'Monkids'

Did anyone catch 'My Child Is a Monkey' on channel 4 last night? It revolved around people who, for various reasons, choose to keep capuchin monkeys as 'life companions' and treat them like human babies; playing dress-up, teaching them to eat at the table and getting them to wear nappies (I'm not saying 'diapers', doh!).

Said reasons, I imagine, fall into one of the following categories:-

- Human babies grow up, whereas monkeys can be treated like babies throughout their 40 year lifespan, giving these abusers a purpose in life.

- Nut-jobs tend to have their kids taken into care by the state, while monkeys' well-being appears to be less closely monitored.

- Human babies reared by these people would grow up maladjusted and kill the parents in their sleep.

- You can't pull out human babies' teeth or neuter them to make them more placid and manageable without getting thrown in jail.

Who'd have guessed taking an animal that would naturally have a whole forest for a backyard and wedging it into a cage the size of a cupboard might cause behavioural problems and transform cute, fluffy monkey babies into delinquent hoodlums with a penchant for transplanting people's faces? I know, it's a shocking discovery.

What's also bad for them as it turns out is to feed them a human diet loaded with carbs because this can induce diabetes. This was helpfully pointed out to one monkey-mummy by a vet who advised that unless she switched her baby's diet to one composed mostly of fruit and veg, it wouldn't survive. So what does she do? Gives the monkey spaghetti for tea and sets off to church to ask god to save her child.

God wasn't available for comment at the time of filming, but I'm sure he'll do his best.

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Just a man and his will to deprive...

...you of 50 of your hard earned dollars, and your sanity if you're not careful. Not even Adriaaaaaaaaaan could save you from this dog's dinner of a game.

In an old Angry Video Game Nerd YouTube review/rant, James covers the Sega Master system boxing game, Rocky. When the left and right d-pad buttons fail to move the Italian Stallion left and right in the ring he consults the game's manual for some sagely advice. It 'elucidates' as follows:-

"To move your player around the ring does not really require any specific buttons for execution. It requires the right situation because your player will be prohibited from moving unless you satisfy these conditions.

If you're on the offence and attacking freely, your player will move according to the direction of your blows and can be guided to the left/right or forward/backward with your D-button.

If you are on the defence, your player will not move in the direction you want until you can guard yourself effectively (Button 1). And then, you must start dealing blows to be in control of your footwork as mentioned above."

I may be a tad late to the party given that James has just celebrated his ten year anniversary, but wow!, that's staggeringly shoddy even for a game of this vintage. I think - in programmer Engrish - that equates to, 'Everything happens randomly. Whatever you do isn't going to achieve much so you may as well mash the buttons as fast as you can and see what happens'.

It kind of reminds me a lot of the Amiga game Dragon's Lair where the game doesn't amount to much more than an interactive cartoon. At least that, however, had the saving grace of it all looking very pretty, and the animation was groundbreaking for the time.

I'm actually quite surprised the programmers responsible for this game's control method didn't encourage you to grit your teeth, squint up your eyes tightly, clasp your hands together and invoke the "Eye of the Tiger" to defeat your opponent. That would have been just as effective... and more fun!

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Where we're going we don't need DeLoreans

Sitting on a deck chair in my parents’ garden at the weekend, a cat leisurely idled past with its snooty nose in the air, and with a jolt it dawned on me that this is the same cat that has lived next door for the last twenty five years or so.

The same cat that beckoned me over to it when I was nine years old with its you-can’t-walk-by-without-stroking-me, butter-wouldn’t-melt, wouldn’t hurt-a-fly eyes… and then proceeded to lash out with its extended, razor-sharp claws when I succumbed.

Aside from no longer being a kitten and having somehow much wiser, knowing eyes, it hadn’t changed an iota; identical black and white stripes in the same proportions and patterns, and the same self-righteous demeanour.

Twenty five years of life experience flashed before me in that instant. In particular I couldn’t help dwelling on all the relatives, friends and pet dogs I’d lost in that time, and yet here was this bullet-proof furball still going about the crucial business of terrorising starlings and generally swaggering around like it owned the world.

Had I fallen into a worm hole and travelled back in time?, or was the moggy taking a giant leap for cat-kind into the future from my childhood? You could answer, “Shut the hell up you idiot. Cats live a long time, deal with it”, and many would, but I can’t shake the bizarre sensation of unreality and foreboding.

So that was my weekend. Perhaps the question I should be asking is, when did I become Karl Pilkington?

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