Sockmonk, a traditional red-heel sock monkey

A cousin has come to live with us! We are very pleased to welcome him to World of Monkey.

Monkey adventures to follow…

… sit around in your pants all day watching football on TV

Giantmonk likes to relax in pants

It is that time that comes around only once every four years.

It is the World Cup!

We are 26 games in, half way through the group stages, so I thought I’d fill you all in with my insight and punditry on this most special of sporting events.

Firstly, beer is nice.

Mmmm, lovely monkey beer. Makes even the boring matches fly by.

It makes even the England games bearable.  Well, nearly bearable.  I like how England decided that in this World Cup they were going to give every other country a sporting chance by fielding a team of grandmothers and builders rather than the sporting professionals that you might expect, and Fabio Capello’s decision to lure the rest of the world into a false sense of security seems to be working.  Let’s hope he remembers to field a team of actual players for the next match though eh?

After the last England match I went to visit me old’ mucker, Roy Hodgson, to ask him for some tips that I might pass on to a’capello and the choir boys, but as we were talking his head started to fill with hot air and he floated away.

Roy Hodgson, full of hot air.

I assume he was going to try and hot-air balloon his foot-balling brain to the South Africa base camp to give the boys the benefit of his sage advice in person.  Good bloke, that Roy.

So, with Roy out of the way I decided to try and think over the England tactics myself.  Like a general with his toy soldiers, arranging his miniature troops ahead of the actual battle, Giantmonk and I turned to Subbuteo:

Is that Subbuteo guy huge or am I smaller than you imagined?

Here I am picking the England keeper.  I know who he is, but I am not going to tell you who he is.  In fact I am not even going to tell him who he is.  We will find out only when I put my monkey paw into a hat and pull out a random name.  The first time I did it I pulled out ‘Robert Green’.  When I watched him play I didn’t think much of his goalie skills, but it turns out that he is just a hat-maker from Kettering and I had accidentally picked out the label.

I asked Giantmonk for his input, and I think that he has the best game tactics so far:

Eat my goal

Giantmonk’s favourite song.

Today it is my 8th birthday. I have been looking through the archives of the old website and have found a few pictures from when I was younger, fluffier, and slightly brighter in colour; and without the worn spots that have come from many cuddles, many adventures and from drying a few tears.

8 years of Monkey Adventures

In my time I have participated in the Olympics, swum the channel, eaten more bananas than you can possibly imagine, defended the planet as Supermonk, celebrated, been called some names, met the bloke from the Foxes Glacier Mints packet, met some native Americans and Billy Connelly, been an effigy in ice, visited family, embraced my hometown, been singing’ in the rain, documented all of my adventures on my monkey laptop and had a music career.  And much more.  I hope that I can have even greater adventures in my next eight years, but I am starting quietly.

Today it is just me and Mimi, so we aren’t going to be able to go out and have a Monkey beer and maybe some cake with friends, but my economy-size friend GiantMonk did find time to email me this picture:

Thankyou, Giantmonk x

Of all the jobs that I quite fancied doing when I was younger (before becoming an international Monkey of mystery, of course), pounding the mean streets as a police cop was not top of the list. Giantmonk quite fancied the idea, but that was more because of the promise of doughnuts.

The other day I heard from an old friend from Thailand, who had recently joined the local squad and who wanted to tell me what life was like when you’re a cop.

Chicks dig a guy in uniform

Firstly, it’s not all sitting around, eating. OK, it’s mostly sitting around eating, but sometimes we have to spring to action. I’m partnered with some young chap who does all of the driving. To be honest I don’t much trust him behind the wheel and I think that’s the real reason he wears the body armour.

'Don't keep pulling those faces at me, you blinkin' idiot'

Every now and again though we get called into some serious action. The picture below was taken during an illegal elephant football league bust, where I am taking control of the situation via the usual police tactic of shouting really loudly.

Freeze! Lay on your face with your hands behind your back!

Rule one of living with monkeys is if they apear to be organising or planning something it’s probably best not to ask.

Monkey and chums plan something

Hello Monkey chums!

Me and Giantmonk, enjoying a drink at the Waterwitch pub in Lancaster

Today, as any Irishman would tell you, is St. Patrick’s day. Now, I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in my little body, but like the millions of other people that find the day o’the shamrock an excuse to go out and enjoy a pint of the black stuff, I’m not going to let that stop me.

I have started to keep a notebook of all the occasions and details of every pint of Guinness that I drink. To record the location, company and mood of each time I enjoy a stout drink. I think I’ll call it the Guinness Book of Records.

That was smashing

Rating: fantastic.