a long long slide

Fall from the Premiership, slide down the Championship and then total CRASH BANG from League 1. Yes...run away, you need to run away Mr Bantam..find Stuart McCall..bring him back.

Virgin on Delight

First class on Virgin Trains is superior to any other train company in the UK. Food, tea and alcohol. The only problem is that while travelling at 160 mph on a tilting train it is not long before your food is back on the plate where it was first placed.

Oh and the staff are very helpful..

"I am Bill, I am talking to you live from the cockpit. Would the customers with the fishing rods please let themselves be known because we will be helping you off the train with your fishing rods at the next stop".

London Rage and Womb Spearing

The number one cause of my personal London Rage is men, it is usually men, carrying golf umbrellas. I seem to spend the majority of a rainy day avoiding a womb spearing. I don't know whether this fear originates from the stories I was told at school to stop me from running to the other side of the field to collect my javelin or whether the fear is real. Would I still have a womb, if indeed I have one, if I had not been so fearful of the golf umbrella? I almost believe that the umbrella carrying men are not real men, but aliens in disguise with the task of eradicating the human race. I suspect that they are doing fairly well but they won't eradicate me or alter child bearing ability.

Thought - why are golf umbrellas shaped like spears? Are there whales in the water features on golf courses?

Cheer on the Bantams - they need it!

Head Explosion

I have been away. I will be away a lot. My mind is full. So full. Writing should be like pulling the plug out of a bath, releasing thoughts into the country's drainage system. It is, only the plug hole is full of hair. Long black hair. Where does it come from? I don't live with anybody with long black hair. There are lots of things that don't make sense. Why does boiling water come from the water cooler? That was the thought I struggled with today. I will attempt to provide an answer so don't, one reader, lose sleep over it. Anyway, I feel I am going way off the point here. The point is, in case you missed it, I have been unable to write. Hairy Monkey's hairier friend suggested that I choose a topic to write about and write. "Which topic?", I replied. "Jazz?", said Hairy Monkey's hairier friend. Of course I know absolutely nothing about jazz and when I think of jazz it makes me cringe because I think of cheesy jazz not any sort of modern or free jazz. Yes, I am ignorant on the subject and in my attempt to write about it I have chosen to write about my favourite word.

My favourite word

When recently interviewing (in the loosest sense), for a new housemate, my existing housemates (the Bee Gee, Spiderlegs and Jimmidy) and I asked questions like, what is your favourite vegetable? and what is your favourite spirit? No, stop Bee Gee don't you dare reply Casper again. But one day Spiderlegs asked, "what is your favourite word?" What? What are you saying? What sort of ridiculous question is that! Of course, we didn't make anybody answer that but spent the entire time ridiculing Spiderlegs.

I later thought about my favourite word, and....nope, I don't have a favourite word. However, I do have a funniest word, a word that when I am feeling down I need only to say once to make me smile. And the word...

cummerbund

..told you.

London Underground: learn to be silent

“Please mind the gap”. For two years I wondered where the gap was. Sure, I could see a gap, but not big enough for me to fall down (note to reader, I am not big nor small...I would say of average size). Then I ventured further than the sixteen stops on the Victoria line and decided that the announcement wasn’t so useless after all. There are gaps big enough for Manual Uribe Garza to fall down and if you are not use to seeing them, you could be a goner.

“Please report all unattended items”. This is fair enough advice. Though I did see a carrier bag full of chips on the tube one Sunday morning and I spent the whole time praying that it would not be reported and I would not be delayed.

But…

“Please take care when walking down the escalator”. What! What else am I going to do? Throw myself down? Try my best to fall? Suddenly decide that this would be an effective way of committing suicide? Nah, I don’t think so.



And, before you say anything....I was being careful when I tripped and caught my hair in the bottom moving step.

Holiday Snippet 2

At the Palai Salaam (set inside the walls of Taroudant) the lunching never seen a blackman David Bowie chicken head look-alike part time jeweller turned beer taster sat by the pool writing post cards while her obedient and fearful husband read his computer programming monthly. She noticed a pigeon flying into the swimming pool and exclaimed,

“Oh, David look, the pigeon thinks it is Jesus!”

How stupid am I to think that it was just thirsty.



The scenery in Morocco was amazing. We drove to the Tizi-n-Test pass over the high Atlas Mountains with Said, our guide from Naturally Morocco, and the Vicar. Thank God for the Vicar, without him we would have had no chance conversing with the family in the Berber village that invited us into their house for mint tea.

After visiting the house and seeing lots of animals (cows, cats, donkeys, turkeys and chickens) and an olive press, we were running late and it was time to take a short cut over walls and through fields. The local girls that we passed on the way were amused by my headdress - I think I was wearing it in a rather unfashionable way. This wasn't surprising considering a man not much younger than my dad taught me how to put it on.

Plates and Faces (Part 2)

My final conclusion, after spending a week locked in a dishwasher, is that my face looks like a plate.

Judge it for yourself.

Holiday Snippet

God dammit keep up!

Plates and Faces

Is my face a plate?

I checked my face for stains of carrot. No stains. I checked my face for fork and knife scars. One scar above my right eye; however I remember running into a ladder when I was seven. I checked my face for flatness. Not flat, quite a prominent nose actually.

Conclusion - no

Does my face look like a plate?

I showed my dinner card to the security guard, “good morning”, he said and opened the door. I asked a man in the lift (who I knew and he knew me but he did not realise that I knew him) if I looked like a plate, knife or fork. He did not answer…..stared….I imagined that he did not want to create offence.

Conclusion – yes

Advantage – camouflage in the homeware section of department stores.
Disadvantage – removal from restaurant tables

Bee Gee Locator

The Gibb is in Sydney and the Monkey is soon to be in Morocco. Monkey will return in a week with the Gibb in tow.

Ping-Pong and Table-Tantrums

The topic of Ping-Pong arising twice in two days – I can’t remember talking about Ping-Pong before so twice in two days has been total excitement. What do you associate with Ping-Pong (word association game mustn’t pause, mustn’t blur, mustn’t repeat... say hi to the camera, hi to Magic, hi to the viewers at home)? FAST…yes, that was the first word I thought, the second time and the first time it was mentioned.

It’s Thursday now, and I will say it myself “Ping Pong”, word association, “no thanks”. Oh dear, I lose. I don’t think two words are allowed. Where’s the mallet? Ow, not the hammer, the mallet! Or Timmy Mallet (I pass a man everyday on the way to work who looks like he could be Timmy Mallet’s son. It is weird, he passes me even when I am late).

Wednesday night and two and a half hours after we ordered our meal, and the departure of everybody else in the restaurant, our final two dim sum dishes hadn’t arrived. We asked for the bill and cancelled the order. The waitress apologised and offered us £5 off the bill for poor service before adding the service charge.

Average dim sum and poor service…stay home and brush up on your Ping-Pong skills.

Restaurant avoidance recommendation: Ping Pong, Goodge Street

Bee Gee Locator

Robin Gibb is currently in Melbourne. Thank Barry he is so far away. On the weekend I experienced clumsititus. The disease came on so fast that I didn’t have time to wrap the contents of my house in bubble wrap and line the walls with egg boxes. The clumsititus caused me to fall down the stairs; I managed to save the Tesco wine glass and the wine inside it but failed to save the Tyskie tankard that Robin Gibb had brought back from Poland. Soooooooooorry – thinking of a replacement strategy that doesn’t involve theft from a Walthamstow pub.

‘scal ‘ator mate

Again, the death of Pauline Fowler has caused me to worry. Please don’t box me up and send me into a fire while the audience are subjected to some miserable drone on the crematorium hifi.

Instructions for my funeral as follows:

1. Erect an escalator up to the fire. Safety checks will not be required. I will not be harmed by malfunction.
2. Purchase two hydraulic pistons.
3. Fit one hydraulic piston between my waist and elbow and insert one into my neck.
4. Stand me on the escalator facing the audience.
5. After guests are seated and after the ceremony has finished start the escalator.
6. As I reach the top, activate the hydraulics. I would like a close friend to press the button.
7. I will wave farewell and pop my head into the fire like a standard garden firework (the ones we used to play with in the yard before my elephant died).

Note 1: My donation to the crematorium should be treated as restricted.
Note 2: I would also like a brass band to play “Good King Wenceslas” when I am on the escalator - even if it is not Christmas. I will try and die at Christmas because my mum is superstitious. In the event that this is not achieved you may deduct money from my will for the purchase of formaldehyde and a second hand bath.

Obvious inference

Different animals hear noise at different frequencies. For example, dogs can here noises at much higher frequencies than I can. During the war sirens sounded when a bomb strike was imminent to suggest people entered their bunkers for safety. I couldn’t hear anything, but I can only imagine that a high frequency siren was the reason for the clientele (excluding my friends and Frankenstein’s Monster) in the Bunker Bar on Saturday night.

What do monkeys eat?

Oink, it is Monday morning and I am finding it very hard to walk up the stairs out of Victoria Underground Station. Why is this? Tick tick tick think think think. Did I put my legs on? Quick check, yes my tights are there so I must have put my legs on. Tick tick tick think think think. Did I have tensor fascia lata removing surgery on the weekend? Hmm, no, impossible, I do not have private healthcare. Tick tick tick think think think. Oh dear, food, more food, food. I spent the weekend eating food. Too much food. All weekend. Food. I was unstoppable. I thought I was a monkey. Maybe I am a pig. Confusion. I will phone Counsellor……..

Counsellor asked me if I enjoyed my weekend of eating. I said very much so. He asked what the highlights were, I list:

Saturday afternoon – half a pint of Guinness. This is the first Guinness I have enjoyed.

Saturday evening – Salted crocodile croquette, caramelised plantain and chilli jam, ginger and lemongrass tiger prawns with cucumber sushi, .roasted lamb ramp with chick peas and carrot mash, babaganush and sour cream, a taste of springbok steak with sweet potato, parma ham and feta involtini, espresso poured on vanilla ice cream, wine, port, a taste of Drambuie and lager.

Sunday – full pork roast dinner and lager

Counsellor agreed that what I had eaten sounded excessive and that I probably had more characteristics of a pig than a monkey. But, if I enjoyed myself it didn’t matter whether I was a pig or a monkey. Furthermore, Counsellor told me that if I intended to do this again it would be more socially acceptable for a pig than a monkey. I thanked Counsellor and put the phone down feeling 100 per cent proud pig. I immediately wrote a thank you letter to Counsellor and stuffed his favourite truffles inside.

I used the lift to reach my office.

Restaurant recommendation: Cinnamon Cay on Lavender Hill

Sunday evening, time for tea?

Tea is a pheromone. I drink lots of tea and my breath and sweat exude it. How else did I attract the Hairy Monkey and the others before? I thought everybody knew this tea factish, but the other week I found out they didn’t.

Tiger was complaining because her shirt smelt of tea after leaving it in her teabag drawer. I told her the tea factish and she left smiling.

Two weeks later Tiger was looking rather tanned and I asked if she had been on holiday (I was being polite, she was rather orange and had obviously been using fake tan of the worst quality). “No it is fake”, she replied. It however, was not fake tan. She had spent two weeks bathing in Tesco Red Label. Tiger looked awful but was no longer single. I suggested she tried a different brand to better match her complexion.

Oh dear, I forgot….

to mention that it was fantasulous to meet SAdam on new year’s eve.

Bee Gee Locator

Robin Gibb has entered Australia

The death of Pauline Fowler was the cause of Red Monkey Nun’s lateness; one hour is still within acceptable limits when the starting location is Bruce Nun’s house. I accept that if Red Monkey Nun was meeting on a street corner then it would be more than unacceptable (note: Monkey does not hang around street corners). For the record, sorry Bruce.

After drinking blessed wine, eating pizza and male deterrent garlic bread the nuns arrived at StagLand. The wind was reaching 80mph so they stayed there all night. The nuns attempted to convert regular StagLand visitors but, in the main, failed.

Red Monkey Nun grew bored of preaching and skilfully, using red beam photography, made small incisions in the other nuns’ knees and poisoned them with devil saliva. Gambling, drinking and occasional blasphemy commenced.

In revenge, Emma Nun beat Red Nun Monkey 2-0 at pool, Noel Edmonds stole a number of pounds from Red Monkey Nun and alcohol stole the dancing skills of StagLand.

The nuns plus Gary (man seducing Karen Nun) went back to Cheryl Nun’s nunnery for curry. This seemed like a good idea to Red Monkey Nun; a remedy for the lack of pork scratchings in StagLand. Red Monkey Nun was mistaken. The following day Red Monkey Nun was in sweats of hot and cold, vomited meat dopiaza in Bank Bottom Terrace, grazed on ibuprofen and held a Thornton’s carrier bag (no holes) on the train to London. Red Monkey Nun defeated.