After hours at the Zoo - Meerkat

It took Chimpanzee slightly longer than 3 minutes and 32 seconds to reach the Meerkat enclosure.

This was because Chimpanzee was feeling so terrific about all the good he done so far this evening that he utterly failed to notice the tree stump that sat in the fork in the path, tripping over it and landing in a raggedy mess.

This particular fork was very important as it split the path between the Meerkats enclosure in one direction and the Crocodiles pit in the other. You really wouldn’t want to mix them up.

Crocodiles rarely greet unexpected guests with the same civility that Meerkats can usually muster.

On the other hand, if it’s a scare you are after the best a Meerkat can do is stand very very still and when you think it’s asleep, jump up and shout ‘boo’ at you.

Unfortunately, due to various cultural and language barriers, this charming small mammals attempt to terrify typically comes across as shockingly adorable.

“What’s that doing there?” Chimpanzee said to himself as he rubbed his bruised chimp shin.

“They must have just put that there,” he muttered under his breath as he limped onward to see his Meerkat friends.

The Meerkat sentry stood tall and proud on his rear legs; he rested his front legs on his tummy as he scanned the enclosure from right to left and then back again. Behind him lay a number of bolt holes from which could be heard the comfortable snores of the rest of the team.

Meerkat spotted Chimpanzee as soon as he appeared from behind the gate.

“Are you okay Chimpanzee?” asked the Meerkat, who as one of the most social animals at the facility always conducted himself with an air of confidence and easy charm, again, not qualities typically shared by the Crocodiles.

“Hurt my leg,” replied Chimpanzee, bearing his teeth in discomfort.

“Owww, nasty, how’d you do that then?” asked the friendly little Meerkat.

Chimpanzee looked embarrassed for just a moment before suddenly reply with a broad grin,

“Had a bit of bother with a fox…”

“A fox!” exclaimed the Meerkat, already quaking at the mere-kat thought of it.

“Yes,” replied Chimpanzee emphatically, “in fact there might even have been two of them.”

Meerkat thought for a moment and then furrowed his brow in the exactly that same way the person who looks after you might do, when you tell them you didn’t know you were not meant to eat all the choc chip cookies that were left out for everyone to share.

“So you didn’t just bash your leg on that stump by the fork like you did last Tuesday?” he asked as he scratched behind his ear with his paw.

“Most definitely not,” said Chimpanzee mock offended, before adding awkwardly, “Did I tell you about that then…?”

“Not at first,” said Meerkat.

“Anyway”, said Chimpanzee, now flustered by his own ridiculous attempts to cover up his now obvious quite frequent clumsiness, “how have you been chum?”

“Good,” said Meerkat, nodding to emphasis just how good he was, which secretly he wasn’t.

“Oh that’s great,” said Chimpanzee with a sigh, “It’s been all dramas tonight, Elephant and Hippo have been having a tiff, Penguin’s got a beef with Puffin, I was just about to –“

“There is something,” Meerkat said suddenly looking down at the ground.

“Oh…” said Chimpanzee, feeling slightly awkward that he was about to go off on a rant about how everyone wants him to solve their problems but no one ever asks if he has anything he wants to discuss, which he might…

Feeling Chimpanzee’s unease Meerkat shock his head. “Oh it’s nothing, honestly, forget I said anything. I feel silly even mentioning it. I absolutely will not start complaining when really it’s nothing… I can’t be drawn…”

Reaching through the bars Chimpanzee gently placed his paw on Meerkats tiny shoulder.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it hon?”

“Oh well, if you insist,” Meerkat said and he sat down on his haunches, which were as it happens, phenomenally comfortable.

“It’s about the shift allocation”. He said matter-of-factly.

“What about them?” asked Chimpanzee.

“Well frankly I’m a bit tired of always getting the night shift. Every Monday morning we have our team meeting at the end of which we get our weekly rota, and every week I’m on nights. Every week.”

“Have you complained?” asked Chimpanzee.

“No, no I haven’t. I don’t want to complain. Complaining isn’t seen as being very team focused” Meerkat said, making those little air-quotation marks with his paws that folk who are a little bit insecure often use to make themselves seem less insecure and slightly smarter than they actually are.

“I mean do you know that last time I had a day off?” Meerkat asked pointedly.

“Saturday wasn’t it?” replied Chimpanzee.

“Well, yes, yes it was Saturday.” Said Meerkat, somewhat taken aback that Chimpanzee could remember as far back as the weekend. “And before that?” he asked trying to re-emphasis his point.

“Wednesday?” replied Chimpanzee again without batting an eyelid.

“Huh…” said Meerkat, again shocked at how well Chimpanzee could recall his Rota. “Well the point is do you know how boring these night shifts are?”

“No,” said Chimpanzee inquisitively, “How boring are they?”

“Very” said Meerkat, “And do you know how many potential threats there been since I started these night shifts?

“No,” said Chimpanzee even more inquisitively, “How many have there been?”

“None” said Meerkat with a huge Meerkat sigh (which is quite a tiny sigh by average size mammal standards)

“None?” exclaimed Chimpanzee, “No threats at all?”

“Well there was one yesterday,” said Meerkat half embarrassed even to bring it up.

“What was it? A fox?” asked Chimpanzee.

“What the fox that just attacked you?” replied Meerkat cheekily.

“Er…” said Chimpanzee.

“No, not a fox, not a fox at all. Not a hawk, or a cat or a wild dog… “ Said Meerkat, “A hedgehog.”

“A hedgehog?” spluttered Chimpanzee.

“Yes, hedgehog. Of course I got the team out. Had to, protocol. I felt like a right fool I must say.”

“And what happened, did you see the hedgehog off?”

“No” said Meerkat “After the team went back to bed we just sat and had a chat.”

“A chat?” asked Chimpanzee who was now becoming acutely aware that all he was doing was simply recapping each of Meerkats sentences.

“Quite a decent fellow as it happens. Just moved into the neighborhood.”

Meerkat just sat and stared into the clear starry night as Chimpanzee began to pace furiously as he contemplated this particular issue.

“Look Meerkat,” said Chimpanzee after a few moments of frantic thinking, “You know maybe the reason there are so few threats on you watch is that you are really good at it.”

“Good at it?” said Meerkat, now taking up Chimpanzees recapping mantel.

“Yes, no one comes looking for trouble when you’re on watch. And I assume the reason you keep getting this shift is because the others trust you so much.”

Meerkat stood back up onto his rear legs, Chimpanzee could see that his chest was ever so slightly more pushed out than usual.

“I think you’re onto something,” said Meerkat proudly, “That makes sense, right?”

“Er.. yeah, absolutely” said Chimpanzee in an almost believable way. “Okay, look Darling I’ve got to get going. See you again tomorrow night?”

“You bet,” said Meerkat with a newfound sense of duty.

Chimpanzee turned and began to limp away, anxiously biting his chimp fingernails as he did; maybe he’d try to get here a bit earlier tomorrow, when his friend was still in bed. It would give him a chance to have a chat with team about the shift allocation policy.

It really didn’t seem at all fair.

Just before he reached the gate he heard Meerkat shout out to him.

“Chimpanzee, I almost forgot to tell you something”

“Tell me what?” Chimpanzee shouted back.

“Crocodile wants to have a word with you” Meerkat hollered probably loud enough to rouse the rest of the team from deep dreams filled with play fighting and speed trials.

Chimpanzee was instantly alarmed, on point of principle he refused to judge any of the inmates but he couldn’t help but be absolutely terrified of Crocodile.

He still recalled the time Crocodile quipped that he would never view Chimpanzee as dinner.

“Phew” said Chimpanzee with utter relief.

“No” said Crocodile with his big toothy grin, “you’d only big enough as an hors d'oeuvre”.

Chimpanzee didn’t know what an hors d’oeuvre was but he certainly knew being compared to one by Crocodile was probably not a good thing.

“Did he say what it was about?” Chimpanzee shouted back nervously.

“No” said Meerkat.

“Phew” said Chimpanzee with utter relief.

“But he didn’t seem at all happy with you” Meerkat added unhelpfully.

Chimpanzee suddenly felt his knees go weak, which only added to the pain in his already quite bruised shin.

Give Mole a chance...

The truth is no one really knows where Mole comes from…

Well actually they do, you see Mole is the result of the overgrowth of the skin's pigment cells, melanocyte. Mole doesn’t know this because Mole is just a Mole not the part of the brain that deals with knowing where moles come from or where you left your keys this morning. It isn’t Moles fault that Mole is the overgrowth of the skin’s pigment cells, it is just one of those things, and now here Mole is.

Despite being light brown in colour, Mole is not of an ethnic background, in fact everything around Mole is quite white, and like Mole rarely touched by the warm embraces of the Sun… or at least that is what we imagine.

Mole is of the soft variety, not in the sense that Mole can be bullied, or cajoled into committing criminal acts, although to be fair we doubt this has ever been tested; no, Mole is soft, and certainly not dysplastic. Mole had once been called dysplastic but this turned out to be both a mistake and somewhat offensive. It’s just not polite to call a regular mole dysplastic; in fact it’s rude.

Mole is not entirely sure how old it is; its earliest memories are of a fifteenth birthday party which would make Mole now around fifteen years old… which is not as obvious as you may first think.

Sadly, despite its splendor Mole harbours feelings of shame and insecurity, which anyone will tell you, are not good feelings to have. Good feelings to have are joy (within reason) and that gooey feeling you get in your tummy when someone nice runs their fingers inside your underwear waistband.

Now, we are not Psychiatrists, no we are not. But we believe that the reason for Moles feelings of shame and insecurity are simple; Mole is infrequently spoken to, or indeed spoke about, and when Mole does hear itself spoken about, it is rarely complimentary. And sometimes, just sometimes its name is mentioned in conjunction with a small medical procedure, which is a shame as Mole is packed full of personality and charm, love and kindness…

Mole has never harmed anyone, and with regular check-ups, it probably never will.

If only Mole can be given a chance.

The Middle Class Child 1:3:7

Well... here we go again.

Not sure why it's taken so long to write... maybe the lack of anti-depressants. The good news is I'm fully medicated and experiencing a rare period of creativity.

So, taking advantage of this I present the first part of the movie version of The Middle Class Child.

Oh and I fully intend to email everyone that has contacted me over the past few weeks - SORRY FOR THE DELAY!!!

Enjoy...

The truth via Valentine card

We'll it's that time of year again when fake sentiments written by someone more articulate and creative than you are wrapped in paper envelopes and received with disappointment and disdain (in my experience anyway...).

Maybe that isn't the case for you (I don't know who the hell I'm talking to, I've pretty much alienated all my family, friends, co-workers, blog chums and now even my dog - yep, i'm pretty much talking to myself here) but in case it is here are a few card ideas you may like to cut out and send to that special someone.... or something, I don't judge.

I'm such a terrible romantic... literally terrible...

The Middle Class Child 12.11.8

Lizzie Jenkins and her almost thirteen-year-old daughter Esmé Jenkins-Strathmore (twelve years, eleven months and 8 days) are on holiday together at a beautiful coastal resort in Cambodia.

Esmé is unaware that only a relatively few short years ago this popular holiday destination for predominately Western tourists saw unimaginable horror during the regime of The Khmer Rouge, with over a million Cambodians, out of a total population of 8 million, dying from executions, overwork, starvation and disease.

All Esmé is aware of is the endless sandy beaches and the blisteringly hot sun which both her and her mother take care to protect themselves from whilst they work on their tans.

Her mother Lizzie intends to take Esmé to one of the many historic Killing Fields sites which she sees as part of Esmé’s world education, but not until late in the second week so as not to spoil her holiday in Cambodia. Ultimately this does not transpire, however Lizzie determines to discuss the history of the country with Esmé during the flight home. This also does not happen.

Recently split up from her ‘insufferable’ writer ex-boyfriend, Lizzie is starting to feel that time is running out for her to be truly happy, or even just content with her life. ‘Maybe just some time away somewhere sunny is the answer’, she thought to herself as she flicked through the listings on Tripadvisor.com a few weeks previously.

With her brother now permanently living with her father Marcus and his new family, Esmé is secretly pleased that it will be just her and her mother on holiday together. It had seemed like such a long time since they had had any fun together, in fact Esmé could hardly remember the last time she had seen her mother smile, let alone laugh.

By the second half of the break Lizzie is feeling relaxed, comfortably dividing her time between the beach and the resort bar. Esmé on the other hand spends a lot of her time with a sixteen-year-old Dutch boy called Gan, who is holidaying without his parents for the very first time.

During the next couple of days Esmé will try marijuana cigarettes and sexual intercourse for the first time.

She will leave Cambodia with the opinion that whilst she enjoyed having sex, she much preferred smoking joints as it made her feel quite lovely, helped her forget about all the sad things in her life, like her mother, and it lasted longer.

Britain bought out by Crocs.

BREAKING NEWS:

With the stock price plummeting and redundancies escalating at an alarming rate, Great Britain has been in danger of a corporate buy-out for some time now and today it was officially announced that Crocs, the manufacturer of ‘injection molded day-glo plastic clogs’, has bought out Great Britain for one pound and will commence the massive task of re-branding and re-training of Britain’s 60 million employees.

How the UK will look by 2010

Crocs are undoubtedly the smash hit fashion accessory of this decade and in the words of their own unique advertising campaign, ‘The single ugliest item of clothing ever created™’. Crocs put their success down to the simple fact that the design free and cheap-to-produce plastic clogs are absolutely irresistible to people with no sense of style, such as children and reality TV show watchers.

“Obviously our first move will be to ensure all our team wear Crocs” announced the company’s Dutch chairman Bo Gan Shuuse, “And then we will be working town by town, colouring each in a bright and exciting colour, some will be primary, some will be secondary and others will be more pastel in tone.”

PINK FOR BRIGHTON?

It is currently understood that London has already been designated as orange, with Birmingham and Manchester brown and lilac respectively. Further town colours will be decided in the next few weeks.

Britain has previously faced buy-out on several occasions, most notably during the crash of the late eighties when Amstrad expressed an interest. However it is only now that this abrupt sell-off of Britain, severely weakened by a cynical, shortsighted and morally bankrupt board of directors, has become a reality.

During a hastily organised press conference in one of the eight Oxford Street Croc shops, Britain’s current MD, Gordon Brown, hailed the news as ‘acceptable’, stating that “we were initially hoping that Apple would be bidding for Britain or even Starbucks at a push, but neither were interested due in large part to our work-forces’ growing love for infantile, tasteless footwear. At that point we realised that Crocs is a perfect match.”

BRAND RANT

The move has garnered predictable outrage from Britain’s militant union the BBC, whose leader Russell Brand claimed that the take-over was, “A f**kin’ disgrace”.

In a statement which Brand himself shouted out in the middle of the Lakeside Shopping Centre food court KFC, he bellowed that Brown was ‘once again short f**kin’ selling Blighty’ and that he himself would never wear a pair of Crocs, quickly adding “Not unless they are free, black and I can make a couple of quid from the celebrity endorsement”.

It took Brand’s own party members a further 4 hours to end his rambling speech, in which he lashed out at such targets as ‘the footie’, ‘funny things from yesteryear’ and ‘my discoloured willie’. The speech subsequently emptied both Lakeside Shopping Centre and much of Thurrock.

Brand’s dismissal of Crocs is particularly ironic; Brand has also described himself in the past as being irresistible to people with no sense of style, such as children and reality TV show watchers. However, Crocs have never been called ‘talentless’ or described as an obnoxious gobshite middle-class teenage Robert Smith wannabe prick.

SPAZTANIA

Speculation is now rife as to whether Crocs will change Great Britain’s historic brand name, with a suggestion that by the end of 2009 the former UK will be known as either ‘Croc Britain’, The United Crocdom’ or more simply ‘Spaztania’.

Bo Gan Shuuse elaborated on the current geo-political situation, “Where once the world was fought over on ideological grounds, now it is the footwear manufactures that vie for dominance”.

Crocs currently control much of Western Europe and at least 45% of Asia, whereas Australasia is controlled by Havaianas and the Americas by Converse. As a footnote to this, Birkenstock do not own any continental landmass but they do have more retail outlets then taste should allow.

I got a letter the other day...

Priceless.

It's stuff like this that brings joy to my cynical heart... I received this email yesterday morning;


Hi there!

I recently searched online and came across your blog and came across your interview with the Bliss editor, Helen Jenkins. I am currently a third year journalism student and doing my dissertation on the sexual content in teenage magazines and was wondering if I could include your interview? Just need to verify with you that it is truthful and it was conducted, etc etc...I know that sounds silly but it needs to be done! Do let me know if you can let me use it, as soon as possible... Also, any further information on the interview would be great.

Thanks so much for your help.

I look forward to your reply.

Thanks,

Jennifer.


This is the post she is referring to;

Bliss Magazine - teenagers guide to fucking!

I can only assume she never actually read the post because lets face it, I ain't being subtle here.

This is almost as good as all the attention I got from the castration folk over my Castrato Academy I did a few years back.

Well, that's it, I'm definitely getting me one of those personal websites when I get back, all flashy like. I might even try my hand again at some satire, subtle or otherwise... and then maybe I'll get a job...

Leaving the tropical Island we're currently on and heading back home to England in 16 days. Is it true no one has a job there anymore and that it now resembles the future earth from the Terminator movies... only with more crappy telly?

Herge OUT.