Boris and Johnson

I've never understood the reason why somebody might want to go and stand in a wet field and listen to some outdated rockers screaming their lungs out half a mile away.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

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

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

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

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

Chocolate Chip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Things I Hope To Happen in 2008 Meme

Tagged by Trixie, I'm forced to break away of my exercise routine that is helping me to rapidly lose weight. For my first post of the New Year, here are the eight things that The Chipster would like to see happen in 2008.

And forgive me if a couple of them are very self-serving...

1. A certain book to be published in the Summer leaps to the top of the book charts where it stays for months as the whole county snaps it up, making one modest writer immodestly wealthy.
2. I find an literary agent interested in my comedy.
3. I manage to break out of the debt trap and earn a living (even if it’s moderate) doing what I’m happiest doing: writing things to amuse others.
4. The Other Richard Madeley manages to break out of the debt trap and earn a living doing what he enjoys doing: writing things to amuse others.
5. I find the passion to resume blogging.
6. The government realise how foolish it is to mistreat teachers and abandon all the foolish policies that keep the nation’s educators working until nine o’clock every night.
7. I learn to drive and abandon the bicycle from which I nearly fell under the wheels of a car this evening.
8. Leonard Cohen / Tom Waits / Nick Cave bring out a new album or Andy Kaufman stuns the world by revealing that he never died / Steve Martin returns to performing stand-up.

I hereby tag: Ms. Baroque, Dave Hill, Richard Madeley, Mopsa, and Nige.

Big Chip Dale's Christmas Message

I’ve been away for so long, I wanted to prove that I’m still here in Bangor, living the high life. Actually, things have been pretty grim. Gabby never stops complaining that I do nothing but sit in front of the TV and watch ‘Deal or No Deal’. She says I’ve let myself go.

I admit, there might just be a small fraction of truth in that, but I also like to think that I’m the same old Chipster. I’m just going through a period of self-discovery. The only bad thing to happen in my life is that I can no longer fit into all my favourite thongs. It’s now over three weeks since I abandoned the thong in favour of grey brushed cotton tracksuit bottoms.

Anyway, enough about me. It’s Christmas Day and I wanted to thank all of you who have taken time to read Chip Dale’s Diary in the last year. Will The Chipster be back in the New Year? I haven’t yet decided if I will. It depends on my financial situation and the amount of work I can get between now and then. To be honest, I’ve lost my regular bookings. People tell me it’s a slow Christmas, which I have to believe. Then again, life is slow these days. I thought stripping was a hard way to make a living, but it’s easier than writing.

This is Big Chip Dale, signing out until the New Year.

Have a great Christmas, and don’t eat anything I wouldn’t eat.

One of Those Meme Things

I don't normally go for these memes but at least it's got me writing something and has cheered me up a little... Thanks to Reading The Signs for this.

A ~ Available? For parties, hen nights, and poetry readings. Reasonable rates.
B ~ Best friend. Oh, Gabby. Of course it’s Gabby.
C ~ Cake or pie? Cake. Lemon meringue. Actually, at the moment, I’d prefer flan. Keep things simple. Cheese and onion.
D ~ Drink of choice: Water. It's God juice and good for you!
E ~ Essential thing used every day: what else but my thong?
F ~ Favorite color: Black.
G ~ Gummi bears or worms? What the hell is a gummi bear? For that reason alone: worms.
H ~ Hometown: Bangor.
I ~ Indulgence: Lunch when we can afford it.
J ~ January or February? February.
K ~ Kids and names: It’s probably a good idea but not for me at this time in my stripping career.
L ~ Life is incomplete without: a collection of thongs.
M ~ Marriage date: Ha!
N ~ Number of siblings: One.
O ~ Oranges or apples? Apples.
P ~ Phobias/fears: Snakes, frogs, public nudity, failure.
Q ~ Favorite quote: ‘Brace yourself Brenda’.
R ~ Reason to smile: none at the moment. It’s all pretty bleak.
S~ favorite Season – Spring.
T ~ Tag three people: Must I? Okay, Fictional Rockstar, Elberry (since he claims to be back blogging, let’s make him suffer), and Richard Madeley (because I just like making him suffer).
U ~ Unknown fact about me: I’m not really a stripper… No, only joking. I’m really a hugely successful man of letters and have lectured at Cambridge. Okay, I’m six feet two inches tall.
V ~ Vegetable you don't like: the guy at the local supermarket who packs the bags. He had some kind of accident involving metal piping… He’s pretty gone most of the time but seems to have it in for me. He deliberately digs his nails into my fresh fruit.
W ~ Worst habit: snapping the strap of my thong when bored. Just… like… this…
X ~X-rays you've had: once on my back when a traffic warden fell on me during a show.
Y ~ Your favorite food: pasta. I love pasta!
Z ~ Zodiac: Libra. Two hanging cups perfectly balanced just about sums me up.

The Chip Dale Guide To Handling Birds

Gabby informed me that we’re not having Christmas this year.

‘You want Christmas, you go have fun with blogging friends. You go with Dick Middlely, The Dirty Referendum, or The Fractional Popstar. Gabby not doing Christmas. We all out of turkey.’

This was news in the shade of the unexpected and with distinct highlights matching my shock and surprise. I picked the remote control from my lap and muted the lunchtime news. ‘Out of turkey?’ I repeated. ‘But what’s happened to Henrietta?’

‘Henrietta’s gone,’ said Gabby. ‘Escaped.’

‘Escaped? You’ve been rearing that turkey for the last six months just for our Christmas meal. She couldn’t have just fled!. Not when we’re so close.’

‘She gone. She jump fence and run away.’

‘Jumped the fence?’ I protested. ‘But she could barely walk. I’ve not seen breasts that big since I visited Richard Madeley’s website and realised that he’s started to post porn.’

‘Henrietta gone and Gabby not know what to do. I grow turkey. Biggest turkey I ever grow. And I looking to cutting off head. Now, what am I to do? Gabby very, very disappointed.’

I sat back on my chair. In the last few weeks, it had slowly begun to shape itself to my immobile torso as my malaise rarely shifted me before the TV. Moping might be a more accurate term for it. Only this was different. This was perhaps the news I’d been waiting for. This could put mustard back in the Chipster’s thong.

‘Well, I’m not going to accept it,’ I said as I slapped my thighs and stood up. ‘I’m going to find Henrietta and I’m going to rescue her.’

‘You find turkey?’ laughed Gabby. She threw herself down on the sofa and propped a cushion under her head before she picked up the latest edition of ‘Choke Holds’ magazine that had arrived in the morning’s post. ‘You go find turkey, then I sit here and read.’

‘And when I do rescue her, I’ll bring her safely back here so you can chop off her head.’

Gabby waved away my promise. ‘Turkey gone. It eaten. A fox get it.’

I nipped to the bedroom where I put on an insulated thong and my waterproof vest. As soon as I reached the door, Gabby came running.

‘You really do this for Gabby?’ she asked, suddenly full of eagerness.

‘I’m doing it for my Christmas lunch,’ I said.

She patted me on my chest and ran back into the living room. When she returned, she had a gift for me. ‘Be careful,’ she said as she pushed a large knife into my hands. ‘If you find Henrietta, you not let her peck you. Chop off head before you get hurt.’

I took the knife and was about to slip it under the narrow band at the side of my thong. Then I had second thoughts. ‘I not going to get arrested for carrying a weapon,’ I told her as I concealed the knife down the spacious pouch of my winter thong, ‘but there might well be charges of gross indecency before the night’s out.’

The obvious place to start a turkey hunt was at the last place the bird had been seen. The allotments were unusually quiet when I arrived there around three. It was a brazenly cold afternoon, with a stiff breeze cutting across the open patch of land. My nipples were hard and tingling, like two sensors set to white meat as I began my search around the turkey enclosure. It was there that I noticed some heel prints in the soft mud that ran to a small gate that led to the series of small cottages that sit to the rear of the allotments. It seemed a bit too obvious a lead but I thought I’d check them out first.

The garden of the first cottage overlooks Gabby’s allotment and belongs to an old doctor who retired from the profession some years ago, about the same time as he was struck off the medical register. As far as I knew, he still lived there with his sister. It took me no time to get around to the front of the house and ring the door bell. Moments passed before it opened to a dark crack.

‘Yes?’ asked a soft voice from within.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said as a pair of wizened eyes came peering out to greet me. ‘I’m looking for a bird…’

‘A bird?’ said the voice. The door opened a little more and a little old lady wandered forward and began to peer at my groin. ‘What on earth are you wearing, young man?’

‘It’s a thong,’ I said.

‘A thong? It doesn’t look very warm.’

‘Oh, it’s very warm,’ I assured her. ‘Very spacious too. Can you believe there’s a weapon packed in there?’

‘A weapon?’

‘For the turkey,’ I said. ‘That’s what I’ve come for. My girlfriend owns the allotment at the bottom of your garden and our Christmas turkey seems to have gone missing. I was wondering if it might have escaped over your fence.’

She gave me one of the oddest looks I think I’ve ever received. ‘And when you find this turkey, you’re going to kill a turkey with you weapon?’ she asked and pointed to my thong.

I shrugged. ‘That’s the general idea,’ I replied.

She waved me after her. ‘The turkey is out back. Let me go and get my glasses. I want to see this!’

Sure enough, Henrietta was sitting in the rear garden, trapped by four sides of trellis fashioned into a makeshift pen.

‘It was my brother,’ whispered the little old lady as she emerged from the house. She’d wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and a pair of glasses now rode the smooth incline of her nose. ‘He’s been watching that turkey grow all year,’ she continued to explain. ‘He’s rather naughty, I’m afraid. I told him he shouldn’t steal it but he said you wouldn’t notice.’ A she smiled, yellowing false teeth moving uneasily on thin gums. ‘Now, I believe you promised to show me how you’re going to kill a turkey with that “weapon” of yours.’

‘I was planning of cutting it’s head off,’ I said, though now I had found Henrietta, I didn’t think I had it in me to do the wicked deed.

‘Chop off its head?’ asked the old woman. ‘I thought you were going to bash it unconscious. I was quite looking forward to watching you giving it a good bludgeon. Mind you,’ she laughed, ‘it’s so many years. I can’t remember what a good “weapon” really looks like…’

To be honest, I think she was a little senile. She wasn’t making a word of sense. I pulled out the knife and held it up to the light.

‘Just a standard carving knife,’ I said. ‘The handle’s a bit fancy but nothing too modern. Surely you have knives like this?’

The woman looked confused. ‘Oh,’ she said, and touched a hand nervously to her throat. ‘I… well…’ I thought a blush illuminated her thin makeup from beneath. ‘Perhaps you should just take back your turkey,’ she said, her manner changing from enthusiasm to casual indifference, as though she didn’t want me around any more. ‘I’ll make sure my brother doesn’t steal it again.’

‘You can tell him from me that he needn’t go stealing it,’ I replied, not liking this change of mood. ‘I’ll make sure we save him a breast. After all, it is Christmas and there’s more than enough turkey for all.’

As I led Henrietta past the front door, the little old lady reappeared again.

‘Oh, young man,’ she said. ‘You never told me your name.’

‘Chip Dale,’ I replied. ‘And the turkey is called Henrietta.’

She waved me over to the doorstep. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing like stuffing at Christmas, so when you do cook your turkey, you must use this.’ In her hands she held out a small box of Paxo. ‘It goes wonderful with meat.’

‘That’s very good of you,’ I began to say but before I could finish, she grabbed the front of my thong and shoved the box of Paxo down the pouch.

‘Very spacious,’ she cooed. ‘And like I said, there’s nothing that can beat a little stuffing at Christmas.’

Help Wanted: Angry Mob

Here’s a post to keep my blog ticking over while I’m relining my thongs, reoiling my hips, and giving my buttocks a closer than normal shave. I came across this little offer of free tickets when I was researching my chances of appearing on 15 to 1. Although I’m not going to take the offer up myself, I was hoping that there’d be an angry mob out there who could do the job for me. Gabby suggested that she contact friends in the Romanian military but I think I can do a better job by using the power of the internet.

If you know an angry mob, or perhaps you yourself are an angry mob, could you get yourself down the studios and spend an whole afternoon jeering. I’ve written letters to television production companies suggesting that Gabby and myself would make a better job of hosting this show, while Jordan and Andrex can get back to what they do best… Okay, you’re right. I don’t know what that would be. They could just disappear and stop rubbing our noses in it.

Are you with me, angry mob?

With One Leg On The Bar

I did two things last night that I’ve not done in a while. I nipped down to the Green Dragon Tavern to loosen my muscles with the first proper dance since my recent accident. The other was to return to writing a novel I’ve left for nearly a month. They were but two of the many reasons why people were commenting on the improvement in The Chipster’s mood.

‘Chip,’ said Samantha, the waitress at the Tavern, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dance as well.’

‘I’m feeling oddly limber,’ I admitted as I threw my leg up on the bar and touched my chin to my knee. ‘I think it’s November. Some men get gloomy about the shorter days, but I get cheerful because of the longer night. There’s more time for a man in a thong to impress the ladies and walk the stage naked.’

‘I’ve never thought of it like that,’ she said. ‘And how’s the book coming?’

‘Again, better than I expected. I read through the first 10,000 words this morning and I laughed at least five times on every page. That’s quite something. That’s writing to the levels established by Bill Bryson and Jeremy Clarkson. If I could get it to six times a page, I’d be heading into Wodehouse territory. Can you imagine that? P.G. Wodehouse with an expert knowledge of the tensile strength of a fully loaded thong?’

‘So you’re limber in both mind and body?’ replied Samantha. ‘And how is the blog going?’

I tutted as I pushed my chin to my knee a second time. ‘The blog is a problem. I’ve been annoying people with my slightly less than ebullient mood of late. I’ve even had emails complaining that I’m not the man they have come to know and love.’

I dropped my leg to the floor and threw the other one up to repeat the same exercise.

‘People like consistency,’ said Samantha. ‘If you didn’t come in here every night, dressed in your alligator jacket and luminous orange thong, I’d think there was something wrong with you.’

‘And there would be something wrong with me,’ I said as I gave my thong a snap for good luck. ‘There would be something very wrong with me indeed.’

Later, I got back to the flat and took a quick shower before changing into a casual thong. I sat down, turned on the TV, heckled Newsnight, and then listened to Gabby as she struggled with a mugger in the street below the flat.

‘Had a good evening?’ I asked when she finally appeared at the door.

She wiped a spot of blood from her cheek and gave me a kiss.

‘Gabby make him beg for his life,’ she said.

‘I bet you did,’ I replied and knew there and then that I was feeling much better with the world.

The thong is at 95% and still rising.

Chip Dale's Dream

Should the Chipster ever profess his love for another man, let that man be Richard Madeley.

His offer to sell me the musk from his glands must have touched a nerve last night. It acted on me like some kind of psychic drug that seemed to cleanse my soul. My sleep was like a peyote hallucination. I dreamt that I met Alan Titchmarsh and I was forced to say to his face all the things I’ve ever said about him. The ‘other’ Richard Madeley was there too. He found me and gave me a thrashing for all the things he thought I’d written about him. It made no difference to him that I’m Chip Dale. He believed I was Dick Madeley and wished to punish me for all that man’s sins.

Then the dream changed and I was being chased across a field by hundreds of celebrities. Jeremy Clarkson was there, dressed for a hunt. Then there was Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Ken Dodd, Sharon Osbourne, Oz Clarke, Jamie Oliver, and the whole of the England football team. They’d managed to corner me in a ditch where Clarkson came forward to give me the coup de grâce, despite all my protestations that I like the man and I think he’s one of the genuinely funny English writers working in the form of the abbreviated essay. At the last moment, Stephen Fry took pity on me and called for a vote to see whether I should live or die. Before they could finish arguing among themselves, I managed to slip away and made it to a road where I flagged down a car. Only when we’d gone about a mile or so did I turn to look at the driver. It was Angus Deaton and he began to mock me for not being funny enough… In the back seat sat Lenny Henry and Alan Carr, glaring at me as if they were the apostles of wealth and success.

Thankfully, that’s where I woke up. I found Gabby sitting beside me with a tape recorder in her lap. Poor girl. She thought I was undergoing a religious moment and I was speaking in tongues.

The truth is more mundane.

The Chipster may suffer terrible guilt when he doesn’t post here but self-doubt is a much more potent force. I suppose both would be lessened if I thought people thought I wrote other things, but that is too much to expect and I wouldn’t like to take any credit for another man’s hard work. Yet the fact remains, I am troubled by a conscience. I’m sorry if I’ve not been posting enough. But now my spirit is rid of the demons that have been haunting it for the last few weeks and I’m working again. I feel a little better and hope to improve my output in the next few days.

Richard Madeley, I thank you. And I thank you all for sticking by me. The Thong is at 75% and rising.

The Yorkshire Moors

It came to an end, as most adventures of this kind end, at a remote farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors. It had been Trixy’s idea to head north, thinking that Gabby’s natural inclination to veer towards Romanian airspace would steer her in a south-easterly direction. We were wrong. Trixy was busy arranging her shoes in the hay loft that she’d conveniently turned into a walk-in cupboard, when the noise of an engine fired up from somewhere outside the cottage.

‘It’s her,’ I said, not knowing what I was saying as much as just instinctively reaching for the obvious conclusion.

Trixy quickly gathered up her shoes and made a jump for it as a tractor ploughed through the wall of the cottage and something snarling leapt from the driver’s seat.

‘Ayiiiiiiiiii!’ went the same war cry that made the Mongol hordes stop at the Romanian border.

‘Gabby, won’t you listen to me?’ I cried as I felt steel-like fingers grip me by my neck.

‘Divorce her now, Chip Dale, or you lose windpipe.’

I waved my hand in the air, a sign of a thonglateer’s truce. Meanwhile, Trixy had disappeared and only when I sat up did I spot her running for the main road at an unbelievable rate of knots for somebody so given to cravings for nicotine. Not that I had long to consider this fact. Gabby leapt up to the tractor and pulled a large canvas bag from the back of the seat. She unzipped it and shook it out.

The figure was that of a man, tied up and with tape around his mouth. It was only when Gabby made a slit in the tape that I recognised the wheezing noise of Mr. Meradith, my solicitor.

‘Say it,’ threatened Gabby as Mr. Meradith gasped for air.

‘You are not legally married,’ he said. ‘Facebook can’t hold you to it and if you can’t technically be married given the documents that Ms. Gabby has shown me.’

‘Documents?’ I asked. ‘What documents.’

‘It would see that you’re already registered as the private property of Ms. Gabby under Romanian law. Technically, it might be argued that you’re a free man but given the EU’s relationship with Romania, I wouldn’t bet on that. You couldn’t marry anybody with Ms. Gabby’s permission.’

I didn’t know how to feel, even as Gabby pulled a length of rope from a hook hanging in the cabin and began to bind my wrists to my ankles.

‘I’m so sorry about this,’ I said to Mr. Meradith. ‘You must think something awful about us…’

He managed to get a smile out before Gabby resealed his mouth with more tape.

And that, as they say, is that. The marriage was short lived and I think you’ll agree a welcome diversion from the usual round of dull events here at Chip Dale’s Diary. The solicitor was released unharmed back in Bangor and I was dragged up to the flat where I was finally set from of my rope bonds once Gabby had inserted numerous GPS trackers under my skin. Some of you might feel it goes against the Libertarian grain but I do like a clever use of technology. Especially when it gives rise to a new feature, which you should be able to see in my sidebar. It’s a live track of my position, fixed via Romanian GPS satellites and updated every five minutes. It’s innovations like that which you begin to miss as a married man.

All The Right Moves

The Chipster is in a dilemma and he doesn’t know what to do. I entered one of my own private thongs, designed and hand sequined by the Thonglateer himself, into a competitive fashion show last week. To my horror, I discovered on Friday that I’d won.

‘Mr. Dale, we are so proud to have your thong in our collection,’ said the designer when she rang me on Saturday. ‘Now, as you know, we’ll be doing a special London catwalk and we’d love you to come along and dance in your thong. It’s really quite an honour and I think you’ll like the exposure it will give you.’

If you know me at all, you’ll know that ‘exposure’ is my favourite words of three syllables. I couldn’t have been more happy. Happy, that is, until it got down to some muttered details at the end of the conversation.

‘And, of course,’ she said, ‘if you could come down a couple of days before the show, we’ll give you a few of lessons with our choreographer who will teach you the dance moves.’

It wasn’t professional of me, I know, but I laughed. ‘Dance moves?’ I asked. ‘You needn’t worry about that. I’m Wales’ number one male stripper. I think I have some pretty good moves of my own.’

Only the designer didn’t want to know. ‘But Johnny’s written you out a wonderful line of steps which he says will really show off your thong.’

I sank into my chair, wondering what to say. ‘But that thong has history,’ I explained. ‘We’ve worked together for years. I think I know what moves go well with it. Can’t you listen to what I’m saying to you? This thong will look fantastic if only you let me dance my own moves.’

‘But Johnny’s already worked them out,’ insisted the designer. ‘He’s won awards for choreography.’

‘Well, couldn’t he at least incorporate my ideas?’ I asked, growing more desperate.

She fell silent. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think we’d be happier if our choreographer does it his way.’

The Chipster may be many things but he’s not demonstrative. I hung up the phone having agreed to dance the steps arranged by the choreographer. The only compromise I’d managed to win was that of the designer promising to post the sheet of steps to me. They arrived this morning.

Gabby had already gone to work, it being the day she does the 7 to 2 shift as the only member of Bangor’s traffic warden licensed to use firearms. I stripped down to my thong and cleared a space in the living room. I practised the moves all morning, broke for lunch, then practised again until three. That’s when Gabby came home with half a dozen of her friends in the traffic warden department. I’d forgotten it was the day she gave them extra instruction in methods of disemboweling a man with just a biro.

‘What Chip doing?’ asked Gabby, finding me stood in the living room in just my thong. I never like sweating heavily before strangers unless they know what I do for a living. But like most people, they seemed quite relaxed once I explained it to them. Then I told them all about the honour of being chosen to dance in my thong in London. I also mentioned how I’d been working on the moves sent over by the choreographer.

‘Lets see them,’ said Gabby, ushering her friends to chairs around the room.

‘Come on,’ said one young warden. ‘I used to take dance class.’

‘Yes,’ said another. ‘My sister dances with the Royal Ballet.’

What could I say or do? I put on the music and danced the dance.

The reaction was polite but not exactly ecstatic.

‘You see,’ I said to Gabby. ‘It’s not winning people over.’

She shrugged. ‘I see you dance better,’ she agreed. ‘So why not show us Chip’s moves?’

So, I played the music again and danced again but this time to my own steps. They were less elaborate than the choreographer’s moves, and they took less skill, but even as I was doing them, I thought they somehow fitted more with the essential nature of the thong I’d hand stitched myself. When I was finished, the sweat was coursing down the contours of my highly muscled torso.

The reaction was unanimous. ‘Chip stick with his own steps,’ said Gabby as the applause came to an end. ‘They suit you better.’

All her friends were in agreement. ‘Funny and intelligent,’ said one of her friends in what I thought was an American accent.

I pointed at the woman. ‘You see,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I thought. Funny and intelligent. Exactly what I want an audience to think.’ It was a comment that just convinced me that I was right and that there was a dilemma out there with my name on it.

I couldn’t face talking to the designer so I sent her an email. She still refuses to budge. I’m going to London in two days and I don’t know what to do. I’m honoured to be part of her show but it disappoints me that my point of view is being ignored. Am I even in the right to think that I should have a say in the dance I’ll be dancing? It’s her show but my thong. I just want her to listen to my suggestions. Is it so very wrong?

Blogging From The Bathroom

For the sake of my health and my dignity, I’ve locked myself in the bathroom. Gabby is waiting for me outside and she’s armed herself with a pair of lacy knickers. Some might look on this scene of domestic disharmony and think it an example of why relationships don’t last in these troubled times. I merely say it’s good that people can express their honest feelings so we can work them out.

The argument began over a set of keys that Gabby had given to a homeless guy she met while doing her round as a traffic warden this morning.

I had slept late, as usual, only to wake up and smell bacon cooking. I emerged from the bedroom to find a stranger standing in the kitchen wearing Gabby’s nightgown and frying himself eggs, sausage, and the aforementioned rashers. He must have stood six feet three, with a large mass of hairy stomach pushing its way through the gown like some demonic pregnancy. His nose had been flattened by the impact of a small asteroid.

‘Morning,’ he said, stabbing a banger with a fork.

I reached for the nearest blunt instrument which I proceeded to wave in his direction. Only later did I realise it was a plastic pepper mill.

‘Who are you?’ I shouted, looking towards his large distended stomach. ‘And what have you done with my girlfriend?’

‘Done. I ain’t done nothing,’ he replied, slowly. ‘She gave me these keys and told me to make myself at home.’

You could argue that Gabby has a big heart but I knew that it was more complicated than that. She was getting her own back after reading some of the comments you’d all left to the photographs I’d posted of her last week.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘you can finish your breakfast but you can’t stay here.’

‘Not your business to say,’ said the man, stabbing another sausage in a somewhat threatening manner.

I shifted uncomfortably. ‘You might think that but I’m the owner of this flat. I get to decide who lives here.’

He turned and picked up a sausage from the pan. ‘You want me out,’ he said, waving the sausage with a malicious intent, ‘then you’ll have to throw me out.’

I had a better plan. I waited until the greasy breakfast had slipped its way into the large stomach and our guest stretched himself out on my bed to sleep off his breakfast. I found Gabby ticketing wheelchairs outside the hospital.

‘You’ve made your point,’ I said, ‘now could you get rid of him?’

‘Gabby not want to see any more bad comments about her on Chippy’s blog,’ she said, fixing a ticket to a paraplegic’s electric scooter.

‘No more comments,’ I promised.

She nodded and tucked her pen away. Ten minutes later we were back at the flat. Two more minutes and there was a lump of a man sitting unconscious in the seat of an electric mobility scooter that wheeled him down the road.

‘Now Gabby has one more request,’ she said, once we had returned to the flat. ‘Chip wear my knickers and I take picture to put on his blog.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Chip enjoy laughing at Gabby so now Gabby say people laugh at Chip. You wear my knickers and you put picture on your blog so people can laugh at transvestite Chip.’

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ I told her, backing slowly to the bathroom. Luckily I had the foresight to pick up my laptop as I did the backing.

‘Chip wear knickers…’

‘Never!’

‘Chip better wear knickers or…’

I turned, ran, and only stopped running when I felt lino beneath my feet and I had a solid door behind me. And that’s where I sit now, typing this while sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. At some point I might have to emerge and I might have to don something black and see through. I hope I can spare you the photographs but I can’t make any promises. Perhaps those of your with sensitive dispositions should just avoid my diary for a day or two. Just until this knicker business blows over…

The Taking of the Chipster 123

I awoke at noon and for the first time in about a week actually felt refreshed. I still don’t know if it’s been a cold that’s been hanging over me or just mental exhaustion after weeks of constant work, but a couple of days away from the computer seem to have done the trick. I’m not throwing my thong around with particular abandon but it does seem to sit more healthily upon my hips and I will occasionally give a spontaneous thrust as I walk around the flat.

Tomorrow I hope to be back to normal. In the meantime, let me recommend a film to you. It’s something they’ve remade once and are remaking again but I rewatched it last night and realised how great a film is The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw are two of my favourite actors yet they share only one brief scene at the end of the film. Despite this, the pair of them hold this film together in a way that no modern film would try to attempt. There's little violence, no action that's choreographed to an inch of perfection. It’s all hardbitten dialogue, a brash soundtrack fueled by testosterone, and with performances by some often under-looked but gifted character actors such as Martin Balsam and Dick O'Neill. I must have a thing for films made between 1974 and 1976. The Parallax View, All the President’s Men, and Three Days of the Condor, and Pelham make up a quartet of films I never tire of watching.

Gabby loved it too. It’s the first time she’s seen it and was greatly disappointed afterwards to discover that Bangor doesn’t have an underground train system she could at ransom for a million dollars. Can there be any higher form of praise than that? I don't think so.

Why I Didn't Blog Yesterday

I tried to get to a computer yesterday but the fates conspired against me. Sometimes blogging has to come second when life becomes too complicated. First there was the problem with the train which had got stuck on the way back from Manchester. I’d gone there for another modelling session with my favourite catalogue. This time it was for next year’s Spring/Summer underwear collection, which made for a day light in thongs but heavy in the fleece-lined Y-fronts for men with bladder control issues. It made me realise, yet again, that I’m really modelling for the wrong people.

I finally got home around nine o’clock to find a scene reminiscent of Fiddler on the Roof outside the flat. A horse and cart was parked in the road and the cart was piled high with my belongings. I barely recognised the woman in the shawl and headscarf coming out from the flats with a bundle of my clothes in her arms.

‘That’s the lot,’ said Gabby, filling the last remaining space on the cart with a fistful of my best thongs. ‘Chip ready?’

‘Ready for what?’ I asked. ‘Do you want me to sing about being a rich man?’

She didn’t understand my allusion. ‘We must move. It here soon.’

‘What’s here?’

‘The flood!’

She leapt up on the cart and took the reigns in her hand and a whip in the other. Without a pause, she cracked the latter and dragged the former and the cart turned a neat one hundred and eighty degrees in the middle of the road before it started to head towards the main road and higher ground.

I could only jog behind.

‘Gabby, I think you’ve got a little confused,’ I suggested as the night air cracked to the sound of the whip.

‘Sky News,’ she shouted. ‘Jeremy Thompson say we be all under water.’

‘Did he?’ I asked, having not seen or heard a word of news all day. You might wonder about my not asking for more information but I will always believe what Jeremy Thompson has to say.

‘Tidal surge,’ was the last thing I heard Gabby shout as she got an extra bit of speed from the horse. I could only grab onto the back of the cart and pull myself up next to the washing machine.

We travelled for nearly three hours before Gabby gave the horse a rest. By then, we were on the border to England, a good few hundred feet above sea level, and I was frozen to the tumble dryer.

‘How much further do you think we need to go?’ I asked, as Gabby appeared at the back of the cart.

‘We wait here, tonight,’ she said, taking a bearing from the stars.

‘I’m freezing,’ I chattered.

‘Better than being in water,’ she replied, uncaring.

Somewhere around three o’clock in the morning, a police car arrived and asked Gabby why she’d chopped down the ‘Welcome to Wales’ sign and was now burning it on the hard shoulder.

‘Chip cold. We build fire,’ she explained. She turned and smiled at the policeman. ‘You want hot dog?’ she asked, holding out a stick with something hot and sizzling on the end. The meat was tough. I hadn’t dare ask her where she’d got it.

‘No thank you, ma’am. But do you think you could explain what you’re doing here?’

‘We avoid flood.’

‘Flood?’ asked the officer.

‘The tidal surge,’ I explained, sitting at the side of the road and wrapped in the dressing gown I’d recovered from the pile of my belongings.

‘You mean the tidal surge that is currently moving down the east coast?’

I didn’t think I could have got colder but I did.

‘That’s the one,’ said Gabby, brazen in her ignorance. ‘We got to move. Get to high ground.’

I got home this morning at five o’clock, frozen and demoralised. Gabby doesn’t know chagrin, though she’s now more fully cognisant on the difference between ‘east’ and ‘west’ . She marched up the flat with a defiant swagger. ‘This good practice for next time,’ was all she would say. This afternoon will be interesting. There’s a cart to unload and a horse that needs returning to whoever she took it from.

All of which is why I didn’t blog yesterday. I hope you understand…

A Problem of Names

‘But they will think it’s porno!’ said the publisher.

‘But it’s my name!’

‘Then you’ll have to use a pseudonym.’

‘Like hell I will,’ I replied. ‘I’ve waited years for a chance to see my name in a book shop. I’m not going to hide behind Margaret Flippyhackle or John T. Moustache. What’s wrong with Chip Dale?’

‘Porno…’ said the publisher, stuffing my finished manuscript into her bag. ‘I would imagine that some shops would even refuse to stock it with a name like that.’

She was about to stand up but I couldn’t leave the meeting without resolving the issue.

‘Chipendale Monroe,’ I suggested as a compromise.

‘Sounds like an American president. And a bad Democratic one at that…’

‘Chip Pearl?’

‘A brand of toothpaste.’

‘Chip Waters.’

‘Too much like a bluesman from the old Mississippi.’ She sat back down. ‘You need to go for a radically new name. Something that sounds unique yet bland. Sean Marvin.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘How about Matthew Robbberts. We’ll play on the mystery of why your surname has three ‘r’s in it.’

She was clearly not thinking creatively. ‘Norbert Huskins,’ I said, believing I was onto a winner. ‘A novel by Norbert Huskins. That has a certain charm to it, don’t you think?’

‘Norbert? You don’t look like a Norbert.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I look like a Chip, which is oddly what I am.’

‘Look Chip, my dear, I understand your frustration. But we can’t be selling you with the name Chip Dale. Nobody will take you seriously with a name like that. It’s going to be hard enough to sell a nine hundred page novel set against the backdrop of the Belgian kipper industry.’

‘Archibald Clinker. Stanley Krinkle. Arthur P. Mucklebeer. Ernst Gunst. Terrence Wriggle. Norman Clutterbuck Jnr…’ I fell sobbing to the table. ‘What about Hector Sparrow?’

The publisher looked at me with a tear in her eye. ‘Poor Chip. Something as simple as a name and you fall to pieces.’

She was right. It hadn’t been the weeks of polishing, proof reading, and corrections that had broken me. It was the fact that I’d dreamed of seeing Chip Dale’s name stuck between those of Roald Dahl and Charles Dickens. I sobbed for a while, muttering the occasional name which sprang to mind, but after a while, I looked up and found that the other chair was empty. I paid for my meal and walked miserably from the coffee shop. I headed to the station for my train back to Bangor. I’ve got a few months of searching for a new name, a new identity, but I know it won’t be easy. Gabby wants me to take a Romanian name but I’ve started to compile the list though, as you can see, I’ve not got very far. Henry Brusque. Victor Kripple. Saul Bellow. Simon Onions. John Updike. Randolph Mercy. Philip Roth… Philip Roth? Not bad...

The Welsh Amateur Thong Awards!

Wow! What a party! We’re just back from the Welsh Amateur Thong Awards, sponsored by PouchSoft. I must say that I’ve never had such a fun time. Gabby is such a great dancer. I was spinning her round the floor all night and I don’t think her hip popped out on more than twice. And, even when it did, it only took a couple of smacks with a tyre iron to get in back in there and we’d be off again, tripping the light fantastic.

I was there in my role as President of the British Thong Society, and I presented two awards to upcoming strippers. It's great to see young Thonglateers following the footsteps of the great Chipster himself. And what's even better, I ended the night with my hands full!

The Iranian Tourist Board

Gabby informed me last night that she’d liked to see more of the world.

‘I grow tired of UK,’ she said, clearly remaining at heart as much the roving vagabond as the day I found her sleeping in the doorway to Timothy Whites all those years ago. ‘Gabby wants adventure, to see old ruins, drive through mystical landscapes, be attacked by local bandits and return fire from back of Land Rover.’

‘So why not have a weekend in Pembroke?’ I suggested. It wasn't that I'm against these exotic holidays but I do fear for the size of carbon footprint Gabby’s wanderings would leave on the planet.

‘I want to go abroad,’ she said with a thick pout.

‘England?’

‘Abroad abroad.’ Now she stamped her foot and a bayonet slipped out of her trouser leg.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘you want a holiday. Where would like to go?’

A sheepish look developed over in her quarter of the room. I could see that things were not wholly unplanned. There have been plenty of midnight phone calls between the Cheeky sisters and I thought I could detect the influence of the slightly more hair-brained Monica in this unexpected turn of events.

‘I been in contact with the Iranian Tourist Board,’ said Gabby. ‘They tell me Iran is exciting country full of fun activities.’

You can imagine my surprise.

‘Fun activities?’ I asked. ‘Such as what?’

‘They tell me I would be very welcome. They like athletic young women who enjoy rough and tumble, likes to throw stones, climb cranes.’

I cradled my head in my hands, my hands on my elbows, and, most reassuring of all, elbows on my thong. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘do you really think Iran is a country for you?’ I thought about that for a moment and decided to start again. ‘Of all the places in the world, don’t you think Iran is a bit dangerous, even for commandos who’ve had the best that Romania has to offer in combat training?’

She jumped up from the sofa and picked up her laptop, which she dumped before me. The screen was already loaded and I was looking at the website for the Iranian Tourist Board, complete with personal welcome from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

‘You know,’ I said after a few moments of careful consideration. ‘I’m not sure this website is entirely legitimate.’

‘It real,’ screamed Gabby. ‘It say so. It say Iranian Tourist Board.’

I waved down her complaint. ‘It’s not that I would every doubt the words of a man like Ahmadinejad but don’t you think it odd that the Iranian Tourist Board would have a website with the tag, “There’s More to Iran Than Missiles”? If you ask me, this isn’t entirely official.’

She snatched the laptop away from me. ‘But Gabby want to play stoning game with people.’

‘The stoning game is not a game,’ I said. ‘And that’s it, as far as I’m concerned. We’re not going to Iran. Don’t you get enough kicks torturing the innocent in your duties as a traffic warden?’

‘No,’ she said, simply. ‘No I do not.’

Half an hour later she comes crawling back, tapping on the door to my den.

‘Chippy,’ she said, her voice trailing sincerity like a slug trails slime.

‘Yes, Gabby,’ I sighed. ‘What is it now? Can’t you see that I’m busy curing these thongs with my mallet?’

‘I don’t want to go to Iran for holiday.’

‘I’m glad you see sense. Horrible place.’

‘We stay in UK instead.’

‘Fine idea.’

‘We got for week in Newcastle.’

The mallet hit my finger and I cursed a foul word. ‘Newcastle?’ I pushed the pile of new thongs aside and grabbed my own laptop. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘perhaps Iran isn’t that bad an idea. What did you say the address of the Iranian Tourist Board is again?’

The Crate

On behalf of myself and my Romanian friend, I’d like to apologise to the passengers of the 8.32 express from London Euston to Bangor for the non-arrival of their train. Not that any of this is my fault, you understand. All I did was open the front door when the bell rang. The rest was merely the result of my being caught up in the maelstrom of history.

‘Delivery for Dale,’ said the thick set man from DHL. ‘You Dale?’

‘Big Chip Dale,’ I confirmed. ‘Thonglateer Extraordinaire, aka The Chipster.’

I only told him this because I’ve been expecting a large crate marked ‘THONGS’ to arrive from the manufacturer and I was already excited, anticipating an afternoon spent curing them. After a six hour soak in warm pineapple oil, each thong would have to be carefully beaten with a mallet until it became soft and pliable. Only then would I hang them up, still damp with oil, ready for the next performance. This, I think you’ll agree, is a detail of the stripper’s life that it’s rare to see portrayed in the media.

The delivery man’s eyes narrowed. Peas pressed beneath an iron heel came to mind. ‘This is for Gabriel Dale,’ he said.

‘There’s nobody here by that name,’ I replied, loudly enough to wake the sleeping Romanian, recently back from a night time commando training exercise in suburban England.

‘Wait, wait,’ came the excited squeal from the bedroom. The room shook and a door opened. ‘I Gabby,’ she said, racing to the door.

The delivery man looked down at her naked body and whistled.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ I said. ‘Shark attack. Well it wasn’t. Those are the scars if battle and unless you want to add to them, you’d better hand over the package and stop keeping her waiting.’

He stuck his pencil behind his ear and turned back to the landing. He returned a minute later wheeling a large crate. By then, I’d persuaded Gabby to get dressed and I was alone to help the delivery man get the crate into the apartment. It was a huge box, with straw sticking out between the wooden lats. Across it were written words in Romanian that I could not interpret except they seemed to have some relevance to the big red skulls painted on each side. I tipped the guy fifty pence and he smiled the smile of a man who didn’t realise how close he had come to mortal danger.

‘Well?’ I asked Gabby as she arrived from the bedroom and began to circle the crate. ‘What is it? Please tell me that you’ve not ordered another goat.’

‘Gabby get samples from Romania,’ she said. ‘She so excited!’

‘Samples of what?’

She whipped the knife from the sheath she keeps strapped to her back and began to work the lid of the box open. Then she stuck her hand into the straw and retrieved something the size and shape of a thigh and tapered at one end.

‘Fireworks!’ she screamed and began to skip around the flat, cradling the explosive to her chest. ‘Gabby decide we have firework party so I email my friend. She have key to bunker.’

Has there ever been such an ominous word uttered by a Romanian dancing with a firework?

‘Bunker?’ I repeated. ‘What sort of bunker?’

‘It not matter. Fireworks here.’ She stopped skipping and her eyes went wide. ‘We try out now?’

‘Not here, you’re not,’ I said, leaping after her as she went to the drawer where we keep our box of matches.

‘Oh, but Gabby want to see if they work.’

‘Go out somewhere,’ I said as I tried to pull the matches from her fingers.

‘The park?’

‘It’s as good a place as any,’ I said, just happy to see her away from the flat.

‘And Chip come with me.’ She released the matched and grabbed my neck in a inverted-shoulder twist hug with added thigh grip. ‘Gabby and Chip go fireworking!’ she screamed as she let me go and began to start skipping with something I was sure was meant to be handled carefully.

Bangor’s park was cold, empty, and green. Gabby had found a place well away from the small play area set aside for toddlers and a row of trees separated us from the concrete bowl used by skateboarders. Not that either places were being used on a day when a man in thermal thong was still feeling the cold. My nipples were harder than pennies.

‘This is exciting,’ said Gabby as she worked a hole in the frozen grass. The rocket was to be supported by a thin piece of wood which Gabby was now pushing into the ground. ‘Gabby think this good fun.’

‘Are you sure that’s strong enough?’ I asked but Gabby wasn’t listening. She’d got the rocket pointing vertically, give or take then slight lean where the stick was bending under the weight of the big Romanian munition.

‘I think we should have a gantry for something that big,’ I said. But it was too late. Gabby was busy trying to light a match. ‘Look, Gabs, I don’t think…’

The match flared.

‘Ready!’ squealed Gabby as she applied the match to the fuse which immediately began to spit flames as it trailed across the ground. Gabby came running back to where I was hiding behind a tree. And not just a small tree. I think I’d chosen the biggest oak tree in Wales.

‘Gabby love fireworks,’ she said, her breath clouding in the cold air. For a moment, I was sure the condensation was in the shape of a mushroom cloud.

The rocket ignited with a magnificent rush of flames that immediately incinerated the feeble stick holding it upright. This accounted for it’s first movement, which was from the vertical and to the horizontal. Fortunately, it fell away from us and more towards the toddler’s swing area, towards which it immediately began to fly.

‘No!’ I mouthed as took a turn towards the shed used by the pensioners for their crown green bowling equipment. Only some change in the rocket’s altitude took it above the shed and it span around and began to sail harmlessly away from the park.

‘Wow,’ said Gabby.

I had no time for wows. I had just seen the rocket change direction yet again and it was now heading towards the rail tracks.

At any other time of the day, it would have sailed harmlessly over the embankment, clearing it by a good twelve feet. Unfortunately, with the 8.32 London Euston to Bangor Express sitting there, waiting for the signals to change, the rocket impacted at the mid point of the lead engine. The noise was like a dull thump. When the smoke cleared, I could see daylight through the mid section of the engine and beyond it, the trail of the rocket still climbing into the far distance.

‘It’s gone clean through it,’ I said.

Gabby clapped. ‘Armour tipped,’ she said with evident pride at the quality of Romanian fireworks.

We got home in time to hear the news of the explosion at the Army’s weapons dump outside Rhyl. No injuries have been reported at this time and the cause has yet to be determined. As for the hole in the 8.32 London Euston to Bangor Express, a migrating heron is thought to have been behind the mysterious hole. We all know quite different, of course, but for the sake of Welsh-Romanian relations, I’d think it best if we leave it there.

Gabby got home and ran straight to the crate to see if they’d sent another rocket. When it was evident they hadn’t, I sank into my armchair.

‘Let that be a lesson,’ I began.

‘Lesson? You mean bigger stick next time?’ asked Gabby standing up. In her arms was something three feet long with tail fins.

‘My God, what the hell is that?’

She hugged it to her breast. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Romanian Strategic Cruise Roman Candle but I’m saving this for November fifth.’

Take The Jeremy Clarkson Test

Go!

That’s for any of you who have already read this and having decided to test out my theory are reading it for a second time. But trying what out, do I hear you cry? Well, it’s my Jeremy Clarkson test, which I’m hoping to get approved by the great man as soon as I work out how to contact him.

I formed this theory when I noticed that Clarkson's books are hard avoid. They are in every shop, given away free with every bottle of Old Spice you buy from Boots, and you can’t have your breakfast without one falling out of a packet of ‘Oats Are A Bit Simple’. He is the nation’s most popular writer of non-fiction, unless you include Bill Bryson. But we don’t need to include Bill Bryson because we know that, all things being equal, it would come down to a fist fight and Clarkson wouldn’t play fair. Bryson would barely have time to strip off his comfortably warm woolly jumper before Clarkson would shoot him with an RPG he’s smuggled in from Afghanistan. Bryson would go the way of a Soviet helicopter high in the Hindu Kush.

It would leave Clarkson the winner and I could get on with explaining why I think he’s so popular. And it’s this:

Jeremy Clarkson is popular because it takes the same length of time to read one of his columns as it does to have a good bowel movement.

This is true. I encourage you to try is for yourself. This piece you're reading now is the perfect Clarkson length. The next time you feel yourself sliding towards a little relief, take this or any one of Clarkson’s witty rants about the French with you. You’ll find that from beginning to end, the column takes the same length of time to internalise as it does for you to, well, externalise.

Clarkson has mastered the lavatory read. He’s also adapted well to the unique requirements of this much misunderstood form of literature. Alfred Lord Tennyson was once the preferred choice of reading, with his long and slow moving poems the perfect thing for those low-fibre Victorians with fifty seven layers of britches and drawers. Have you not wondered why the nation has grown less intelligent as our dietary habits have improved? It is because we don’t spend as much time reading on the toilet. As everybody knows: it’s not what we learn in the classroom that improves us but what we read while we would otherwise be contemplating our knees.

Clarkson is the writer of the age. Humour is a proven relaxant, so his book, full of hair-brained schemes and slightly jingoistic looks at foreigners, are perfect for getting your insides moving. It’s certainly better than bouncing up and down for five minutes on the seat. He should really be prescribed on the national health instead of prunes, which as everybody knows, really are bad for you.

Okay. Now, I believe my time is up and those of you who have tried my little experiment will be wanting to pull up your trousers or skirts and be getting back to what you were doing. Those of you who haven’t finished, I really don’t know what to say. You’ve had all the time you needed…

Have you thought about eating more prunes?

Search Terms

I think it's time for the top 10 search terms that brought people here in the last week:

10. Chip n Dale ferrets
9. Chipendale in Halifax
8. do Chip n Dale squirrels have penises

(To which I would have answered: no, that's why they squeak so much.)

7. Chip Dale ticklish testicles
6. Chinese chip n dale dancers
5. Cheap thongs wedding presents
4. Fixing broken chipendale chair (+fat woman)
3. i love men dancing in chip fat
2. big chipendales how much

But my favourite happened just a few hours ago and came from Turkey:

1. ‘Bigger underwear for attractive men’.

Need I say more?