Coda

For some totally bizarre reason, I forgot to mention yesterday the tragic news that Yeboah, London Zoo's new young male gorilla, dies on Thursday while undergoing treatment in the animal hospital.

Everyone is gutted. They had such high hopes that he would settle in, become a silverback, and start a new colony. It's such a tragedy. There are so few of these precious creatures left in the world, and thanks to our hunger for new mobile phones, and our failure to recycle old ones, the Congo jungle they rely on is disappearing at an alarming rate to supply the elements needed to enable us to blabber about nonsense at every opportunity, when we used to wait till we go home and used the landline.

Death Roe

Don't much like this episode. The collagen-pumped lips of the abused daughter make me want to puke.

Bobby's great, though. Surprise, surprise.

"You always get the crouching scenes, Bobby. I'm getting in on this one."





Alex is pissed off - she asks all the questions, but miss pouty lips only talks to Bobby.


That man's appetites!





The spoilsport Alex reminds him they're on duty.


So he only gets to sniff the grappa.





All the way through this scene, Bobby bounces that left leg up and down. Woof!


You turn me on, Bobby, not just the TV.





Don't smile at her too much, Bobby.





I think Bobby would like to punch the smug doctor who let the cat out of the bag.

















You're flirting again, Bobby.


Shouting's no better - if that were me, I'd jump your bones.






Ah, the steam scene:

In Memoriam

Today is the 10th anniversary of my mother's death. The day before had been Mothering Sunday, the day after was my birthday. Somehow these dates made it feel even worse, though that may seem impossible.

Today I went to the crematorium to leave some flowers, and to take my usual look at the memorials, and the spot on the grass where we sprinkled her ashes, just where dad's had been sprinkled by her choice 12 years before.

For the first time, I took pictures of the wall plaque and the entry in the book of remembrance.

As you can see, a love of cats runs in the family.

Earth Hour

In about 15 minutes it will be lights out in the Val household. It's Earth Hour, and I'm committed to dousing all the lights for an hour. I'll be running the computer on battery, too, so my Bobby post will have to wait till after that hour is up.

I hope enough people do this to make an impression on the National Grid, or whatever power system you have in your country. It's only a gesture, but it's better than nothing, which is what our useless leaders seem determined to do. Or too much in the opposite direction, which big business is always striving for.

The picture is London at night taken from a satellite. Using a smidgen too much power, do we think?

A Rainforest Walk

And other zoo adventures.

Mummy lion left the kids with dad...


...and took time out to relax.


The new rainforest exhibit has creepers coming across the walkway, and the golden lion-headed tamarins were enjoying coming out of the forest to investigate. They especially liked the push chairs (strollers) . I foresee thefts, and possibly a few escapes, but hopefully no running over by wheeled vehicles. This little girl is missing her right arm, apparently lost in a fight. She jumps and runs really well, and seems completely rehabilitated.


The emperor tamarins are smaller, but very aggressive, and seem to roam in packs.


The outdoor walk-through area for the squirrel monkeys has been around for several years now. This is their indoor area, with a new mother carrying her tiny baby on her back.


Here you can just see its tiny head.

This seemed an interesting pose.


I would love a tail like this.

Before I discovered transitions

I find this video a bit jumpy because I hadn't yet realised I could have fades and other effects. But it's a great reminder of how they used to let Bobby have fun.

Life Interfering With Blogging

This has been a heck of a week for work. Nothing has been normal. I arrived at school today to find that I had a parents' evening, so bang goes capping Death Roe. Probably won't happen tomorrow either, because THEY ARE HAVING PREVIEWS OF THE NEW RAINFOREST EXHIBIT AT LONDON ZOO AND AS I MEMBER I CAN GO!!! It's a walk-through, so there's always the possibility of a monkey pissing on one's head. More of that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, one of my earliest successes (well I like it) with a perfect marrying up of music (Beatles as usual), Bobby and our feelings for him.

How not to design a hospital school

The boy I home tutor was ill today, and I couldn't go and teach him. The head of the hospital school at St Thomas' Hospital asked me to go into the school instead.



As you can see from the photos, the children's hospital is brand new, and it's topped off with a glass atrium several storeys high. As it was purpose built within the last couple of years, you'd think that the architects would have designed a fabulous school within the building.



You'd be wrong. The school is a roofless sectioned off portion of the open plan third floor of the building, with nothing above it but glass. Impossible to keep warm in winter, impossible to keep cool in summer, impossible to control the echoing noise at any time. The staff work with parasols over their heads to block out the glare. Voices rise to make themselves heard over the constant din. Today they had a double bass player from one of the big orchestras playing The Elephant from Saint Saens' Carnival of the Animals. There was nowhere that you couldn't hear it.



Someone got paid lots of money to design this.

This street runs part of the way between Waterloo Station (a huge mainline railway station) and the hospital. It just happens to be the street where my paternal grandmother Kuni Hareuther, lived and worked with her uncle Paul Maar at his baker's shop before meeting and marrying my grandfather, also a baker. Not only does the building no longer exist, there isn't even a building bearing the number. The railway already existed, but I imagine the building disappeared under a widening or rebuilding of the overhead tracks.

The street where my grandparents lived out their married life in their own bakery doesn't exist any more. It was swallowed up by the huge urban flyover at the Elephant and Castle. (That's an area named after a pub that was named after a corruption of the name Infanta of Castille! It's currently defined by the flyover and a massive traffic roundabout.) "Improvements" in transport systems seem to have destroyed my family heritage.

Sex Club

Sex and Bobby. Sex and Vincent. Made to go together.

I couldn't find many pictures to make clever comments about, though there are plenty of beauties.




This is such a cute pose.


"I think I have a cavity in my tooth."


"Bobby, you have to stop printing porn off the computer."


"Shan't!"


Accidentally on purpose...


"Oh - was that me?"





Bobby, the Honeys have gone.


"Can I lick your neck? Or something."


Bobby can't disguise from Alex the fart he just let rip.

That'll teach me

Knowing that after Easter I'm going to be working more days than I really want, I told my agency that I didn't want to work Tuesdays for the next few weeks. Monday was quite sunny, so I went for a stroll down by the river instead of driving to the supermarket to do a big shop. I'd go on Tuesday, I thought, when the weather was going to be a bit more miserable.

But I weakened when the agency phoned and said that one of my regular schools was desperate for me to work in their autistic unit (they didn't say this was beacuse the head of the unit had been attacked by one of the boys and had broken two ribs...) and so it was that I had to cram a day's work and a shopping trip into one day. So no time for capping Sex Club, but an unexpected extra sum to put towards my new dishwasher. Which doesn't arrive till April 2nd. Grrr.

Anyway, cue an old video. This one went live two years and two days ago in response to one of Jazzy's competition challenges:

Stress Position

Outstanding episode. But somehow it feels like the beginning of the end. Logan gets his foot in the door, then he has half the episodes in Season 5. Finally, when he decides to go, they bring in old frog-eyes, and Hey Presto! Bobby's gone.

Alex is so late, Bobby's had to sit down on the stairs to rest, and one guy even died.











Bobby chooses his next dance partner from a small and unattractive field.








Bobby plays one-man twister.He only had to ask...


Eyes pop out.





Bobby fails to make his pen disappear.


The realisation that Logan is NO contest.


Trying not to gloat.


Need someone to massage away that headache, baby?








"You talking to me, punk?"