Corruption In Higham Places

Corruption! Scandal! Outrage! Hamsters with switchblades!

In my self-appointed role as moral guardian of the UK blogging scene, I’ve stumbled across some pretty shady operations in my time. Let’s not forget the night I sent the coast guard after that high profile blogger who we all knew to be attending illegal hamster fights on a freighter moored at the mouth of the Thames estuary. And I’m sure we all remember the photographs the police later released of the poor little creatures with knives sellotaped to their backs. Is it no wonder that certain people never mention such things in their blogs? And if you don’t believe me, go run a search and you’ll find that the same gentleman never mentions ‘hamsters duelling’. Condemned by his own words, you might say… Shameful.

Yet, no matter how great the depravity of my past discoveries, nothing could have prepared me for what I read this evening.

Tonight I found proof that The Blog Power Awards are fixed.

You heard me right. I said ‘fixed’ and I don’t mind revealing the extent of the corruption.

You see, I’ve discovered that they are nothing but a cheap popularity contest!

You ask how I know this? Well take a look for yourself. There are bloggers out there who are actively canvassing for votes.

I know what you’re thinking and I found it just as hard believe myself. To think that a man we all hold in such esteem is so desperate for approval that he’s asking his readers to email James Higham and nominate him for an award. You don’t see me asking for help, do you? And that’s despite my being nominated in two categories. All I can say is that I’ve had my illusions shattered. I’ve cancelled my order for a dozen black roll-necked sweaters and I’ll never pick up The Sunday Times again. I only worry which of my illusions is next to face a high drop onto a hard surface. Am I to discover that Clive James spends his spring days going from nest to nest in order to hit hatchlings with his tennis racquet? If so, then I only ask that he waits until I've managed to save up and by my signed copy of his Cultural Amnesia...

The simple fact is that your favourite Welsh thongman would never stoop so low as to ask you to love him. And he wouldn’t do that for one very good reason.

It’s all a matter of scale. To make a relevant analogy: when a man feels comfortable with his body, he doesn’t need to add inches the next time he measures himself against the Dear Deride column. You don’t find The Chipster including hips and navels and thumbs to his arithmetic. There is nothing but Dale in his calculations. And when people ask me why I’m a ‘Big Dale’ and not an ‘Average Dale’, I’m always honest and tell them: it’s why I don’t measure myself with a ruler but use a builder’s theodolite. Alternatively, if it happens to be noon on the day of the summer solstice, I do as the Egyptians did and measure myself by calculating how far a shadow is cast in the direction of Luxor.

You see, when it comes to blog popularity, there can be no fair winners. Every loser will have been poorly measured for simple reasons of scale. It’s another example of the big blogs succeeding where we small folk fail. And, for obvious reasons, I chose that term ‘small folk’ very carefully. Popularity can only be measured one way and that’s by visitor numbers and the small fraction who can be bothered to vote for a man in a thong.

It puts a man like me at a great disadvantage. Am I being measured by the length of my readership or the girth of the read? I like to think that my seventeen regular visitors share an experience that comes as close as possible to a night in Bangor town centre on a Saturday night. Can’t you just smell the fragrance of body oil, warmed on the Chipster’s highly toned muscles? Each comma is as calculated as a hip thrust over a tepid glass of Babycham. Each posting amounts to a tangible experience of the best that Welsh stripping has to offer and that, my good friends, is the only reward I expect and care for.

I’m sorry to have had to break this news to you. It’s made for a post full of solemn reflection. I’m a lesser man for having had my illusions shattered. As that great stripper Hugo ‘The Hosepipe’ Cooper used to tell me: leave them with a bang. Even when he was sentenced to three years for male prostitution, I never doubted his advice. Yet today I won’t leave you with a bang. I won’t seek an affirmation of your love. I won't be so cheap as to demean the wonderful thing we have together. I ask that you don’t go voting for the Chipster. No, no, please don’t.

You see, if I don’t play their games, nobody can ever say that I’m small.

Hear Me Roar!

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

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

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

So, I have to be quick…

Okay, Chipster. Stay focussed.

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

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

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

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

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

That I'm a bore?

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve decided to start a blog war.

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

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

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

On British Blogging, Tinned Peaches, and The Easy Option

What makes a good blog?

I’m a virgin when it comes to blogging, so feel free to ignore the way I thrust my pelvis forwards and backwards as I think and write. Besides, I’m sure blogging has no connection to the world of male stripping and it would be foolish to imagine that thong size has anything to do with it. As far as I can see, everybody involved in British Blogging seems to be fairly relaxed, nice people. Respectable too. And nobody ever ever looks at their readership figures! We all live in bliss in this happy virtual world. The Chipster has the worst and best blog in the country. As do you. As do all of us. It works like that, right?

But what am I supposed to do now? How does this blogging malarkey really work?

Regularity

Gabby tells me that I have to update once a day with some wry little anecdote of our life here in Bangor. I can see how this might work. I should thoughtfully consider and polish each line as carefully as I might slowly run a finger down the zip on my garage mechanic outfit. The ladies like that… But my darling little Banshee tells me that many of her Romanian friends update half a dozen times a day with random little musings about pretty much anything. This, I guess, is just like as I might throw off my Superman costume with no thought to the tease of the strip. The ladies only like me to do this when they’ve had a bit too much Rum and Coke and have a taxi waiting.

So the question is, fellow thongaleers: What’s more important to a blog? Quantity or quality?

Many blogs don’t update for days on end. Others update every few hours. But if you lead the life of The Chipster, you’d never have time to read these outpourings of inner monologue. And I don’t want to become the sort of person to bore you with:

'Have you seen the price of a tin of peaches in syrup these days? I’ve just been to Tesco and I’m appalled at how many you get in a tin and for sixty nine pence! Anyway, I’ve created a button for us all to post on our blogs so we can campaign for a reduction in the price of tinned peaches.'

There then usually follows sixty nine comments agreeing that the price of tinned peaches is too high and discussing the economic significance of peach sales to the UK economy and whether Tony Blair is stocking tinned peaches in some warehouse in Kent so he can have cheaper holidays in the regions where tinned peaches come from.

I’m sorry. I’m getting a bit agitated. My oily fingers are beginning to slip from the bloody keyboard.

Content

Which brings me to the question of content.

I’m a busy man. There are many many women in Bangor who rely on my services. So, I’ve been wondering how can the Chipster fulfil the desires of so many hundredweight of hormones whilst also satisfying his blog’s insatiable craving for content?

And then, this morning, I woke up with a bright idea. I could turn this blog into one of those places that don’t bother trying to do anything original! For all of twelve groggy seconds, I thought to myself: take the easy route, Chipster, old boy! Who doesn’t enjoy pictures of naked chicks? And when I run out of pictures of naked chicks, I could post the occasional bit of YouTube video. You know: babies doing funny tricks, serious tobogganing accidents, people settting their pets on fire, last night’s TV, a healthy big of voyeurism. It’d be sure to bring in the punters. Greatest blog in the world!!!

I told Gabby about my idea and she gave me one of those Romanian silences involving high pitched notes you can’t actually hear but make your teeth ache.

So, tomorrow, I’ll have to think of something new to write about. The Chipster won’t be choosing the easy way out. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He’s a man of principle. It’s like that bit in my escapology act when I’m tied naked in a mail sack full of otters. Those a proper shackles, locks, and otters I use. And it takes me so long to get out, I sometimes wonder if the end result is worth all of that trouble.

Perhaps blogging and stripping aren’t that dissimilar after all.

I Am Not Called Iain

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thong on!