Day 512: I Am A Really Good Cook

I know this because things smile when I cook them. They consider it a privilege to die in my pan. I have seen them smiling as they fry with my very own eyes.

I have proof, photographic proof. Look:

Day 509: I Finish My Christmas Shopping

I have just seen this advertisement on the television and I am decided: for the gentlemen, one of these, so that they may touch me in an intimate style (unless we are blood relatives); for the ladies, another product I have just this second seen advertised on the CBC - The Mandle Candle:



No, I do not who (or what) mandle is (or was) either.

For the idiots I know (i.e. my brother, Runningmonkey, and my 'web friends'), a ram that you smear with liquid plop in order to encourage the growth of its luxurious coat of grass:



And do not that I have forgotten you, dear reader(s), for if you are a regular (i.e. you 'check in' up to and including fifty times a day) reader of this web-blog, you will be 'receiving a gift' from me from this 'premium store' as a little thank you for your ongoing loyalty in 2007.* You know you want it!










Happy days!




* Not really. My blog is gift enough.

Day 508: I Finish My Christmas List

Good news. It is finished. If there is anything you would like to give me off of it, let me know (nonworkingmonkey@mac.com) and I will give you a safe PO Box Number (so you cannot disturb me in person).

My Christmas Present List, 2007

1. Sting's head on a stick

2. A puppy (alive)

3. Sheet music of Alan Parson's "Eye In The Sky" (adapted for Glockenspiel)

4. Ditto "Eye Of The Tiger", "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"

5. The name of a good Canadian film*

6. A Glockenspiel and matching outfit (see Fig. 1)

Fig. 1



















7. A 1950s ViewMaster with the reel that's got the Brussels thing (not the pissing boy, the giant desk game) and the CN Tower

8. A FAIL-SAFE bread recipe for idiots with cold pastry-making hands, i.e. me

9. A Subaru Impreza WRX (i.e. this one, but not that colour). Apparently it breathes fire from its 2.5-liter turbocharged, 224-horsepower SUBARU BOXER engine , and is the ultimate street legal rally car; in fact, with added features like Vehicle Dynamics Control (VDC) and double wishbone rear suspension, the 2008 Impreza WRX 5-Door is ready for action. (I say!)

10. A new fez. My current one is crusted with something unmentionable and I dare not try to flake it off.

Pip pip!



* Not French-Canadian, Anglo-Canadian

Day 506: I Finish Putting Up The Christmas Decorations

A happy day for all of you: finally, a view of my beautiful Quebec home, via the medium of photography - in this case, two photographs of our house (front and back view), showing off our recently-completed Christmas decorations.

As far as I can see, the only thing that's missing is a fully articulated 6ft LED reindeer with antlers spelling out, on the left, the word "S.T.I.N.G." and, on the right, the word "C.O.C.K". If I had such a thing, my Christmas happiness would surely be complete!

Day 502: I Review Some Art

I am returned from Toronto, where I have spent the last three days building brands, differentiating parity products, identifying market conventions and distilling brands down to their very essence. It is great, like a job you make up to confuse people at parties so they say, "but what do you actually do?" . (It is not great when you are talking to for e.g. heart surgeons, doctors, inventors of life-improving gadgets, charity workers etc, but I have made sure I don't know any of those, just to avoid awkward social chitchat.)

Back home in Quebec there are three feet of snow outside the door. Happily, my cohort enjoys cutting perfectly symmetrical paths through it with the smaller of his two shovels, meaning that I am still able to wear the platform boots I bought from Noddy Holder in 1978.

In the garden, local birds (inc. golden eagles, hawks and pelicans) are chewing merrily on the 'nut sacs' suspended from the washing line, and at the end of the garden gambol small mountain bears, feasting on the slices of dried beaver we leave out once a week. It is a bucolic scene, improved only by the background murmur of Bryan Adams, who has taken to campaigning for chicken welfare on the Canadian television news.

As a result of all this distracting pastoral goodness, I cannot be bothered to do much today other than knit and lie about the place smoking my small clay pipe. I shall therefore put the 'onus' on you, my attractive (in a certain light!) readers. Here is some 'online graffiti' that I have seen recently. Which picture do you like best? (And can you spot the one made by a certain superstar illustrator who is very close to my monkey heart?

(Note: it is not my birthday.)