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.

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?

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.’

Chip Dale's Underwear Tips, Volume 28

‘Underwear for big genitals’!

Doesn’t that just say it all? Months or writing this blog and it has become the top search destination for people unnaturally blessed below the belt line. There are days when I seriously consider abandoning this blogging lark. Days when I think there aren’t enough people reading. There are days when I wonder if the people who are reading are quite understanding what they’re reading. But never have I imagined that I’d become the authority on surgical supports, trusses, and ‘underwear for big genitals’. Do I really want to be read by a person who’d type that into Google? What can I say except I hope they found what they were looking for?

As worrying as this development is, it does raise an important questions. Does this blog really cater to those of us who keep more in our pockets than our car keys and a rolled up copy of the Exchange and Mart? I think it's only right for every prospective leader of the Liberal Democrats to say where they stand on these important issues. Is a thong big enough? Where can the larger man (or indeed lady) purchase generously proportioned thongs? What kind of tonnage can a thong take and does it put unnatural stresses on the buttocks? Clearly, Sir Ming could never answer any of these questions and that’s why he had to go. I can, so perhaps I should stay.

We should begin with the basics. The well-stressed pouch applies a force of forty two Newtons per square inch of silk across the buttocks on a normally sized man. It's a key figure in the mathematics that follow. Times that by the square root of your droop and you'll have the coefficient I like to call Mildred. Mildred to the power of ten is approximately the right width of your pouch, which, when raised to the power of twelve, tells you how much stretch you will require in your downward bounce.

In the larger gentleman, the droop figure tends to be a multiple of seven. So, for every additional centimeter you must times it by two, add pi, drop it down a deep well, leave for a month, and then sprinkle with crushed black pepper. You then have your thong adjustment ratio, which you can take to any licensed thong maker and they will be able to make you a thong that won’t unduly stress your hips, nor indeed your buttocks. Thong makers are listed in your Yellow Pages, but due to government legislation which we thong wearers are still trying to get overturned, they are listed under Surgical Supports.

Now, beat that Chris Huhne.

The New Catalogue Arrives

You find the Chipster in the mood for litigation. As you can no doubt see, my complimentary copy of J.D. Williams’ new Autumn and Winter catalogue landed on the doorstep today. What else can I say except that promises were not kept by the industy leaders in the larger sized gusset. I never wanted you to see me like this. It’s somewhat humbling, especially since I thought that I’d had a zero-Y-front clause written into my contract.

The picture was taken when I was much younger and in a bad place. It was actually a few months ago when I was stuck on the corner of Poverty and Flat Broke. There’s a well worn bench there where my cheeks regularly rest. The last time I found myself struggling to raise cash, I agreed to do a little male modelling to help pay the bills. I’ve done catalogue work before but it has usually been for high quality menswear or the occasional bit of crotch work for ‘Thong Monthly’. Most of the pictures of the lower half of men’s torsos you see in that magazine are of me. Most of the buttocks too. I’ve also done other work for Argos and for all of the major retail catalogues. That’s me you see in shots of tightly packed swimming trunks. It may not be as well known as being the Face of Avon but being the Speedo Crotch is still a kind of fame.

As is usually with the J.D. Williams gigs, I had to travel up to the studio in Manchester where I spent a day changing in and out of different items of clothing, striking random poses, and having my picture taken. It was towards the end of the morning session when we did the underwear shoot. I’d never before worked for Keith, the photographer, so I was a bit hesitant when I came out of the changing room in just a vest and pair of high band y-fronts.

‘How do you want me?’ I’d asked him as I took my place on the set.

‘Just point into the distance as though you’re hailing a bus,’ he replied, barely bothering to look up from his camera.

I peered over my glasses. ‘As though I’m doing what?’ I asked.

‘Hailing a bus.’

‘In my underpants?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ he asked.

I thought about an old Groucho Marx line. ‘What a bus is doing in my underpants, I’ll never know,’ I said and wiggled an imaginary cigar as I did the Grouch walk. I can’t imagine how I looked. Or looking at the above picture, perhaps I can…

Keith just gazed at me, the huge camera resting on his hip. ‘Are you going to point like I tell you to or do we have to get another model?’

I hitched up my underpants which had sagged at my Groucho. I said I would do what he said but it went against all my instincts. There might be little I’ve not done wearing just my thong but I would be seen dead signalling for a bus in a pair of Y-fronts. Not even in Manchester where that sort of thing isn’t frowned upon as it should.

‘Look, Chip, love,’ said Keith, ‘I am the photographer and you are the model. If I tell you to stand as though you’re being given an enema by a midget, you will stand as though you’re being given an enema by a midget. Capiche?’

I did more than capiche. That was the sort of instruction I could work with. ‘Oh, like this?’ I asked, hitting the slightly mannered pained look.

‘Perfect!’ he cried and shot the photograph you see at the top of this post.

It was only at the end of the day, as we looked through all shots, that I noticed how well I had indeed caught the look of being given an enema by a midget.

‘Oh, that’s much too realistic,’ I said, pointing it out on the digital lightbox. ‘And I’m beginning to regret allowing you to shoot me in those pants. They don’t do the Chipster a bit of justice.’

‘Perfectly good shot,’ Keith replied, though I was beginning to think he was growing tired of me.

‘But I look too much like I’m being given an enema by a midget. That’s not how I’d like my many fans to think of me.’

He sighed and raised his glasses to prop them on the top of his head in that way that all creative types sometimes do. ‘Look, you don’t like it. Fine. We lose it.’ He clicked on the picture and dumped it into the Mac’s wastebasket.

‘You are a true gent,’ I told him as I picked up my coat. I shook his hand and was on my way.

Since that day, I’d heard nothing until this morning when Gabby found the catalogue.

‘What Chip doing?’ she howled and fell backwards reeling with laughter.

I picked the catalogue from her fingers and saw my picture.

‘He was a very bad photographer,’ I explained. ‘And to make matters worst, they can’t even spell “briefs” correctly.’

I dropped the catalogue to the floor but Gabby rescued it before I had chance to stamp on it.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘We keep it. We show people what Chip looks like in underpants.’

‘I’m sure people aren’t interested,’ I said.

‘Chip,’ she said, smoothing out the page. ‘You look lovely. You look just like you being given enema by midget.’

Dorothy Wordworth's Thong

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

I just had to get away.

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

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

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

Wordsworth has a lot to answer for.

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

Good Work If You Can Get It

In a desperate attempt to bring more money into the house, I did some work over the weekend that took me out of my familiar comfort zone of the Green Dragon Tavern and into… Well, it wasn’t the first time I’ve worked as a stripogram but it had to be one of the most uncomfortable.

My destination was a house that sits on the outskirts of Bangor but, other than this one detail, I can’t say too much about it. If you know the area, you’d immediately know where I’m talking about and you’d undoubtedly know the people involved.

The phone call from the agency came in a seven o’clock last night. It gave me the usual clear directions to the house and some further instructions as to the role I was to play. I had to get there at ten o’clock, wearing my policeman’s uniform, and having memorised a speech down to the specifics of a cat’s name.

At nine fifty three, I turned the car up the short drive leading to the house. Fearing that my arrival might be noticed, I parked in the shadow of a low willow that resembled a hunchbacked gardener sweeping the path. It gave me the cover I needed to get prepared and only when my helmet was sitting snuggly on my head, with my hair pushed tight down my collar, did I make my way up to the front door and ring the bell.

I should have realised that something was wrong the moment the chimes began to play ‘Morning Has Broken’ but I didn’t have time to think of much about anything other than trying to remember a cat’s name since the door opened almost immediately.

The woman standing there was dourness dressed in a plaid skirt and a light green blouse fastened at the neck with an old fashioned broach. She couldn’t have been older than forty but her shoes looked to have come through World War II with her. They were in black leather, block nosed, with a buckle on the side and utterly suited to the opaque stretch of thick nylon stockings that concealed her shapeless legs.

‘Yes?’ she asked.

‘Miss Primrose?’ I replied, a bit flustered at the time but not enough now to make me reveal the woman’s real name. I really should save her the embarrassment.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ she said, a tight voice fit for good breeding and manners.

‘Could I come inside? I need to talk to you about Mr. Marmaduke,’ I said, beginning to suspect I had the wrong address. ‘I believe he’s your cat?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, he is,’ she said, her hand straying to her neck in that nervous way that some women have. She ushered me inside. ‘What’s wrong with him. I’ve only this minute let him out of the kitchen...’

The hall led into a front room where I found four other women, all of the same age as Miss Primrose, and all of them of the same kind of slightly repressed spinster types.

‘My friends,’ she explained.

‘Ah, I’m sorry to interrupt a party,’ I said.

‘Oh, we’re just having a quiet drink,’ she explained. ‘It’s my last night as a single woman.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, I’m sorry to bother you when you have guests but I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Won’t you sit down?’

‘No, no, tell me now,’ she said nervously but, nevertheless, sitting down. I smiled. It would make my job easier.

‘Yes,’ I continued, ‘you see, I have rather sad news about Mr. Marmaduke.’

‘Has something happened to him?’ she asked, tears coming quickly to her eyes.

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I’m here to investigate reports of neglect.’

‘Neglect?’ Her voice conveyed the right degree of outrage. ‘I don’t understand…’

‘I’ve had reports that Mr. Marmaduke has been neglecting your lovin’.’

It was corny, I know, but it’s what I’d been told to say.

‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Miss Primrose, suddenly flushed and looking quite confused. It was time, I thought, to clear up her confusion.

‘I’ll show you what I mean,’ I said and took out the small tape cassette player from my pocket, hit the play button, and set it down on a coffee table. The flat tinny strains of Tom Jones singing ‘Like a Woman’ radiated no further than the table as I began to unbutton my tunic.

Well she’s all you’d ever want,
She’s the kind I’d like to flaunt and take to dinner.
Well she always knows her place,
She’s got style, she’s got grace, she’s a winner.
She’s a lady, whow whow whow, she’s a lady…

It was all rather pitiful. Normally when I begin one of these strips, the women in the room are ready for it and it’s not long before the screaming begins and the music is drowned out by the excitement.

Only, in this case, there was nothing. Not a scream, not a groan, not even a shocked intake of breath. All I could hear was the ticking of an old grandfather clock in the corner of the room as five women looked at me with faces which began white and only got paler as I started sending my policeman’s uniform to all corners of the room.

I was down to my thong when Miss Primrose interrupted me.

‘I take it that you’re not with the local constabulary,’ she said.

I dropped my hands to my side, already feeling a bit warm from all the gyrations and hip thrusting. I looked down at my naked torso, glistening with sweat.

‘What gave it away? Was it the body glitter?’

She shrugged and pressed stop on the tape player. ‘I think we've had enough of dear old Tom. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘You look exhausted.’

‘You don’t want me to finish?’

She looked around the room. ‘I’ll go and make the tea,’ she said. ‘And in the meantime, why don’t you find out which of my friends put you up to this.’

I slumped down into a chair, disconsolate at another professional failure.

‘Don’t worry,’ said a mousy little woman sitting on the end of the sofa. ‘You’ll get your money.’ She smiled and looked at her friends. ‘Don’t tell Sarah, but we all paid for this treat, only I think there’s been a mistake. You were meant to be a singing telegram. You were meant to sing “We have a friend in Jesus.”’

‘Sing? I can’t sing,’ I said. ‘And what kind of hen night is this? Asking a man to sing about Jesus?’

‘Hen night?’ the woman laughed. ‘This isn’t a hen night.’

‘But your friend said this is the last night she’ll be a single woman.’

‘That’s right. Tomorrow, Sarah’s taking the vow. She’s becoming a bride of Christ. She’s becoming a nun.’

Well, I’ve known plenty of nuns in my time but not one of them had been religious, unless, of course, lap dances have become sanctified by the Church. I was about to mention this when Miss Primrose came back in carrying a cup of teal in one hand and a small leather bound book in the other.

‘Now then, I want you to drink this while I read you something,’ she said.

‘You’re not going to save me, are you?’ I asked.

She smiled and patted the book. ‘I don’t save anybody. I leave that to a very good friend of mine. He can be very persuasive.’

That I didn’t doubt.

I sank back into my chair and gazed down at my thong as the woman began to speak. It might have been a trick of the light or something in the tea, but I swear I saw a bearded face looking back at me from the sequins.

And, thought I couldn’t be sure, I like to think that he was grimacing too.

The Seed Pods from Outer Space

Alien pods. Or at least, that’s what Gabby thinks they are.

They began to appear two days ago but only really came to my notice when I took off my thong last night and found dozens of the things hidden deep inside the pouch. It was as if they’d gone there for the warmth and humidity. Gabby went pale when I showed them to her.

‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ was all that she would say and shook her head slowly.

I had hoped for more of a reassuring explanation from a woman who spends most of her days down by the allotments.

Today there are hundreds more of them. They are literally floating through my window and, even as I type, the odd one will settle on my keyboard. Are they seeds? Are they insect? Are they even of this world. I don’t know what they are and I need help. There aren’t many trees in the area and we’re at the top of a three story building. Yet these little things keep dropping from the sky, as though making the final stage in some interplanetary trip.

Before I wake up to find that everybody in Bangor has been replaced by an unthinking zombie, could somebody at least alert the authorities.

The invasion has started, I tell you. They are here among us!

A Novel Update

I’m afraid that it will have to be another brief update, today, Thonglateers. Gabby and Monica are in Birmingham, opening a gardening show. Later in the day they’ll be helping a knife manufacturer launch a new range of penknives, which means that I have another 24 hours of peace to push towards the end of the novel I’ve been writing for the last twelve weeks.

Yesterday I wore my fingers down to the knuckle and proofread 207 pages, with the word count of the whole anarchic nonsense rising by two thousand words. I have another hundred pages to go and a conclusion to write, but the end is in sight and I hope to be be back to thong snapping normality within the week.

I know you’re not interested in statistics and only come here hoping to catch me doing something limber in my thong, but there’s really not much else to say except ask: does anybody know a good way to finish a novel with a twist? Writing a book is nothing like finishing a strip. There's a natural end to the latter, while a book can just go on and on. It's an everyday tale about a thong gone wrong, but I have absolutely no idea how to end it.

Ned Sherrin's Busted Lip

I got in last night to find the Chipster’s answer phone producing a light show that would induce a fit in man less healthy than I, or at least, one who hasn't spent the last ten years stripping under strobes. At first, I thought it must have been a message of complaint from James Higham, asking me to stop encouraging you all to vote for me in the Blog Power Awards. We’re running neck and neck, though for a few moments last night, I pulled out into the lead for Most Articulate Wordsmith. The idea is that we can each vote once a day and if we can only keep these votes going until Wednesday, we might just steal this one. The question is: can you keep it up? The Chipster intends to push you every inch of the way.

It turns out, however, that the message wasn’t related to the Blog Power Awards. It seems I’d been too hasty in making a judgement earlier in the day. It was a pretty terse message from Fren Britton, telling me that she would be interested in becoming the new honourary president of the British Thong Society and that she’s pretty annoyed that she hadn’t been asked.

If I wasn’t convinced before, this gives me an extra reason why I should now accept the honour. The thing with Fern is that once she gets it into her mind that she wants something, nothing will stop her from getting it. The woman is like American foreign policy. It might take an eternity to decide to move, but once it’s going, it can shift continents whether continents want to be shifted or not.

I had this problem with her a year or so ago. Those of you new to Chip Dale’s Dairy probably don’t know about the run in I had with dear Fern when ‘This Morning’ came to Wales for a week during the assembly elections.

I’d been invited on the show to talk about my life as the country’s top male stripper and also explain why I was then such a huge supporter of the Lib Dem cause. At first, everything was going well. The lawyers had passed my thong for morning viewing and, so long as I didn’t turn my back to the camera, I'd be litigation free. I’d been fully made up by a make-up lady who said she hadn’t seen a tan as real as mine since the days she used to work with the late Bob Monkhouse. Of course, he wasn’t the late Bob Monkhouse back then and his tan was better than it’s been lately, which made it quite the compliment.

After that, I went out onto the studio floor where I began limber up in a corner. That's when Fern came across. Turns out that she’d taken offence at the way I’d bent over. I don’t want to get into the biological descriptions of what she claims to have seen but there was an accusation that my thong had not covered something that should have been covered and a previous evening’s meal had been on display. She mentioned 'prawns'...

You might say that her interest in thong development began at that moment because it turned into a heated argument about the right way to wear a thong. Then she told me that she didn’t want me on the show and asked me to leave the studio. Of course, having travelled all the way from Bangor to Cardiff, I wasn’t too happy and I told her as much.

I regret pretty much everything that happened from that moment on.

Old Schofield tried to act as peacemaker but the man has too kind a heart. He tried to lift Fern off me as we scrapped on the floor. He should have kept well back. He caught Fern’s leg in his mush and then he just went crazy! He was lashing out in all directions and even Fern looked frightened as he overturned a studio camera and then turned his fury on Ned Sherrin who ended up with a busted lip. Poor old Ned should learn the time and place for a wry bon mot.

In the end, it took the common sense of Shane Richie to calm things down. Fern nipped back to make up to have power put on her bruised knuckles and I was led limping from the studios, swearing that I’d never make another appearance on morning TV. And to this day, I haven’t.

I don't know why I've told you all this except by way of asking you to vote for me. But I hope you've done that already and all ready to vote for me again tomorrow.

Cycling, Recycling and Bus Travel

The problem with being an accident-prone 30-year-old whose interests include cycling, recycling and bus travel (cough) is that I'm often mistaken for other people. Visitors to this blog often ask me if my picture is real and not that of a friend. Well, all I can say is that I am really me. And I hope the ladies love me for my charm, my wit, and my intellect, and not for my good looks and great body.

More later...

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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Thonging On...

I’ll be away from home today but if any of you read this blog with the intention of trying to steal Wales’ largest thong collection, you needn’t bother... I’m leaving the flat fully armed with a detachment of Romanian girlfriend standing behind the door with a bread knife. You have been warned.

In order to cheer myself up after yesterday’s funeral, I’ll be spending the afternoon in a bookshop. So, if you see a sad figure sitting alone in the corner of a coffee shop and reading a book, then it might well be me.

The service was lovely. We had tributes from a few of Larry’s fans and having been reminded of Thom Gunn’s poetry yesterday by Ms. Baroque, I read these lines which seemed relevant to the moment.

Deeper into damper ground
Till the granules work their way
Down to unseen streams, and bound
Briskly into to water’s play

May you lastly reach the shore,
Joining tide without intent,
Only worried any more
By the currents’ argument.

It gives me great comfort to think of old Larry dancing on the waves like he’s in some great cosmic spin cycle. He was a good thong but I’m sure other thongs will soon fill the void he’s left behind him. I have a nice yellow thong that I’m thinking of promoting…

We’ll speak later…

Larry RIPped

A bit of a disaster at Chipster Central and some sad news too.

Yesterday, our washing machine broke down. The engineer has been this morning and diagnosed the problem. He found Larry twisted, dead, and ruined at the back of the drum. He must have found his way there during a spin cycle and the poor little fellow couldn’t escape. It’s a sad loss.

Larry, should you not remember, was my favourite thong. He’s been with me years and has seen many a sight that would make a honest man blush with shame. It’s a terrible loss so I hope you’ll understand if my spirits are a bit low today. I'll post something more upbeat later in the day when my spirits have recovered.

In addition to having to attend Larry’s funeral later today (we’re planting him in an old walnut jewelry case in the communal garden) I’m also preoccupied by a visit from the BT engineer. We’re having our phone lines changed over to BT so those of you with my number, don’t try to call me until you’ve emailed me and got the new number.

Poor Larry. He never lived to see a Lib Dem government, the first thong on Mars, or even Gabby’s performance on Eurovision (it’s bound to happen). It's also sad that he didn't go, as I'd always hoped I'd see him go: while I had a smile on my face.

A Letter From Mrs. Arafat

'With God all things are possible.'

I thought it a rather nice sentiment, coming, as it did, from the widow of the gentleman to your right. I like to think that God is laid back, flexible, and doesn't mind if we make the odd mistake.

I also thought it an admirable phrase, coming as it did in an email from an unexpected fan. It turns out that Mrs. Yasser Arafat reads my blog and is a huge admirer of Welsh thongdom. She also recommends that I visit Dublin and asks that I allow her to deposit $18 million dollars in my bank account. What can a man say? I've accepted, naturally...

I can tell you’re just a little bit suspicious. You’re wondering why Mrs. Arafat wants to symbolically thrust $18 dollars down the Chipster’s thong? That’s nearly nine million pounds, or 1, 800, 000 five pound notes. I have a pretty room thongs but to be honest, I think that even I would find it all a rather tight fit. Where would I put my spare set of keys? Well, to put your suspicions at rest, read the following, my thong-loving friends. Then admit that the Chipster moves in some rarefied company.

mrs.suha1122@yahoo.co.uk has sent this email to you to recommend the following page from visitdublin.com, the official tourist information web site for Dublin: http://www.visitdublin.com/contact/default.aspx.

Dear Friend,
I am Mrs.Suha Arafat Yasser from Palestinian. I am married to the late formal head of state of Palestinian for several years before he died in France after a brief illness. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only few days. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $18m (eighteen million U.S.Dollars)with a BANK in London. Presently, I have carefully moved this funds out of the bank in London and deposit it with a private company in Europe as a photo material for family use for safe keeping so that my govern we not know about this funds as they have already seized and freeze all the bank account belonging to my late husband both home and abroad. In fact the total sum allegedly discovered by the Government so far is in the tune of about $6.5 Billion Dollars. And they are not relenting on their effort to make me poor for life. As you know, the Moslem community has no regards for woman, hence my desire for a foreign assistance. You can visit the BBC news broadcast below for better understanding of what I am talking about.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3479937.stm

It is on this note that I'm asking your partnership to keep this fund to your account. I took this decision because my government is not in good terms with me; I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of the presence of my government agents around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of my lawyer who is base in London Uk to finalize this transaction with you. You are to contact my lawyr through this email address (barrchrischamber@yahoo.co.uk )
Best Regards,
Mrs. Suha Arafat Yasser

The poor woman is obviously no typist as there are just a few typos here and there, but I expect she’s still feeling the grief at losing dear old Yasser. But it’s nice to see that she’s making her independent way in the world.

Gabby thinks it's a wonderful offer and has insisted that tomorrow I nip down to my BANK (the capitals are how Mrs. Arafat seems to like them) and see what can be arranged.

I only have one question for you. Should I reply? How to you respond to the ex-wife of a powerful power broker? What should I say? Do you think she’d be interested in free tickets to one of my shows?

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 Fox In The Chicken Coop

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes

Henry David Thoreau

I only began to suspect that I’d been misled by the local representative of the poultry industry after I’d arrived at the allotments. There had been little time to give much thought to why I was needed there and my eagerness to see where I’d be staying for the night meant that I when I finally found Gabby’s shed, I hardly expected it to be set in a scene of such utter tranquillity.

Cool yet bright, it was one of those perfect spring evenings. The shed was painted green to blend in with high ivy-covered walls that surrounded it on two sides, while standing beside it, a brand new chicken coop gleamed yellow in the last rays of sunlight. The acrid smell of the weatherproofing had come to rest in the yard and now mixed with those aromas of the fresh oil, still damply oozing on the coop’s clean timbers. Ominously, there was no sign of the hens but for the occasional irritated cluck that came from behind the little door that shut them off against the world. For the first time, I wondered why exactly I was spending the night protecting them when a fox had about as much chance of getting into the coop as I had of getting a good night’s sleep among the shed’s fertilizer and forks.

I put my doubts aside as I dumped my kit in the shed and set to clearing a space for myself in one corner, as far from Gabby’s old still as possible. As you’re probably aware, the processes involved in the manufacture of potato gin leave behind a smell somewhat like a muddy field and petroleum; which are oddly enough, two of the key ingredients of potato gin.

I laid my bed out across the back of the shed with a headboard snugly made up of piled bags of John Innes No. 2 compost before I decided to make a circuit of the yard before closing the shed for the night. As the last of the daylight steamed in through the shed’s door, I checked my emergency torch a final time before I went out to patrol my small protectorate.

There really wasn’t much to see. A wheelbarrow with a squeaky wheel was the cultural highlight of my tour, followed by a patch of ground which hadn’t been turned over since the last potato harvest. The evening was also developing the sort of chill that does nobody any good, least of all a man in a thong, so I was really quite happy to get back in the shed and slide the bolt across the door.

Adapting to life in the shed was surprisingly easy. There’s a comfort to be found away from luxuries. I remembered a quote by Thoreau, who famously went to live amongst the raccoons and squirrels in his local woods: ‘a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone’. Well, I felt rich enough. I’d abandoned every luxury of the modern world except for a thermal thong, which as I’m sure you’re beginning to realise is one of life’s essentials.

I then thought of another quote by Thoreau: ‘men have become the tools of their tools’. I confess, this had me thinking for quite a while, and by the time I’d finished working it out, a total darkness had descended. Perhaps I too had become a tool of my tools. Or, I suppose, more specifically for a man in my line of work I had become a tool of my tool. I lit my torch and scribbled the aphorism down on the flap of a box of weedkiller in case I forgot it in the morning.

Men have become the tools of their tool.

Chip Dale

Only an hour into my retreat from the modern world and I’d already hit a rich vein of wisdom. Soon, I had another little chunk of the wise stuff ready to note down:

All of life’s answers can be found in a potting shed.

Chip Dale

I really was quite pleased with myself and I reflected on how this break was so clearly what I’d needed. A night away from the TV, the internet, this blog… I was instead happy to listen to nature as it prepared to nest down for the night. My supper amounted to a few cheese crackers and a can of Tango, which felt oddly out of place in such a rustic setting. Sometime around nine thirty, some large creature visited the allotments and relieved itself noisily in the darkness before sauntering off singing Phil Collins’ ‘You Can Feel It’. My torch lit up for the briefest of moments, just long enough to write out:

Phil Collins makes wise men of drunks.

Chip Dale

With all this mental exercise, I was beginning to feel extraordinarily tired and I decided it was time to get ready for bed. The absence of light drains a man in a more natural way than I would have expected. My mind drifting on the smell of potato gin and linseed oil as I slipped down into the bottom of my sleeping bag. I drifted off to the occasional cluck of the chickens next door.

A noise like a rusted gate opening woke me some time later.

I grabbed my glasses and checked my watch. It was still only three thirty.

I blinked back my sleep and the dream I’d been having about Felicity Kendal. It had been some inspired nightmare about ‘The Good Life’ and I’d been Tom Good, trying to milk a zebra in the in Margot’s shrubbery. I damned my cheese crackers and swung myself out of bed. My torch lay beneath my hand but I stopped myself from turning it on. I was sure there was something moving around outside the shed.

I looked around in the darkness, seeking out something I could fashion into a crude weapon. I then damned myself for not sleeping in my clothes. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might actually have to act and if it was a fox, I didn’t think it wise to chase it dressed only in my underwear.

That worry retreated as I realised that the thing out there was bigger than a fox and with a tread louder than the noise of my heart, hammering inside my skull. Thoughts of foxes retreated even more once the door began to rattle and an anxious voice whispered: ‘Anybody in there?’

‘Who is it?’ I said, now holding the torch like a club, half expecting the bolt to give way.

‘Is that you Mr. Dale?’ said the voice. The anxiety had disappeared and had been replaced with a gruff humour. ‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’

I stood up and turned on my flashlight before I slid back the bolt.

Standing there in the dim moonlight was the figure of a man; the same man who had sold Gabby her hens that morning.

‘I figured you might try to sleep on duty,’ said Mr. Green, gesturing towards my thong. He held up a thermos flask. ‘Thought you might be cold and wouldn’t mind some company.’

‘It’s nearly three in the morning,’ I told him, now a little calmer but considerably more confused.

‘The time all us sensible country folk get up,’ he assured me as he gestured me back into the shed. He followed me in and closed the door. ‘I’ve been wondering if you’ve had any problems with the hens. And then I thought about a man like you, not used to the rough life… I thought you wouldn’t mind a bit of company.’ He looked down at my thong and experience that odd sensation I so rarely feel: I suddenly felt terribly naked.

I was tempted to reach for my pen and write out the new aphorism that had suddenly struck me.

Never strip down to your underwear in a shed.

Chip Dale

‘You know, it gets cold this early in the year,’ he carried on. ‘So I thought you might just like a bit of company. A bit of company to keep you warm?’

And that’s when he winked.

Beware of men bearing thermos flasks in the night.

Chip Dale

I grabbed my pants and had one leg in them when Mr. Green put his hand on my arm.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Not what you think I’m about to do,’ I told him and quickly had my shirt on as well.

‘Didn’t I just explain why I’m here? I thought you’d appreciate a bit of company.’

‘So, this is you’ve come for, Mr. Green?’ I asked as I foolishly bent down for my shoes.

‘Well if you put it like that…’ he said and I felt a hand on my leg.

Things had suddenly gone beyond aphorisms.

‘You’ve got a damn cheek,’ I said.

‘You have two.’

‘I came here for the good of my girlfriend’s chickens.’

‘You seen any foxes, then?’ he laughed.

‘Just the one. And I feel really sort for it.’

‘No need to feel sorry,’ he protested. ‘This is Campbell’s soup. Only the best for you, Chip.’

‘Don’t call me Chip,’ I said.

He stepped across to the door and slid the bolt across.

‘At least have some soup,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll be going.’

‘I don’t want any soup.’

‘It’s tomato.’

Tomato happens to be my favourite but I remembered an aphorism of my uncle’s.

A man is weakened by his weaknesses.

Arthur Dale

Which is much more profound than you probably think it is. I had a terrible suspicion that this tomato soup had something more than tomatoes in it.

‘Why not try some yourself?’ I asked, seeing how he’d react.

His eyes widened momentarily before he adopted a look of hurt.

‘I don’t like tomatoes,’ he said. ‘And I brought if for you.’

‘Then you can keep your soup,’ I replied. ‘I’m off.’

‘Please stay, Chip,’ he said, a note of desperation now in his voice. ‘I get so lonely with my poultry. Farming is a sad and miserable life. I don’t have any friends. Nobody really cool and exciting to be around. Nobody like you, Chip.’

‘I thought a man can’t be lonely when he’s got chickens,’ I said. ‘I read it somewhere.’

He backed towards the door. ‘I’m not going to let you leave,’ he said. ‘You can’t leave!’

I had a flashback to a similar scene in coffee shop earlier in the week.

‘You don’t know a girl who looks like Amy Winehouse, do you?’ I asked.

He looked puzzled and I could see that he’d left his guard down as he pondered my question.

‘You mean the singer?’

It was too late. Quicker than he could react, I grabbed the box of weedkiller and threw it in his face before I threw him to one side and grabbed the door.

I blessed the darkness as I ran. The allotment had woken up to our argument but by the time I finally emerged onto the main road, the sound of frightened chickens had faded to silence and I had only the sound of a man, cursing his naïvety in all matters fowl, to follow me home.

This morning, I rang Gabby and told her the full story, as I’ve just told it you. Her immediate concern was for the condition of her chickens.

‘They sensitive,’ she said. ‘They need peace. They need quiet. You should have eaten soup!’

‘But this wasn’t about soup,’ I told her, but she wasn’t for listening to reason.

‘Soup good for you, Chip,’ she said and hung up.

‘And I suppose it’s good for the chickens too…’ I mumbled over the ominous sound of the dial tone.

Romanians Love Dimbleby

Budget day is a much revered time in the Dale household. It’s why I’ve locked myself away in the bedroom. Gabby is out there right now, watching the BBC’s coverage and lusting over David Dimbleby. She has certain feelings towards that man which aren’t totally legal. You might scoff but she keeps a picture of him in her handbag and I swear I’ve overheard conversations she’s had with her cousins where they discuss mini vans, electrical tape, and bottles of chloroform. They usually end with her advising them to rewatch The King of Comedy.

To be honest, I can’t see the appeal. In the budget, that is... not David Dimbleby. Heaven knows the man’s a magnet irrespective of your gender. However, stripping hasn’t provided me much of a mind for figures. If I’m totally honest, my interest in politics is somewhat limited. I read very few political blogs and none that deal with local politics. Belisha beacons outside Bangor’s high school and the date of this year’s church raffle aren’t things that interest me. I’m damn sure they aren’t going to fill you with the good feelings either, so I spare you the details here at Chipster Central. If it isn’t thong related, I try to spare you the details.

The same goes for economics. I care not a jot where you put the decimal point, nor how many units you carry over. Don’t speak to me of trends, of curves, of accumulated interest because my own interest will immediately decline into the red. There’s a 99% chance, + or – my not giving a damn, that I’m political eunuch. Which perhaps explains why I pin the Lib Dem colours to my door. It’s a vote for not having to vote.

Gabby is quite different. She still has that East European love with capitalism and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to earn a few pounds. She’s still a bit touchy about the BBC rejecting her application to go on The Apprentice and has written many letters of appeal to Dimbleby.

None of this is originally what I came into the bedroom to blog about but that will have to wait for another time. Gabby’s screaming at the television in vulgar Romanian. It seems that they’ve gone over to Westminster and Dimbleby’s gone from the screen.

Valentines Day

You might have noticed or you might not have been all that bothered, but it was Valentines Day today. An important night of the year for the master Thongster, you might think. And you'd be wrong. You'd be wrong because you've not given it enough thought to realise that for a stripper, Valentines Day is like Christmas Day for Santa Claus. It's the one day of the year we can be sure to have rest.

For tonight was the night when the nation went thong crazy. Across the land, cries of pain will have been heard from the two dozen men that statistics tell us will be made permanently infertile after pulling off their thongs without having read the instructions carefully. At least two men, statistically speaking, will have severed their manhood in the heat of passion. And statistics will tell us that at least one goat will also be injured in the rush to woo the nation’s ladies. A thong is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. As, I might add, is a goat but, for the sake of one of my Lib Dem friends, I don’t want to linger on a point that's so close to his hearts. Well, at least seven inches lower down, to be precise.

I, on the other hand, have not worn a thong all day. It’s only day of the year I can be sure to have off so I’ve been relaxing in an extremely large and baggy pair of Y fronts. To me that’s exotic when every man in the land is donning his thong, greasing himself liberal, and generally doing the pudding for his dearest and nearest.

Which leaves the night open for a man like me. I remained fully clothed and rested.

Gabby understands. She’s seen me naked so many times that I think it’s beginning to bore her. Do you know that last week, I accidentally walked naked through her meeting with the immigration officer dealing with her case? It was bad enough that neither of them blinked an eyelid but they actually asked me for my national insurance number. What does that do for a man’s sense of being a sexual being.

So, Valentines Day is something of a no show in the Chipster’s household.

And I can’t say I’m not glad. The whole thing makes me sick to the pit of my stomach.

What is it about a nation of supposedly free spirits that makes it act in unison? Did Shakespeare write his sonnets to be read only on his birthday? Where has the sense of spontaneity gone? Where is the desire to sing Sinatra in the supermarket? Dance the tango in Tesco? Do men not know how to woo? And is it true that you can only get a woo with Typhoo?

We should be told.

Before before you go off and demand to be told, think of those poor men tonight, wounded by too tight thongs ripped off too quickly.

And also spare a thought for the goat. Won't somebody spare a thought for the goat.