OK so I missed a few...

Here's one for today:

First the worst
Second the best
Third the monkey in the vest
with the hairy chest.

And I am always third.

The last one?

The monkey roared
again.
I'm bored
again.
And became all temperamental
when asked to write
another poem.
Will he ever write again?
Only the monkey knows.

This is really getting very silly.

Bored #9 NaPoWriMo

The monkey roared
I'm bored
of writing poetry.
And peeled a banana.

Tumbling Monkey

OK, that's it, I'm off to Tumblr. Catch me at:

http://vincethevelvetmonkey.tumblr.com/

This blog stays right where it is though. For historical purposes.

Love
Vince

View from a bus

And so, here it is: View from a Bus. Quite a lot of views actually. Things I learnt from the experiment: buses are erratic, they move fast, brake heavily and pull away just as you've framed the perfect shot. This calls for a fast assessment of each photo opportunity and an equally fast frame and shoot. Or the moment has passed as the bus moves on. Good fun and highly addictive as you see so much stuff from a bus. And annoying when you see a picture that you can't take 'cos you're moving to fast. 

My shots are what they are, some of the blurring caused by the bus moving actually made for a interesting result. The sequence starts with a video of me on the bus to show how a bus moves (in case you have never been on a bus - you'd be surprised...) I'm not going to put any commentary on the shots this time, just see what you make of them. My favourites are the wall-builders and the girl with the red trousers.

Monkeying around

This little guy plays the drum. He can't stop. He lives in a china cabinet with some strange characters who really annoy him. We are planning his escape.

Green & Blacks

Time to lay bare my Green&Blacks addiction. OK, OK, that's a lot of chocolate, but I took advantage of a number of offers on G&B this week. My favourite G&B has to be the 34% milk chocolate (blue one - not to be confused with the light blue one which is the creamy milk which is also good). Then there's the milk chocolate combined with almonds, butterscotch, raisin and hazelnut...all yummy. I also like the dark chocolate offerings, but it's not my favourite dark chocolate. That would be Lindt 70%. I could just finish this now by saying that I like them all and pointing you in the direction of their website. But I won't 'cos there are some that I hate. Maya Gold. Bleugh. Someone put orange with chocolate again. And the Dark 85% is too dark for me. Like eating brown plastic. Green&Blacks. Mostly yum. And it's all fairtrade.

Now to my hiding places. Think this looks like a normal box of teabags?

No, it's my hiding place for, er, more chocolate. This is kept on a high shelf out of reach. In disguise.

What am I going to do now? A nice piece from the blue bar. And a cup of tea (that's not PG Tips).

Changing my margins

Ho ho, I've changed my margins. Now I can use extra large photos. Much better.

Biting the Bunny

Mmmmm. Watch out bunnies, I'm going to bite your heads off.

Lindt chocolate bunnies taste so good. But then so does most Lindt chocolate. Here's my handy summary for you:

Lindt Gold Choc Bunny: yum
Milk Choc: divine
Milk Choc with Caramel: divine and crunchy
70% Dark Choc: my staple (it has lots of those flavonoid things so it is really good for you)
70% Mild Dark Choc: hard to find but a very fine variation on 70% Dark Choc
Dark Choc with Caramel: oh boy
Red Lindor Chocolates: words fail me...the other colours of Lindor just do not compare - stick to red

Lindt have added a lot of new flavours to their dark chocolate range, but as I said before - why add things to perfectly good chocolate? Except for caramel or nuts or raisins. Wasabi? Don't be daft - this is something you put on sushi.

Last week one of my regular chocolate suppliers brought me some M&S milk chocolate with salted caramel almonds to try. Rather good. But those bits do get stuck in your teeth.

Enough chocolate for now. Monkey out.

Get stuffed

So, Damien Hirst has a retrospective at the Tate Modern. I was tempted, but then I read a review of the exhibition written by his final degree show examiner. And maybe not. I saw Damien's early stuff at an exhibition at the Serpentine in the early 90s (yes I am really that old) and it was good, really good. It came up and grabbed me and made me laugh. And I want to remember this and not have to look at a decaying cows head covered in blood and flies or a skull covered in diamonds. That does not grab me or make me laugh. So I am not going.

But I did go to Bristol Museum this week. People have been stuffing animals for a long time. Amazing display.

That's me and my new hero - Alfred the Gorilla

Chimp from a different angle

The Dead Bee (thanks Sam)

But is it art?

Monkey's t-shirt, but where is he?

Vince why are you wearing Monkey's t-shirt?

Vince you do not need to pretend to be Monkey. Monkey is not better than you, he may be able to talk and move and make videos with Johnny Vegas, but Vince you are an artist. You can express yourself through other media. Putting Monkey in the freezer is not the answer (but is an interesting experiment and makes for a good photo - liking the kippers).

But is it art?

Skip dipping

Taking part in a spot of skip dipping with Monkey. Not much good stuff in this skip, but great photo for Monkey's competition - will be posting it on Monkey's FB page.

Monkey

I've got to hand it to you Monkey, great video. Check out: https://www.facebook.com/PGtips