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.

Silly Philly and Cows and CHOCOLATE

I promised you chocolate reviews and here's a start. Even I can only eat so much chocolate at once.

Chocolate Philadelphia. Why on earth would you mix perfectly good chocolate with cream cheese? Decided to try it anyway as people kept going on about it. It's disgusting. Absolutely horrid. Do not buy this stuff. The advert says it all:

Moving on. The Milky Bar cow paid me a visit this Easter. Here I am dressed up in the cow disguise. This is nice. Sweet, creamy and white. Yum. Highly recommended. Goes well with a coffee and a banana. Like the wrapping too.

I found no less than three tokens for 50p off this next chocolate, so I had to try it. The paper wrapping has a fab design too. It's Divine Dark Chocolate with Raspberry. This is 70% Dark Chocolate. I don't normally like chocolate with things added to it. Why ruin perfectly good chocolate? However, this is quite nice. If you've got a 50p off voucher, treat yourself to a bar.

What would I never, ever eat? Any kind of chocolate with any kind of orange added to it. I feel sick thinking about it. I am a discerning monkey and do not just eat chocolate for the sake of it. It has to be good chocolate. I'm going for a long walk. More chocolate reviews when I've walked off this lot. Monkey out.

A Hippo, a Koala Bear and a Pickled Onion Tree

I have a mate called Sam. We make up the best stories together. I thought I should start writing them down.

A small koala bear had recently arrived from Australia. He had fallen into this crazy world where hippos say 'heeeep' a lot and grow pickled onion trees. The small koala bear said some bad words to the hippo and he was locked into a prison truck and driven away by a monkey. The hippo went back to looking after his pickled onion tree. He liked drinking the juice of the pickled onions especially when he added Smarties. After a while the koala bear apologised for what he had said and he was allowed out of the prison truck.

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)

Try a different angle

Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir. Nice one Henri (Matisse). And yes I do know what it means. For those of you who don't: there are flowers everywhere if you want to see them. Go and find them. You don't need to go anywhere special, just look at things from a different angle. And take lots of photos.