Off to the Shropshire coast

I've been arguing with Johan, Sweaty Nora and Perspiration Betty. We've been talking about Europe and they think that Wales has been abolished by the European Union. They base this rather foolish idea on a document and map that was published in 2004 by the European Union which showed Wales as, well, quite simply not there. As it's Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow, we're off to the Shropshire coast to discover if Wales still exists. I've got a ten pound bet and a banana sandwich riding on on this. I'll be back soon.

Book review

I didn't blog yesterday as I found a fifty pound note on the floor in the car park, then to celebrate had a shot of banana flavoured vodka. It went straight to my head, and instead of saving £25 for my Tory party membership fee, I went on a twenty-four hour booze-up with Johan and Sweaty Nora around the pubs of Ludlow, and got so drunk that we somehow we ended up in Great Yarmouth and none of us remember how. Perspiration Betty came over in her car after a drunken text message and picked us up, and has now forgiven me for walking out on her the other day. I am a naughty little monkey!

To make up for it, and get back torying, I went shopping and spent the last of my money on The Big Red Book of New Labour Sleaze, edited by Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes, in order to improve my Tory education. It's a great book, a compilation of brilliant blog posts during Blair's reign of fire, and it's really entertaining. It brought back memories, and certainly will give me some reading fodder for the next few days as I reread it, as well as when I check out the various blogs of the writers contained within. I heartily recommend it.

Exam results!

After calling around the agencies to sign up (they'll contact me if there are any jobs), I headed down to Ludlow College.

Today was the results for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) students across the land, and it's all over the news. For the last year, down at Ludlow College, I've been doing an evening class to improve my CV. I've got my MCSE (Monkey Certificate of Secondary Education) qualifications under my belt (or rather my rosette, as monkeys don't wear belts!) already, but I've been studying for a GCSE in the Alutiiq language. I thought I'd signed up for the Arabic language (as apparently I could earn good wages in Saudi Arabia), but I'd forgotten my contact lenses that day, so hadn't read it properly and misread the form. I couldn't get a refund; I'd signed up for the wrong class and was stuck with it, so I went along to the first class, and fortunately I was hooked. Only one problem with the course: I never did learn the Alutiiq word for banana, even though I used to eat them all the time in class.

I also did a day course in Home Economics. At first I thought this would be a good course to do which could ease me gently into understanding better numbers, the economy, and also the mind of Public Enemy Number One Gordon Brown, but it turned out to be a cookery class instead! There was no exam at the end though, it was an uncredited course, so no qualification at the end, but I did take home a nice banana cake. I should post the recipe on here some time.

There will be ongoing political debates about the worth of GCSEs in the UK, but let's not try and run the students down today. They've worked hard, and well deserve their day of glory. Let's leave politics aside for today.

Anyway, you'll be wanting to know how I did?

I got a B grade! Quyanaasinaq (thank you very much), exam board.

Monkey with a blue rosette goes to work, watches football

Off to work I went. I arrived at Perspiration Betty's and immediately regretted it. When she asked about the bananas, I said I'd forgotten them (I'd actually eaten them on the way). Perspiration Betty showed me into a room with a phone and a bed, and told me to make myself comfortable. I was so excited, my first proper job, that I even got my photo taken before I started! Perspiration Betty then explained the job to me. I was to be an operator for an adult chat line! I couldn't last the course. My first call came through, and as I started to read from my script that I was "a naughty monkey", I just hung up on the caller. Perspiration Betty was furious. I said that I was a serious monkey with a blue rosette, with genuine political career aspirations, and it would only do me harm within the Conservative Party to continue working there another moment, so I left immediately. I didn't get paid.

Ah well, I'm off to the agencies tomorrow. I went round my mate Johan's place after quitting the job; he's a German football, and he'd TIVOed the football game from earlier. As you probably know, England lost. Look at the smug git grinning! I'm feeling even more down now. Will I ever get a decent job?

Joining the party

My congratulations to the blogger Daily Referendum. It's great news that he's joined the greatest political party in the world, the Conservative Party, and at last got his card.

It won't be long and I'll be joining too; I'm off in a few minutes to head over to Perspiration Betty's parlour to see about this job to earn some dosh for the membership fee. For some reason she said bring some bananas. I don't know why. I'll find out when I get there. See you later.

David Cameron speaks out on youth crime

I'm happy to have found out today that nice Mr David Cameron spoke out on youth crime. I'm glad he's been on about that; I get so tired of the local youths with their bottles of White Lightning coming round and throwing stones at me in my tree. Can't they leave a monkey with a blue rosette in peace? He's to look at tackling the problems of drugs, drink, debt and unemployment in the youth today too.

Speaking of unemployment, I was at Sweaty Noras Greasy poon having a banana sandwich, moaning about my need to find a job to save up £25 to join the Conservatives, when she mentioned that her sister, Perspiration Betty, has a job going where she works late at night, manning the phones. I'm going to go round later and check it out. I've also got some interviews lined up with some agencies too.

Monkey with a blue rosette gets on YouTube!

Ladies and gents, prepare to be astounded, as the only Monkey with a Blue Rosette on the Internet makes his first video appearance! Today, YouTube. Tomorrow, party political broadcasts for the Conservative Party? Who knows?!

All right, the camera's a bit shaky, but it's my first video....

Now let's see if this thing works....

Here's a video of me watching YouTube, with the good old traditional hymn "Jerusalem" playing.

Monkey with a blue rosette online 24/7?

One of the first requirements these days of any Tory is some form of connection to the Internet, followed by a website. This blog serves as the second, but I still have difficulty with the first. As previously mentioned, I have a laptop, but not broadband. BT refuse to connect my tree to the net, so I'm stuck stealing bandwidth of a local unsecured wireless connection. It is immensely difficult sometimes, when the signal weakens in the middle of downloading a large picture of Mrs Margaret Thatcher from the Thatcher Foundation website and cuts out, causing me to hang on to the tips of the slenderest branches with my laptop in my paws, just so I can reconnect.

But it seems my problems will soon be solved, as Ludlow is to go online! As everyone knows, the Ludlow and Tenbury Wells Advertiser is a wonderful source of local information, and they reported today that the Chamber of Trade is looking into ways to blanket the town with broadband wireless.

Bring it on! Monkey with a blue rosette online, 24/7! Until, then, it's back to the books.

Tories and holidays

I know I'm looking for a job, preferably with good pay, bananas, prospects and an understanding for Conservatism, but like everyone, I would look forward to a day off when I finally get a decent job. There have been whispers that the Conservatives may look at introducing three new bank holidays, and I welcome this, although the policy forum hasn't published its findings yet.

So without further ado, here are my suggestions for three new bank holidays:

• Winston Churchill Day: (date to be decided) why not honour the great man?


• National holiday: England and St George's Day, Scotland and St David's Day, Wales and St Andrew's Day. (Northern Ireland has St Patrick's Day off already)


• Banana Day: (date to be decided) Let us honour the greatest fruit God has ever given us.

David Cameron, I hope you are reading this.

Addendum: I've just been informed I got Wales' and Scotland's patron saints the wrong way round. What do you expect from a good British education, where Wikipedia is seen as the ultimate authority? I've got thirteen MCSEs (Monkey Certificate of Secondary Education).

The expansion of the EU and job hunting

Vlad came round again last night, and we got talking about the European Union, and particularly the expansion of the EU. He welcomed Romania joining the EU, as well as Bulgaria, and we chatted about other states joining. He thought Moldova was a long way off joining though until it solved the problems of the separatist Transnistria region. I mentioned that I was undecided about Turkey joining the EU, and that's when it all went bad. Vlad went nuts. "Those accursed Ottomans," he yelled, "The blood that flows in these veins shall never forget even if I go on forever! The blood is the life! They who stole the Hagia Sophia and beat at the very gates of Vienna; we can never let them into Europe again!" He ran off screaming through the streets of Ludlow about avenging his people, and I felt quite scared.

I backed off at that point, and I decided there and then that I would work for Vlad no more. I checked how much money I had, just over ten pounds after my bacon sandwiches over the weekend (and as a treat my free banana sandwiches) at Sweaty Noras Greasy poon. So I got on the Internet and searched for jobs, as I may have only ten quid, but I need another fifteen quid to join the Tory Party. I found that I was not the only monkey looking for a job; in Mesa, Arizona in the USA, they have been looking to employ a monkey for the SWAT team. It's not bad wages, $100,000. Maybe the local police force are recruiting?

I phoned up the West Mercia Constabulary and got through to their non-emergency call centre in Worcester. After being passed around, I finally got through to HR, and made enquiries about joining up. For some reason they didn't quite believe that I would be wanting to join. They also probed my past, about when I was on the inside, before I escaped from the zoo, and I answered all questions truthfully; it would only come back to haunt me if I didn't. They were only recruiting police dogs at the moment, but I could be taken on as a force mascot. I asked about the pay, and they laughed and said it would be peanuts. They then hung up!

I was rather upset by this indignity, so I guess I won't be joining the police just yet. I could have made a great copper, it would have been an arresting sight! But I still have a great respect for the police, even though they didn't take me seriously. After all, David Davies MP is a special constable, and a jolly good one at that!

Wot no bananas?

Don't get me wrong, I'm one all for localism when it comes to politics, and one of my favourite Tory MPs (I have a scrap book of photos of all my favourites and their election literature), John Penrose in Weston Super Mare is a big proponent of localism, but Sunday evening I had some devastating news.

I was sat in the window of Sweaty Noras Greasy poon [sic] eating my beloved banana sandwiches (two slices of white bread with thick margerine, a sliced banana with a spoonful of sugar dusted over the top) when Nora came over and had a chat.

Ludlow is well known for its 'slow food' movement, buying local, enjoying local food, she said, and that is to be applauded. However, she explained, as she was thinking of switching over to the slow food movement herself in the café, there might be some trouble giving me banana sandwiches in future, as she didn't think she could source them locally. She's going to look into things and get back to me to see if there's some work-around for this problem.

Reader, I'm worried. What will I do without bananas?

My new friends - links to me

Checking out Technorati, it seems that I am making friends with my blog. Everyone who links to me, I intend to link back (as long as you are nice). Particular prominence will be given to those who give me bananas.

Of particular interest of recent links here is someone with ther rather odd moniker of "Miserable Old Fart", who suggests Ludlow could be more worthy of the title of the capital of Wales? Hmmm.... In his comments section, there's a comment on Offa's Dyke, the one-time border between England and Wales. To be honest with you, bwt, I always thought Offa's Dyke was a great name for the local massage parlour here in Ludlow....

But if I am making friends in Wales, too, it's time to brush up on my Welsh. What's the Welsh for Tory? Ceidwadwyr? How do you pronounce that?

Sweaty Nora's Greasy (s)Poon

Yesterday morning I decided to treat myself and headed down to the famous local café, Sweaty Nora's Greasy Spoon. Or rather, Sweaty Noras Greasy poon as it actually is written. She doesn't know how to use the apostrophe and an S fell off the sign.

Sweaty Nora's is a fabulous establishment. I often go there for a bacon sandwich when I have a bit of money, and Nora often does me a banana sandwich for free, because having me sit at the table in the window brings in the customers, so she says. It was my primary source (until I got this laptop) for getting information about the political world. They take The Sun and The Mirror, and they do get The Daily Star and The Daily Sport as well, but those papers are usually stolen by the builders who come in just after opening time for a breakfast. I used to have a subscription to The Spectator, but I cancelled it when the Royal Mail kept having difficulty delivering it. I mean, how difficult is it to deliver it to Wilberforce Monkey, The tree overlooking the Smithfield Car Park, Ludlow? All right, I may have forgotten the post code, but...

Anyway, I was in there yesterday, and as a rarity someone had left behind a copy of The Daily Telegraph. I was very saddened to read that Lord Bill Deedes, the infamous journalist and former cabinet member, had died. On the rare moments when a copy of The Telegraph was left behind, I used to enjoy reading the articles from this modest, yet giant of politics. I will miss his writing.

My so-called life

It has fallen to me to explain my current circumstances, and why I currently am seeking to change them. I live in a tree overlooking the Smithfield Car Park in Ludlow, Shropshire, and it's been quite a nice life, but it does tend to be quite a hand to mouth existence. I don't have a job, or rather, I do have a job, but it's a bit irregular.

Since the opening up of the European Union into Eastern Europe, there's been a lot of immigrants from the former Soviet bloc coming over. One of them is a friend of mine who occasionally gives me odd jobs to do, and his name is Vlad Ţepeş. I think he's possibly Hungarian, and I do odd jobs for him.

He's a good lad, is our Vlad, but he does keep odd hours. Like tonight. I've been working a lot for him of late, and he gives me notes to deliver, parcels to take to places. In fact, he's got a couple of monkeys apart from me doing errands, and the joke is that he's trying to do DHL and ParcelForce out of business, with his own MonkeyForce. That's how I managed to save up for this laptop I'm writing this on, and I'm now using it by stealing a stray wireless collection that I think comes from a strange lady who keeps a lot of cats and wears smelly old cardigans down the street. I think she's possibly a novelist, or a Liberal Democrat, although she doesn't wear sandals. Anyway, checking into the router to see what other users/thieves of the unsecured wireless signal are looking for, I see that there's a lot of "pussy" being looked for anyway, so that's why I suspect it's her. Because of her cats.

Anyway, tonight Vlad came round and asked me to take a parcel round to one of his lady friends. I said, yeah, no problem, Vlad me old mate, and off I went, like a monkey after a banana. He used to pay me peanuts, but I renegotiated my understanding with him, and he pays me in cash, has done for a while, that's how I got my laptop. Anyway, I was on my way, and silly me! I tripped, and the package opened and I saw what was inside.

I knew Vlad was into some dodgy stuff, but no questions asked, cash in hand, I was his man (or monkey). But it's medical supplies of some red stuff from down the Ludlow Community Hospital! There was no harm done to the package, so I delivered it to a very foxy chick with a Romanian accent who gave me a twenty pound note as a tip, so that's me sorted for the weekend. What's more she had a fit sister too who looked the same, maybe twins? But they spurned my advances, however, saying they had some studying to do. To prove it, they showed me a copy of Teach Yourself Estonian and How to recover from surgery that they had been reading. I got out of there.

I don't know though. My conscience is bugging me. I'm going to have to stop working for Vlad. The Conservatives are the party of enterprise and promise, so I need to find a proper job to fund my future. Membership of the party doesn't come cheap, at 25 quid a pop!

Thoughts on selecting the London Mayor

Labour supporters are trying to wreck the selection process for the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, so I've heard, potentially sabotaging that nice Mr Boris Johnson's chances.

This is terrible. Why can't everyone play nice? I've discovered in politics that everyone likes to be nasty to each other.

On the other hand, if there are likely to be attempts to rig the elections like this by Labour supporters, it could turn London into a banana republic! That wouldn't all be bad, then.

Hmmm, bananas.......

Upset monkey

Oh dear! I've not been blogging long, and already the political mudslinging has begun. On LibDemVoice.org the blog feeds showed an article which said they thought I was a fake! I was jolly upset by that, I should tell you.

On further investigation, I discovered it had been written by Pink Dog! I was astonished! I thought we could be such good friends, as it's not easy being a political animal, but I was saddened to find that Pink Dog doubts I can type. Ever heard of voice recognition software, my friend (although it does have a lot of difficulties understanding me)?

Looking forward to an election

I'm quite excited at the moment, because as a monkey new to the Internet, I'm already making friends! I'd love to get more involved with the Tories, as they seem such a friendly bunch. I've always wanted to be a Tory since I escaped from the zoo during the General election in 2005, and a kindly old lady wearing a blue rosette threw me a banana. What kindness was this? It was kindness to help people progress, without them scrounging off the state, small government, low taxes, big bananas. I was in love, and infatuated with this political movement.

That brings me on to my next thought: there are whispers we might be heading for an early general election. That would be so exciting, because I would love to stand and do my bit for the party I have come to love and helped me in my early days of freedom. A couple of things stand in my way though.

Firstly, I'm not yet a member of the Tory Party. I'll have to rectify that with a letter to that nice Mr. David Cameron.

Secondly, once in, I'd need to get selected in a good seat. That'll be difficult.

Thirdly, I'm not actually sure if I'm registered to vote. There may be a few issues, what with me having escaped from the zoo, as who knows? I might even be down on the Home Office's books as an escapee, or an illegal immigrant!

Finally, I need to find a nice lady to be my life partner and feed me bananas all day. But who would care for a conservative monkey?

Greetings

Hi!

I'm Wilberforce Monkey. I've been supporting the Conservatives for a long time, and have been interested in getting involved. This blog is to chart my quest to get involved in Toryism, find the ultimate in monkey food delicacies (I love bananas!), and as I'm a single monkey to find the perfect woman for me. At the moment, I spend my days surfing dating websites, but haven't had much luck yet.

Wish me luck!