Day 228: I Hear Something In The Radiator

I have been working. When I have not been working, I have been drinking dark beer in dark bars, telling twenty three-year-olds that they have no business liking the Stone Roses, and arm-wrestling impertinent giants.

When I have not been doing that, I have been constructing elaborate plans that involve buying a pony to keep in our office garden. And when I have not been doing that, I have been escorting my freshly-married friend around the canals of Amsterdam. "Where ARE we?", she has squeaked endlessly all weekend. "IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME". Poor thing!

But mostly I have been working. And tomorrow, as I must go to Parma with a Roman with a broken printer, I have been in the office writing things and printing them out on the printer on the floor above.

I didn't really mind going to work this afternoon. I thought it would be quite pleasant; after all, it is only two minutes' dangerous cycle ride from the IKEA showroom in which I live, and the journey to work involves scenes like this:



Unless it is dark, in which case it looks like this:



Unless it is dark and I have had too much dark beer, in which case it looks like this:



The office was jolly. There were some young people in it listening to music and eating biscuits. I did my work, and then I did some more. Two hours passed, and then three. As I entered the fourth, the last young person left. "Do you know how to lock the building up?", she asked kindly, shaking her head in pity. "Yes!", I yelped, aware that it was DARK and RAINING outside and that I would - if she left - be ALL ALONE in a FOUR STOREY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MANSION ON A DARK CANAL IN AMSTERDAM.

"Don't forget to lock the doors!". "How?", I squeaked. "Press the button next to the desk in Reception. All the doors will close automatically. Then do the code, leave, and lock the door. Good luck!"

"Good luck?", I muttered to myself as I heard the front door slam twelve miles away. Something rumbled in the wall. I remembered the nice lady telling me about the central heating. I banged on my keyboard with my monkey paws for approximately eight minutes. Then a groan on the floor above! I remembered the nice lady telling me about the loose window. I did some more banging with my monkey paws, this time faster than ever before in my life. A ping in the computer: the things had printed on the floor above.

The stairs in our building are wide, and made for seventeenth century merchant millionaires to impress people with, not for porky ladies to sprint up. I ran up them two at a time. The lift creaked, but did not move. The window banged again. I put the paper in the machine. The things came out. I ran downstairs. A light went off of its own accord!

I snatched up the papers and then dropped them all over the floor. They spread out everywhere, all one hundred of them. By now, I could hardly breathe; the radiators were murmuring on my floor, and shouting on the floor above. Something was creaking; the lift groaned again. My monkey heart stood still. I ran for it.

I fumbled for the button. "Magnetic doors", it said. I pushed it and all over the building, up and down the four floors, doors slammed of their own accord. Could I remember the code? Yes I could. Could I put it in without setting the alarm off? Yes. And No! In and out and in and out I went. I set the alarm off; I stopped it; I re-set it; I left and stepped into the freezing rain.

Glorie the bicycle had fallen over! Her basket was askew. My hands were freezing and Glorie's lock stuck! It kept raining on my head. I dropped my papers; I dropped my bag; I dropped my keys, and then my lights. And then finally, I was astride Glorie, pushing off into the night. I looked briefly back up at the office. There was something there, lurking in a third floor window.

I am not working at the weekend EVER AGAIN.

SPLENDID MONKEY GALLERY: Picture 21

My mind is occupied with thoughts of work. I am tired, and wish the telephone would stop ringing! But what is this, winking in my inbox? Yes! It is a photograph so good that thoughts of trips to industrial estates outside Parma fade into insignificance.

The photograph is accompanied by a mysterious note from Lesley.

"I've no idea why he's sitting on the corner on the top of a building in Toulouse, but he is lovely don't you think?"

Yes, dear Lesley, I do. I do indeed. He reminds me of happier days; days when I too had the leisure to sit with one barefooted leg lying across the other, wearing enormous top hats. Those days are, for the moment, over (despite the fact that I remain essentially non-working in my heart); but when I am feeling worn down by thoughts of status reports and timing plans, I shall look at this monkey and feel for my top hat.






















And such a good photograph, too! It only remains for me to say: Congratulations, Lesley!

Day 223: I Go To The Shops

Despite my fondness for the small independent retailer, artisanal breads (whatever they are) and shops that sell only cheese, I often find myself in the same three Big Shops, running my enthusiastic fingers over shelf after shelf of splendid Dutch produce.

The first is Albert Heijn (aka Albert Swine), who only weeks ago barred a chum from their Dam Square branch for accidentally chewing on a coffee broodje. (Not "brootje". A subsequent correction. In my rubbish defence, it was written on a bit of paper by a Frenchman. Twat.) It is exactly like Tesco but with approximately 100 times more cheese. The ladies on the checkouts check out very fast, and do not wait for the person before to have packed their bags and removed themselves before starting on you. It can make for shopping traffic jams made up of tulips, cheese, gigantic vegetables and salted liquorice, but it is not an entirely unpleasant experience despite Mr Heijn's affection for pointless packaging.

Take, for example, these carrots. Regular readers will be aware of the single carrot I bought the other day, but I wonder if they are prepared for what happens when you buy four!

(Beaver the Beaver has been trying to make a dam from them but has been thwarted as they are too large, and coated in glistening plastic which makes his small paws slip off.)

But Heijn is the last resort. They do biological things with green writing on and pictures of grass so you know the food is made of food and not of chemical jizz and lunar scrapings, and it's alright for milk and candles and stuff but generally, if I have time (which I always do these days), I take my hemp carrier bag and skip to the Biological Supermarket. There, the shop assistants are sallow and unkempt as only the thoroughly organic can be. They sell fifteen varieties of nut butter and a range of small sprouting beans; their carrots are frondy and their yoghurt full of tiny animals. It is muddy, but means well.

By preference, however, I skip along the market(s) on Saturday morning with my basket quivering, plucking apples from stalls and cakes from the hands of small children. It is quite divine, and every weekend I buy armfuls of tulips from a tiny lady in an apron, nut rolls from an academic in rimless spectacles and second hand books from a man with a pipe who thinks I am related to Robert Louis Stevenson.

And then there is the Hema*. The Hema is like NO SHOP I HAVE EVER SEEN. It is perfect in all ways, like an excellent cross between John Lewis, Woolworths (UK version), Marks and Spencer and Habitat, but nicer and jollier with better designed things in. Also - and most excitingly - it is Monkey Central.

"LOOK AT THIS!" yelped my oldest friend on Saturday, clutching the aisle-end gondola. We stood rigid, barely believing what we could see with our own eyes for there, glistening in the gentle light of the well-designed shop lighting, was The Best Bedding In The World, Ever:





















And then the next day, in the Food Section (which sells only ham, cheese, almond biscuits, sweets and crisps and is therefore perfect), I see these.





And then these, inserted over wands of jelly beans! They have improved the view from my office window, I am sure you will agree.






















This weekend another visitor arrives, and with her an excuse to ask my favourite questions: "Have you ever been to the Hema? No? Would you LIKE to go?". I can hardly wait!


* Not, for once, an affectation. Gentle enquiries about the whereabouts of various products (cotton, candles, glasses, monkey covered duvet covers, foam sweets in the shape of mushrooms, tiny bicycle lights in the form of flashing mice, ham in packets and batteries) are invariably met by Dutch people with the words "the Hema!" (with the silent addition of "you cretin").

Day 222: I Wonder About Inter-Species Love

Regular readers will be aware that in the olden days (before I discovered Canada), I wrote a web-log about internet dating. There, I wrote a little about inter-species love inspired, as I was, by an enthusiastic correspondent. (Sadly, he was not as enthusiastic as I would have hoped, and we never did meet halfway in Upper Norwood.)

Many years later, and after an afternoon spent pressing my nose up against the windows of local confectioners' emporia, I find myself wondering - as I often do - what would happen if you could actually and literally cross a chicken with a rabbit.






















Happily, some kind of sixth sense tells me that someone out there probably has the answer. Please submit yours. The best one gets a prize. Not sure what, mind you, but rest assured it will involve little effort and absolutely no financial outlay on my part.

Pip pip!

Day 221: I Am Getting Ready For Easter

I've got my eye on an Easter Squirrel in a car*. But will he make it? Will the Sinister Hand of Chocolate wrench him from his orange-swirled transportation device whilst his friends, Myxamatoasties Rabbit and Quite Annoying Chick With A Quiff drive on, oblivious to the horrible disaster that is about to befall their rodenty friend?























Watch this space!

* It's not a rabbit. I don't think it's a mouse. Oldest Friend (who is currently watching a Dutch wildlife programme about macaque monkeys and has just said: "Look. There's a monkey. Do you sniff things before you put them in your mouth too?"), thinks it is a squirrel. I think she may be right; he has tucked his tail away in the boot, you see.