Monkeys

It should be enough to have a house full of bears, but lately we seem to have adopted two large monkeys, I don't know how. One sits quietly at the table eating a banana and the other is swinging from a trapeze by the back door.

My friend Claire was here today and commented on the swinging monkey, and it put me in mind of a story about Hartlepool, on the north east coast, south of where I used to live. (Sad bit coming up...)

In the Napoleonic Wars, a French ship was wrecked off Hartlepool and the only survivor was the ship's monkey, which was dressed in a scaled down version of a uniform. The people of Hartlepool, it is said, didn't know what a Frenchman looked like, so they decided that this small creature chattering in a language they didn't understand must be one. Accordingly, they hanged it.

Now, before you protest in outrage, there is no historical proof of this story, and it was probably just invented as a joke about Hartlepool people by their near neighbours. (Did they really think a Frenchman had a tail?) But to this day, if you go to Hartlepool, don't ask,

'Who hung the monkey?' They still don't think it's funny.

All of you in the US, we'll be thinking and praying about the forthcoming election.

AND I only realised this today - it must be weeks since I told you about The Archers! I do apologise, I don't know how you can bear it.

Lilian is angry with Matt for his unscrupulous business practices, and she has got back in touch with a former flame, Paul. (Lilian must be pushing seventy, by the way.) Her useless son, James, has just broken his leg and is lying on her settee expecting to be waited on.

Josh has offered to help with Hayley's hens, probably because he fancies her step-daughter Phoebe, Kate's daughter. Eddie and Emma are desperately hard up, and Will (Ed's brother whom she was married to first), thinks that they must be neglecting George (her son with him). So that's all crystal clear.