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mrs. Hope, full of that crispy Christian confidence you get when you know you’ve got full holiday insurance for the afterlife. ‘Who exactly are you?’

‘Me?’ asked Gabby, stabbing herself with a finger. ‘I am Gabby. Pretty Girl. Singer of hokey cokey!’

Mrs. Hope laughed. ‘And what, pray tell, is hokey cokey?’

Well, Gabby wasn’t taking such as insult sitting down. Nor was she for taking it standing up either. She took it flying through the air, grabbing Mrs. Hope by her throat before swinging her to the bed.

It was a truly terrible scene to watch from the safe distance of my hiding place behind the wardrobe. A fight developed between the vicar’s wife and my Romanian and, in its ferocity, it rivalled those battling gypsies in From Russia With Love. If I’d still had my secret agent costume, I might have taken the James Bond role and leap in to protect Mrs. Hope. But I didn’t, so I couldn’t. Besides, I noticed that Mrs. Hope was holding her own – technically holding a good chunk of Gabby’s hair – so I was tempted to see how it developed. In a way, it was a battle between rival theologies and I was interested to see which one God would favour this time.

Indeed, I wouldn’t have got involved at all if Gabby hadn’t managed to pull off one of those moves she’s learned from all the Jackie Chan films she watches late at night. She ran up the wall and did a back flip over Mrs. Hope who crumpled beneath the weight of our favourite Romanian export. That’s when things got out of control. Now with the upper hand, Grabby attempted to rip the poor woman’s blouse off, demanding see a tattoo of Lembit Opik riding a snake.

My mind went cramp with the fear that Gabby might actually win and that I might also be stuck with a pair of maroon hot pants. I knew I had to act. Even Oxfam won't take maroon hot pants.

I grabbed my Romanian buttercup by her left leg and dragged her from the room and straight into the bathroom where I deposited her in the bath and turned the cold water tap on full. The room immediately began to fill with steam. I quickly nipped out and strapped the door shut with my belt wrapped around the handle and tied to the radiator.

Mrs. Hope was easier to calm down. She was still in the spare room, clutching a sponge-sized piece of Gabby’s hair.

‘So sorry about that. It was a case of mistaken identity,’ I said, holding up my now beltless pants with one hand. ‘I don't suppose you've heard of Amy Winehouse?’

She hadn’t, and if I’m honest about it, didn’t seem to care to learn a thing about her.

In the end, I managed to placate Mrs. Hope with a few extra items of clothing. These Christians are very forgiving, but I warn you to never believe a word that they tell you.

Anybody can be bought off with a couple of fur lined thongs.

Press Cutting

I’ve just got back after a day hogging the limelight here in Bangor. This morning, The Bangor Post finally ran an interview I did with them a few months ago. I knew nothing about it until this morning when the neighbour came knocking on the door and asked that I autograph his copy. Since them, I've signed hundreds of papers as I casually loitered in the town centre.

The story isn't exactly front page stuff (instead, they've led with Brown's budget and its impact on the town) but it is, nevertheless, a nice profile.

Anyway, I’ve scanned it and posted for you all to admire (click it to read it in full). Gabby says I look a bit menacing in the photo they've used and though I have to agree that I don’t exactly look my best, I think you can tell I was at a physical peak when it was taken. It also manages to hide my flowing locks.

You might also wonder about the lack of a thong in the photo. I'm disappointed too. They refused to photograph me wearing one on account of it being a family newspaper. I think you can see that I had to wrap a towel around my lower half. Not that I was going to complain too much. It was a cold day when they took that photo and I don't mind admitting that there was plenty of slack in my thong.

Finally, I'd ask you to ignore all the talk about my going in politics. This was interview was done some months ago and I went cold on the idea once the last Lib Dem conference rejected the thong motion I'd been supporting. If another party could adopt it, I might reconsider my position. Until then, I'm afraid to say that politics is not for The Chipster.

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?’

Carpe Diem

Disaster.

As I write, the clock says it’s ten minutes past ten. If things had gone according to plan today, I should now be about to snatch the last inch of silk string hiding my modesty and reveal myself to Bangor’s late night crowd. I was due on stage ten minutes ago.

So what am I doing, sitting here and typing on my laptop? I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I tore a muscle this afternoon.

It happened when I was reading Auden. In fact, it happened because I was reading Auden. If I’d been reading any other book, none of this would have happened. I knew this education was a bad thing. I also blame Robin Williams.

It happened like this. Gabby’s still chasing up singing work (I know what you’re thinking but you’ve got to give the girl marks for trying) so she left me at home to get to grips with my literature assignment. I sat myself down and opened my brand new copy of The English Auden. I thumbed my way trough a few pages until I found myself a shortish poem to get me going.

After struggling for half an hour, mumbling the words as I read, I began to realise I was doing something wrong. don’t know much about poetry but I was damn sure Mrs. Rust wouldn’t have me mumbling. And that’s when I thought about Dead Poet’s Society, the film. It’s a great movie and one of my favourites until the guy from Robocop blows his brains out. That’s not important, though. What is important is that I thought about the film and decided that if I really wanted to understand my literature coursework, I really needed to read the poems aloud and, preferably, while standing on a table.

The only table I could do it on was the kitchen table but I’ve never been a man to let little details sway me. I climbed up on the kitchen work surface and began to read out the poem in my best literary voice.

And, do you know that it actually helped? The words jumped from the page and I could see their every meaning. It was like I’d just been awakened into a new and beautiful world.

Almost as beautiful as the pool of tea that I slipped in just as I was about to hit the last rhyme.

I fell from the table, cracked my skull against the dishwasher and my back against the edge of the tumble dryer. The pain was excruciating at first but eventually eased into a dull throbbing pain I knew only too well. I had aggravated the injury that kept me out of stripping for much of last year.