Everyone loves the monkey

Conversation with me these days naturally turns towards the subject of pets as I continue to dither over whether to welcome little Smudge into my life.

Look, here’s the little blighter with her eyes open now:


OK, I know, you can’t REALLY see that much, just two white paws and a big… well, black smudge. How apt. Anyway, the paws are damned cute, I think you’ll agree.

Anyway, Yaz has decided she wants to get a new pet. But she does not want a cat or a dog. She is not even swayed by my suggestion of a miniature horse.

She wants a monkey.

Yes, I said she wants a monkey.

Not a great ape, or a baboon or something like that. She wants one of those little ones, like Marcel from Friends. And that vicious little one from Raiders of the Lost Arc that wears a little waistcoat, and possibly even a fez, if memory serves me correctly. I don’t think she’s seen the Dustin Hoffman epic Outbreak, and I’m loathe to tell her to watch it because, while I’m dithering over the kitten, I really want her to get a monkey. Mainly because if it starts baring its nasty little pointy teeth at people and throwing poo around, it’s not my problem; I can just sit back and laugh. Unless it’s throwing poo at me.

So, yeah, the idea of a pet monkey is quite cool. I’ve even suggested that she could dress it up in little costumes; a sailor suit, a cowboy suit, perhaps even a little mariachi suit. Although to be frank it does sound like I’m planning on putting together some kind of monkey-based version of the Village People (“Young chimp, there's no need to feel down/I said, young chimp, pick yourself off the ground/I said, young chimp, 'cause you're in a new town/There's no need to be unhappy!” And, erm, so on…).

Apparently, London Zoo has opened a new monkey enclosure that you can walk through. Now that sounds like fun. Yaz and I are plotting to case the joint in August. And, er, y’know… wouldn’t it be awful if one ‘accidentally’ fell in her bag?