SPLENDID MONKEY GALLERY 2008: I Receive The First Submission

A monkey arrives in my electronic mail inbox. It is from Jo, and is accompanied by a mysterious note:

"From a lurker."

It is mildly alarming, but extremely amusing; I particularly like the detail of the contemporary spectacles. Here he is:







He has cheered me up no end! I shall concentrate on monkeys for the rest of the month in the hope that they (via me) will alleviate the collective mild depression I feel radiating across the world.

It only remains for me to say: Congratulations, Jo!


(Please read Jo's web-blog. It is about craft things, but not one bit boring. She also provides a link to another web-blog that had me rigid with glee over the marmalade: it is called Monkee Maker and mainly consists of knitted monkeys. I am going to send Monkee Maker an electronic mail asking if she takes commissions this very afternoon, immediately following my purchase of snowshoes and cross-country skis. Sadly, this latter statement is not a joke.

Day 553: I Revive A Popular Favourite

Regular readers will be aware of the work of the Splendid Monkey Gallery which was - at its inception in October 2006 - received with near-hysterical joy by monkey picture lovers across the world.

But what is this? Yes! I am going to revive it for 2008! Great news, I am sure you will agree.

"Why the revival?", I hear you cry. The answer is simple! It is January and many friends (real and virtual) are a little down in the mouth, what with the endless grey sky and prospect of February to come. Why, even my own ability to affix a rictus grin to my gurning monkey face has been tried of late for a number of reasons, including temperatures of -17, minor car accidents and the mind-bending strangeness of waiting for a work permit to arrive from the Canadian government.

But enough of this misery. Let us cheer ourselves up with pictures of splendid monkeys and create Splendid Monkey Gallery 2008, which is quite a lot like (if not identical to), Splendid Monkey Gallery 2006-2007 (which may be viewed at your leisure by pressing either on the ever-changing Flickr box on the right, or on this word here).

Should you wish to enter a picture of a splendid monkey, you may do so by following the instructions clearly laid out here. (In summary: I decide if they're in or not based on whether or not they make me laugh; email me the hot snaps at nonworkingmonkey@mac.com.)

Finally, to start things off I offer you, my legions of adoring readers, a photograph of a splendid monkey-based bathroom accessory spotted at the St-Eustache fleamarket last weekend. (Eagle-eyed French-speaking viewers will note that he is the last of a discontinued line, but we were unable to buy him as our bathrooms are already full of plaster lizards, life-sized cutouts of Pierre Trudeau and slightly soiled copies of The Readers' Digest.)






















Come on then! What you got? And is it better than this?

Day 550: I Pass The Time

I am waiting for my work permit. It is annoying, like waiting for an enormous bus full of monkeys who are all drinking absinthe straight from the bottle and dancing to "Relight My Fire" whilst pushing the conductor's cap off.

Whilst I wait I am filling the time with some useful activities, including shovelling snow, losing mittens and noting how the "news" in Canada is in fact what people in other countries would describe as "the weather report". I am also making bread and jam with my tiny little monkey hands.

I am now really good at making bread thanks to NPR, the second-greatest radio station in the world (after BBC Radio 4). We were driving somewhere in some 'light snow' (trans. for British readers: blizzard) and these people came on the radio talking about not kneading and leaving the dough in the fridge for three weeks and all sorts of other shit. I thought it was too good to be true. It was not. It was shit that I subsequently found out really works. It is here.

There is no excuse to make any more jam, though; there are ten jars, and two of us. I have made raspberry and apricot. (Do not leave stupid comments asking me where I got the fruit from.) The raspberry is pathetic, but the apricot is good and were it more liquid, I would be drinking it up with a straw.

I have also made marmalade to an ancient family recipe but I have not yet decided if it is any good and so, whilst I decide if it is worth labelling, do please feel free to enjoy some recent photographs: one of jam and one of bread. (Eagle-eyed Carly Simon fans will see a 'hidden joke' just for them!).





(I added seeds and shit to the recipe above. It still worked.)

Good Lord - what is that noise? It sounds exactly like a busful of monkeys listening to Take That.

Must dash.

Pip pip!

NWM

Day 550: I Was Not Aware That Ground Zero Was Famous For Its Silver Deposits

Day 545: I Receive A Mysterious Parcel

The red flag is up on the mailbox. That means there is something in it.

It is Wednesday, so it is unlikely to be the local 'freesheet', wrapped tenderly around a number of leaflets offering various configurations of our regional speciality, chips adorned with cheese curd and gravy; equally, because it is Wednesday, it is a day too late for the The Veterinary Pathologist , and a day too soon for Hot Cockwagons Weekly, my own publication of choice.

I open the mailbox and cannot see anything, despite trying to insert my entire head into its inviting interior. But what is that at the back? Good heavens! It is a tiny, tiny parcel, no bigger than my hand, weighing no more than a brace of sizeable Macadamia nuts.

I take it out and look at it. Our address is scrawled (accurately!) across the front of the envelope. Has it been written by an idiot? Probably not; they have managed to write the address in the proper style; four stamps have been affixed in a straight line; the parcel is clearly marked PRIORITY. I notice that the stamps are Dutch and that it has been sent from Amsterdam.

But this does not give me any further clues; a cursory fondle of the package tells me that it is definitely not drugs (I know this because Canada Post held up a parcel with Hula-Hoops in it for three months, so I think they will have 'sniffed out' any funny seeds!!!), but it is also definitely not cheese, clogs, bulbs, a windmill or an almond-based confection, which are the other things you might get sent from the Netherlands.

I run across the road, slipping on three inches of impacted ice; I jog up the drive, glad that I live with a chap who likes to shovel and blow. I clamber up the ice-mount that has appeared in the drive in front of the steps that lead to the front door. The steps are scaled. I am nearly there.

But what is this? I cannot open the door! That is because it is -15 and I have been outside for more than thirty seconds. My fingers are white and I cannot feel anything. They are sticking a bit to the door latch thing. I tell the front door latch it is a cunt, a strategy that has worked before; the door springs open.

I am inside. Feeling returns to my fingers; my hair begins to defrost. Finally, I open the parcel. Inside there is a mysterious note! This is not the the first time I have received a mysterious note, but this time it is different!

Dear NWM,

I'm bored of business lunches with Mark and James and to be honest they rabble on like old women. They do however like their cakes which is a plus and I hear you like yours. In fact, I'm prepared to follow the muffin mix across the Atlantic for a little 'break' at yours.

I invite myself, in fact, and take the liberty of making my return open. I too would like to experience being a non-working monkey.

xxx"

And it is different for one reason and one reason alone: the mysterious note is wrapped around a thing no bigger than a thimble. Here it is, photographed on the front lawn earlier today:



I still do not know what to say about it all, and so I am going to think about it for a bit, pausing only occasionally to scratch my monkey head under my fez and draw quietly on my small clay pipe.

Whilst I consider the miraculous appearance of a monkey in my mailbox, I offer you, my readers, a kind of 'web-blog testcard' in the form of some photographs taken this afternoon with my instamatic camera. They are photographs of the apple trees in the field down the road where the local 'farming folk' are making ice cider.

These photographs will be extra-dull if you are used to snow but perhaps less so if you are from tropical England. With my English eyes, for example, the fields look like Narnia (but with tractors).

Pip pip!