Bangor Beach

If you just measure these things by shrinkage, the Bangor shoreline is not a good place for a man in his underpants to be on a cold day in September. However, give a talented photographer a few filters and a pair of old socks and it's astonishing what they can make of it.

The modelling assignment was the first decent job I’ve had in months but it might not have even happened if I hadn’t been experiencing problems in my relationship with all things Romanian.

For the last fortnight, Gabby just hasn't been happy with my making money from bare-knuckle fighting. After my last match when I poleaxed the UK's bare knuckle gypsy champion, she told me to choose either her or the fighting. I had little choice, especially when she had a knife at my throat, but Gabby seemed genuinely relieved and marked my decision by using up a favour she had with the photographer who does all the shots for the Cheeky Girl albums. It turns out that he was in Wales and looking for somebody to model a pair of underpants. Gabby suggested my name and the date was set for last Friday. You can see the result above.

You might be a bit surprised by the amount of clothes I’m wearing. All I can say is that you all know me well enough by now that it will come as no surprise that I normally won’t allow myself to be photographed in anything more than a thong. But this mattered more to me than my image. My relationship with Gabby was at stake. If I had to wear clothes, thought I, then let them be clothes about to be torn from my windswept body by a chilly south-easterly. It’s the reason for the obvious shrinkage but in a way it makes it more suitable for a family audience.

The photographer promised me that it would look tasteful and I think he’s kept his word. I’m not sure about the dark patches on the sand and I think if he was going to spend so much time airbrushing out my ponytail he might also have touched up the raw human sewage. I can tell you: I barely touched my champagne, the stench was so overpowering.

However, we must all suffer for our art and I hope the picture will bring me more modelling gigs. Just, next time, I want a warmer day. That shrinkage is really quite disappointing.

The Chipster Never Stops Giving...

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So what do you think?

What do you mean you’re overwhelmed? Oh, wipe away those tears! It was nothing. You all deserve the occasional treat, and, today, the Chipster has not one treat but seven. Seven high quality desktops so you can admire Wales’ top tourist attraction every moment of the day. Male or female: these are the desktops for you...

I’ve been arranging this little surprise for a while but it was Clive James who convinced me to act tonight. I managed to catch an interview he did with Terry Gilliam when he said something along the lines of: ‘It’s the death of art when you can put something off and not do the thinking immediately.’

That, I thought, sums the Chipster if nothing else does. I’m always putting off tomorrow what can be done today. Except now. These pictures are very now and I’m sure you’ll agree they’re very artistic. I also figured that if Britney Spears can thank her fans by posing semi-nude, The Chipster can go one better.

Tomorrow morning, Wales’ most gratifying body attached to the most promising face will be heading into England for the day. I also hope to spend some time in a bookshop. So if you happen to be in a Border's store and see a man sitting in the coffee shop, wearing a pale cream Hawaiian shirt with green trees, drinking a large orange juice and either scribbling furiously in a notebook or reading Clive James’ newest book, don’t hesitate to pop over and have a chat. You can tell me how bloody good I look sitting on your desktop.

I have one request, though. When you download these pictures to use as a desktop, please don’t start leaving icons sitting on my nipples. They chafe terribly.

So, until later…

Thong on…

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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?’