The Tramp

I don’t like to make light of something that could have so clearly ended up in tragedy, but you have to wonder what the world’s coming to when the man in your corner shop has plans to decapitate somebody just to get a hit video on YouTube. Mind you, I just can’t understand the attraction of these ‘crazy’ videos that seem so popular. In my day, we’d play the odd practical joke, but nothing as serious as a malicious wounding. We might put a firework or two down somebody’s trousers, but that’s as far and as dangerous as it went.

These days, I suppose it has to be something as extreme as decapitation to even make me bat an eyelid. Today, it happened twice. Once with that story and again when Gabby came back home with the tramp.

Sometimes, I wonder how much she really understands this country.

She tells me in Romania it’s a custom to bring a traveller in off the streets, bathe him, give him something to eat, and then send him on his way. All the best villages do it or so she says. It didn’t seem quite right to say no.

His name was Gavin and he was originally from South Wales. Turns out he was a miner too, until times turned rough for him. We had a few interesting conversations. He was fascinated by career in exotic dancing and I asked him about life living rough. He couldn’t speak more highly off it and by the time we’d giving him a bath, he cleaned up a treat.

We sent him off on his way just before we had our supper. I wasn’t for having a tramp living in the house. I have my limits and expensive hi-definition TV set to think about. But if you happen to see a tramp dressed in an old boiler suit that used to form part of a strip act (you can tell by the glittering straps), you might also want to ask him if he’s also wearing a black thong (extra large). If he says he is, then say hello to Gavin. And give him a bath too. You really won’t regret it.

Pit Shafts For Paedophiles

I’ve just spent my morning working myself into a sweat at my regular gym here in Bangor. But for once, it wasn’t the exercise that got The Chipster’s oils running. I’d gone about five miles on the treadmill when two of the gym’s regulars arrived and occupied the running machines on either side of me. That’s how I found myself wedged into a conversation about the current crisis in Britain’s prisons.

One of the runners, an ex-miner, began by suggesting that the country should convert many of the unused coal mines in Wales into secure units for sex offenders. He called it his ‘Pit Shafts For Paedophiles Plan’. Both his friend and I were a bit sceptical at first, until the miner carried on and described in great detail how it was cheaper than using the RAF base that John Reid currently proposes. These mines are unused, take up very little surface land, are out of the public gaze, and although they stretch for miles and miles they are already escape-proof. The only complication is that every offender would have to be given a canary but, other than this, he said that it is just about 'a perfect plan'.

Now as you know, the state of Britain’s prisons is something that leaves The Chipster lying awake in bed at night worrying. Not even Gabby’s soft singing is enough to lull me to sleep when my mind flits about considering the problem of incarceration. I don’t know... Perhaps, for some unknown reason, the poor girl’s singing makes me think I’m in prison. But whatever it is, I find myself wondering if we’re not locking up too many people for minor offences and leaving too many dangerous men at large. What even constitutes a minor offence in the eyes of the law?

Not so long ago, a pensioner went to prison for not paying her council tax. I thought it an outrage and volunteered to stage a nude protest outside the prison. Today, I hear a man convicted of downloading 200 images of child pornography has escaped a prison sentence because the judge, John Rogers, QC, said he had to consider instructions passed down to him from the Home Office. To make matters worse, this is a Welsh story. The offender in question is from Penygwdwn in Blaenau Ffestiniog. I think you’ll agree that it’s a terrible condemnation of the penal system and that's the reason I’m now offering to stage a nude protest outside the courthouse.

But The Chipster also wants to pose a hypothetical question.

A town has only one jail cell. A town meeting is called and the people have to vote as to which of the two local criminals is to be sent to prison. They can arrest the local thief, responsible for a spate of burglaries, or the man known to possess a large collection of child pornography. Which would the townsfolk collectively choose to imprison? Which would make the most people feel safe in their beds at night? The man who has committed property theft or the man who in a sense hasn’t committed a crime against a person but whose actions suggest he might well be capable of something far more serious in the future?

Which do the people choose? Where is the greater good served?

And be careful how you answer. Don’t make me stage a nude protest outside your place of work.

On British Blogging, Tinned Peaches, and The Easy Option

What makes a good blog?

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

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

Regularity

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

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

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

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

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

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

Content

Which brings me to the question of content.

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

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

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

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

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

I Am Not Called Iain

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thong on!

The King of Thong’s Medication

Ever since I came a cropper beneath nineteen stones of a falling traffic warden that night at the Turntable Taffy's Disco in Llandudno, the Chipster has been taking some pretty strong medication to keep the pain at bay. I’ve known injuries like this to end some dancer’s careers but no matter how much you say you won’t be egged into doing something stupid, the plummeting punter is still one of great hazards of the professional stripping circuit.

Consider the situation: a room full of excitable ladies, heavily influenced in their behaviour by all the neat paraffin they’ve been necking all evening. Throw in The Chipster, oiled to his best sheen and wearing only a black leather thong. Well, you can’t stop the ladies asking you to pick them up and hold them to be lifted above your head, can you? And you know the Big DC: I can’t let a lady down, can I? Heart as big as… Well, enough of that.

The tablets I take are big enough for horses. Seriously. The surgeon who operated and fixed my back told me that they use the same medication to dope race horses and it’s that level of professionalism which makes me feel so bloody of the NHS. I might be doped up to my bloodshot eyes but I know a good thing when I see one. And the NHS is most definitely a good thing despite all of Tony Blair's tinkering.

Just the other day, we were doing some step aerobics when Gabby went over on her ankle and I had to take her to A&E. They had her bandaged up in no time. Very sweet about it to and I knew the nurse from some of the local Lib Dems meetings. But do you want to know what was really great? While I was there I came up with a brand new routine I hope to try out this week. You have to picture the darkened nightclub, packed with punters. I’ll come on stage, single spot picking me out dressed in a white coat and carrying a clip board. I come centre stage and say to the audience ‘Pass me the tongues, matron!’ Then I pause. Look to audience and add: ‘Did somebody mention thong?’ Then I whip out my old fella. Bloody instant classic act. And all down to the NHS.