Baby Itchy's Human Mountaineering

I TOOK OUT "BABY" ITCHY ROBOROVSKI, the smallest and tamest Tiny Trotter for a ramble today and she spent half an hour mountaineering along my arms, up my knees, then disappearing down an inch-wide long plastic tube I rescued from a skip and shoving around my sleeves. I say shoving because she does this nudge nudge digging thing with her nose which is really ticklish what with her 2ft long whiskers (in robo-feet). She can also climb it when it's literally vertical, then appears at the top, all furry and surprised, as if saying to me "where do I go NOW?"

I got one drugs telesales call when I was fast asleep at 10 o'clock this morning. The screen said TWONK (ie it's someone I wanted nothing to do with anyhow...) he quickly gave up within around 6 rings...

I've had such an obsession with gnocchi I used the entire 500g packet, together with half a jar of Ragu Oregano and Basil ~ half price (66p). You have to be careful which of those pasta sauces you buy as Ragu is proper ie 150g tomatoes go into every 100g (they are boiled down during production). Supermarket's own brand (£1.15 for about a litre) was only 40% tomatoes, I noticed, and contained added water, as such sauces should never do. If you want added water, add it yourself during cooking (it makes 'em go twice as far). Another top tip is to add Ragu to chopped tomatoes. The Ragu taste you simply cannot get, even from concentrated tomato puree. Your tomatoes must have gone through the specialized 3-hr lidless oven-baking sessions to get the mega-mellow taste right. Adding just a bit of Ragu to chopped tomatoes and puree makes it just right. But without that little bit of Ragu... you're nowhere near there! I've also used half a tub of grated Parmesan in about 2 days: yummm!

La Toya Jackson (yes! Michael's sister: looks how he probably wished he looked) is on Celebrity Big Brother, together with a tiny Hollywood actor guy called Verne Troyer (played Mini-Me in all them Austen Powers films), together with "Gangsta's Paradise" rapper Coolio. (Do click those links ~ they're hilarious!) For those of you without access to Limey TV, here's a clip of the first two discussing the third:



PS MY "WHERE IN THE COCA-COLONIZED WORLD" COMPETITION from yesterday's still open. Will somebody please gimme an answer on the mysteriously-lettered bottle. I know you don't know so just GUESS!