Skills

I spent Sunday night sitting on my ottoman, surrounded by every kind of screwdriver known to man, fixing a new switch into the power cord of my Evil Monkeys.


I wish I could say that my Evil Monkeys were my simian robot army, programmed to do my bidding no matter how nefarious or twisted. "Bring me the head of Justin Timberlake, some jelly beans with all the black ones picked out, and a gallon of lemur urine!" I'd say. "And make haste, for it must be done before moonrise!"


Honestly, I really do wish that.


But they're not. The Evil Monkeys is a photograph of my assembled Chee-Chee Technipets, blown up to slightly larger than A2 size, and placed in a lightbox I bought from the second-hand office fittings dealer. They look nicely ominous, especially now that they're backlit and two feet tall instead of two inches, and they strike fear into the hearts of... well, people who are easily frightened by Happy Meal toys.


The lightbox didn't come with a switch on the power cord, so last night I sat there with my tools and my vast fund of advanced electrical skills to install one. And I did! Without electrocuting myself! Now I don't have to keep shifting a very large armchair to get to the power point every time I want to turn it on and off.


While I did this, I also watched just enough of the Eurovision Song Contest on TV to realise that the only way to really enjoy it is to match Terry Wogan drink for drink, and I don't have enough drink in the house despite the fact that my liquor supply occupies one third of my pantry.