I was going to bake and decorate a splendid cake in honour of me being great.  But I can’t find my cake turntable anywhere.  There are loud noises coming from the lab and the Professor is refusing to open the door.

I am most displeased.

I have a www.buildyourownclone.com kit, but it needs… something beyond the gain, tone and volume controls - a monkey needs more…

That looks promising. I never use batteries, but it made sense to leave space, and it’ll have a metal clip to hold it in place which’ll be rivetted into position. I suppose the various parts should actually be on the inside but that’s easily rectified later. I’m not using the BYOC jack sockets because I prefer the enclosed type. Next step, measure up, put on some masking tape and mark the positions of the holes:

Okey. I punched the centres of the holes through the tape. Super Monkey said she’d be happy to do the punching but I used a centre punch instead. I then removed it (it gums up the bit and leaves a residue if you drill through it). Marked the holes with a dry-wipe marker (permanent pen can leech through the paint), including how many steps each hole will take on the stepped drill-bit.

Drilling. Sides first - note the drill vice. Don’t want to snag the bit and damage my beautiful fur. The drill table is a bit rusty as you can see - I really need to fix the lab roof!

Skip a bit. I got fed up with drilling and just used a machine-gun on the other holes. Turned out better than I’d expected.

Sanded the enclosure so the paint would grip properly, then degreased with isopropanol and wiped clean with kitchen paper. Note the high-tech spray booth - two thirds of a cardboard box, a cake turntable and the lid from a spraycan to hold the enclosure above the turntable - this prevents it getting “glued” on with the paint. So many painful lessons learnt…

And some primer. Two coats, because, erm, that’s how many I always do.

I’m going with two big fat stripes.

Here’s the basecoat paint - this’ll form the stripes tomorrow. One coat of colour, two of lacquer. The lacquer’s gone on really nicely - this should look like it’s been dipped in glass. I think it’s Ford Aztec Bronze, Peugeot Pagoda Red and Daewoo Ruby Red. The main colour will be white, I think. Something classy (for a change).

Right. Leave it to harden for a day, then the stripes.

I didn’t get a picture with the masking tape on; I wanted to leave it there as short a time as possible. Two strips, then a quick blast of white and ivory paint (thought it’d look a bit “aged” but there’s not much contrast), then off comes the tape, quick as possible. The tape did fray a little at the edges unfortunately, but it looks passable.

Next step is to put on a LOT of lacquer in several coats. I want to remove any apparent border between the two sets of paint. Couple of coats tonight, then a few days for the paint to cure properly.

This evening the Professor decided it would be nice to have a singalong in the treehouse. Unfortunately, the poor old chap developed a headache after only a few minutes forcing him to retire for the evening. A terrible shame it was too.

The planet Donkey! Monkey! High Council like me to read a set quota of Earth type science fiction so as to keep an eye on any possible danger signals that their primitive science research might progress in unfortunate directions.

So in this book, the silly scientists have messed up the planet in a silly way. The Earth type humans are a bit sad about this but I found it most entertaining. HA HA HA HA HA. Anyway, they all live in space but pop back to rummage through the wreckage of Earth and feel glum. At the same time there’s this detective in Olde Earth type Paris what is working on an investimagation about a possible murder of some bird. Then it turns out that there’s some strange hyperweb through space (Yeah, right. Like that’ll work) that leads from the stupid future back into the primitive past. But then it turns out that the past isn’t quite right and stuff has been messed about with. And that is what the book is about.

As stories go it is well written and entertaining, but as a treatise on modern science I feel that the planet Donkey! Monkey! High Council have nothing much to worry about and can easily crush the pathetic Earth type humans under their mighty monkey feet of cruelty and bloody oppression nurture current Earth type society into a more enlightened and joyous state of being.

This book reads much like the noiryness of that other one what he wrote.  Chasm City, that was it, but this book is set in a different story universe than all that Inhibitor malarky.  I prefered the Inhibitor malarky though.  I do enjoy a good space battle.  So if you enjoyed Chasm City you will likely enjoy this.  If you didn’t enjoy Chasm City you might prefer to read something else, or maybe watch some Murder She Wrote and eat a choc ice.

I have decided to learn the Earth type craft of spinning. The Professor pointed out that if primitive Earth type humans could manage it in days of old just how hard can it be?

It only took my four hours to untangle myself from my initial efforts and there’s only one rabbit still missing, so I tend to agree with the Professor’s assessment of this strange activity. It seems to me that the process could be greatly improved simply by leaving the wool attached to the sheep. As it is you have to attach the fleece to a spindle and set it spinning to twist the yarn. But sheep are already heavy and aerodynamic and very easy to set spinning. And if you dangled the sheep from a crane you could spin a much longer piece of woolly string before you had to wind on. The wool will just pull out by the root when you reach the end of the strand thus saving money on shearing fees and reducing waste. I suggested this to the farmer on Sunday as we drove up in a prototype SheepSpin-O-Matic of the Professor’s design, but he wasn’t having any of it. We had to be content with sheep free fleece.

There was a strong aroma of poo on the drive home. The Professor said it was sheep dung, but I’m not entirely convinced. There was a strong aroma of poo on the drive there too.

My second very purple attempt at spinning can be seen here.

The product of the first attempt is still being examined for rabbit content.

My robotic badgers escaped.

FEAR THE STRIPEY AVENGERS!

My egg-o-matic is finally working.

Niffs a bit though. I hope Super Monkey doesn’t notice.

Apparently they’re having trouble reading my reports on account of all the jam stains and so I have been instructed to post my findings on this primitive webpage. They wish to keep our technological superiority hidden from the puny Earth type humans sothat we don’t upset their caveman society and alert them to the coming invasion.

The Professor continues with his secret experiments in the hidden room. I am concerned by the strange eggy smell wafting though the ventilation shafts. I hope he’s just cooking lunch and not trying again with his ill-fated Flange-5 Zapman Bingo Planet Buster device.

I, glossy tummed Super Monkey, am the greatest hero of the planet Donkey! Monkey! I come to your tiny planet to study and destroy nurture your fledgling civilisation.  I live in a tree house with my bestest chum and arch nemesis Professor Devious E Simian and many highly trained robotic ninjas, cunningly disguised as rabbits.  So far I have discovered that your woodland creatures are highly evolved and intelligent and your biscuits are delicious.  The rest of your planet is less impressive.