Bankholiday* Heatwave

...*in response to the query I got the other day, a bank holiday is merely a British public holiday. So called because the banks take yet another opportunity to shut their doors early (what's new) ...

WHAT A SULTRY SUNDAY. "HEATWAVE" is how the forecasters phrased it. And yet again - there's me unconscious on the carpet snoozing as Amy Winehouse tinkles round and round on repeat play.

WHEN I REGURBISHED THEIR DOMAIN with Yangyang the Chinese hammy's cast-offs, the Robbies went bananas investigating it all, especially running back and forth throughout the Signal toothpaste box, poking heads through the chewed-out parts, squirming thru, pinging, ponging, do nothin' wrong-ing...

SORRY I didn't post yesterday (though it's labelled "Sunday" the last post was actually inputted late Saturday night). It got L8R & L8R, I had no messages to pass on. London had went Carnival crazy. Streets seemed full of beautiful black girls in spangling frocks. Black kids drest in West Indian cub-scouts garb. And black men tagging on possessively behind drest in nothing more special than their best baseball caps... (It's a Carribbean carnival. When white people have been; unless there's a whistle hung on Jamaican flag-themed ribbon about the neck there's usually scant clues at all that they've been. Except for an unusual level of drunkenness...)

Last night I decided to introduce Yangyang the Chinese to Baby Itchy the Robo. On neutral ground, of course: my two hands. All went fine except that in my enthusiasm I had gone and confused Itchy with Bashful - the absolute worst move I could possibly have made. No sooner had their whiskered faces said hello (in my own falsetto) safe from separate hands than Bashful went ping!! disappearing across six feet of carpet in two seconds and hiding behind a fallen laminated fire alarm notice. Yangyang merely looked on, ears poked up on high alert with a bemused expression and clung resolutely to my right hand that I suddenly needed for Robo catching duties (as Chinese hamsters do). When ten minutes later the situation was resolved, Bashful was blasting about the tank like a firework rocket panicking the other two for ages and Yangyang, who I'd not had time to return home had vanished. I later found him having burrowed down a new bedroom in the sleeve of my best jacket. Then the real Itchy showed face as if to apologize and he looked itchier than ever, wet from head to foot, like a brush from one of those drive-through automatic car-washes... except two inches long and beady-eyed and sand-colour, not blue....

... AND SO THE BANK HOLIDAY BEAT GOES ON... it's a sweltering day. Sly and the Family Stone are a-jazzin' & a-tootlin' behing the Robbies' empty-looking tank. The Robbies are all stashed away in their Maltesers tube fast asleep like mini gremlins. No wonder they're tired. Bashful and Sphericlal were running the wheel all last night while Itchy ill-advisedly attempted to go the other direction and so ended up clinging on for dear life doing constant loop-the-loops - and getting repeatedly trampled on the head as the other two passed another time over... (No wonder his behaviour's ditzy. Perhaps he's got brain-damage from all that gettin' chucked about... I don't know.)

NOW I HAVE TO GO and cook mushroom tortelloni with grated vulgarity cheddar and demoralized chopped tomatoes with French herb garnish... it's rather pleasant once you get used to it. (But some have died trying....) Hokay, till L8R...

Tunes of the day:
Bryan Adams with Mystery Guest: Everything I do
Chinese Violinist: Autumn Moon On A Placid Lake... this is the nearest I could get on youtube to my 50p charity shop CD of the same name featuring traditional Cantonese music with the traditional one and two-string South Chinese violins.... The tracks with "birdsong" are fantastic as it's all played out in alt-altissimo on violin strings... quite genius... and just the thing to have glinting in the background if you ever throw a dim-sum dinner party ....

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ROBOROVSKI ALERT: CLICK HERE ... and scroll down to see Itchy's lookylikey ... (sorry it didn't come out properly the other day...)

Note the nervous expression on the face... that is so characteristic of the Roborovski hamster