Elderado Dingbatti is a character from the Coping With

Coping With

The Coping With series of books is a series of books aimed at 11-16 year olds, written by Peter Corey and published by Scholastic Hippo. The first book, Coping with Parents, was released in 1989, and the series continued until the last book, Coping with Cash, in 2000. The books take a humorous look...

series of books by Peter Corey

Peter Corey

Peter Corey is the author of the Coping With... children's book series. The series targets youngsters using humour. He is also the author of books of non-humorous nature. He has also written scripts for many television programmes and he has played characters in drama]]s and soap operas.- Biography...

. He is usually a member of the team of experts hired to assist with the project of writing the book.

He has a strange appearance, with a head similar in shape to a baseball bat, and eyes very much out of focus. He wears a suit and grins constantly, bringing a hint of surrealism to the proceedings. He generally stays in mental institutions, prisons for the incurably insane, hospitals or abandoned branches of Toys "Я" Us. Despite this, he is often granted very high positions of responsibility considering his 'condition'. For example, he was offered a chair at the English Department of Oxford University

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, but refused, since he had a very nice set of tubular ones from MFI.

Biography

• He confuses himself with the ill-fated TV show Eldorado, but on the plus side, this means you only have to put up with him three times a week for half an hour (he also occasionally turns up at other times, only to repeat everything he said last time).
• His worst nightmare is that, like Eldorado, no-one will pay him any attention and eventually he'll be killed off.
• He has a habit of falling in love with furniture, especially sideboard
  Sideboard
  A sideboard is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, for displaying serving dishes such as silver, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers, all topped by a flat display surface for conveniently holding...
  
  s. He even has custom made Love Heart sweets to this effect.
• For fun, he once dressed up in a rabbit costume. While it was plugged into the mains. In a swimming pool.
• He finds 'Surveillance Equipment' very interesting and exciting, despite knowing nothing whatsoever about it.
• He used to be a bus driver, on a one man operated bus. Unfortuately he was fired after it crashed. Elderado claims it was not his fault, since he was upstairs collecting fares at the time.
• He can be homcidal, but was released from prison early. His social worker claimed it was due to good behavior. After all, he hadn't killed anyone for almost a week.
• His favourite drink is a mug of hot Coca-Cola
  Coca-Cola
  Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
  
  .
• He once disguised himself as waiter at a wedding reception. However, his idea had three flaws:
  • He wasn't wearing a waiter's overalls, but a labcoat he had eaten half of.
  • He only served SPAM
    Spam (food)
    Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrite as a preservative...
    
     sandwiches.
  • The vegetarian option was SPAM sandwiches without the SPAM. (a Monty Python
    Monty Python
    Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
    
     allusion)
• He plans to teach in a private school.
• Due to spending much time in medical institutions, he has undergone much plastic surgery
  Plastic surgery
  Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
  
  . Unfortunately, this has worsened his condition, since now when he looks in the mirror, he thinks that he sees someone else.
• He spent some time in drag and carrying around a large desk lamp, having confused himself with Florence Nightingale
  Florence Nightingale
  Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
  
  . He was disappointed therefore to find that working for Peter Corey did not involve nursing
  Nursing
  Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....
  
   or hospital work in Crimea
  Crimea
  Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
  
  . He also found a seancé with Florence Nightingale deeply disturbing.

By Elderado Dingbatti

• "Meet up a tree. Not by a tree or under a tree. Up a tree. Less suspicious."

About Elderado Dingbatti

• "I had to choose my words carefully. After all, even if he thought I was an alright guy, he was a homicidal maniac."
• "As tears rolled down his silicon cheeks (he had made a lot money testing plastic surgery
  Plastic surgery
  Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
  
  in prison), I told him, tactfully, that he could not marry a sideboard, even by special licence."
• "He is no stranger to research projects like this. He is also no stranger to the insides of institutions that care for people who think that they are something else."

Books

Elderado Dingbatti appeared in several Coping With books.

Elderado appeared in:

• Coping with Parents
• Coping with Teachers
• Coping with School
• Coping with The Family
• Coping with Love
• Coping with the 21st Century

Similar Characters

After Elderado's retirement, he was replaced by a nearly identical character, Ombago, a professor who dressed in a luminous chicken outfit. His advice on how to remember things, for example, went like this: "The best way to remember things is to try to not forget them!".