Monkeyshines

Author: James

  • Book Battle 5: Bibliomania

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    Just in time for Christmas, the return of a Monkeyshines “favourite” that precisely no-one has asked to see make a return! Yes, it’s a rather random, rather pointless, book battle, where the books (rather than the books’ characters) struggle against my tortuous metaphors and each other, and the rounds are decided using a list of…

  • I can only get away with sentimentality like this at Christmas

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    I don’t know if it’s a side effect of fatherhood or just age, but I seem rather more prone to sentimental, watery-eyed moments since the Little Monkey came along. I’ve lately been watching Secret Millionaire and getting choked up at the denouements. Earlier in the year I was moved by an article about children who…

  • Sleeping Kitten, Sitting Monkey

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    The Little Monkey has always enjoyed being toted around, getting an adult’s-eye view of the world. Until recently, however, he’s always had to rely on a grown-up (or a restrictive seat) to get a right-way-up perspective. So it must be quite satisfying for him to sit, semi-stably, watching out for brightly coloured and excitingly shaped…

  • Elusive Monkey Smiles

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    Getting a good photograph of the Little Monkey beaming one of his face-splitting smiles is a task akin to capturing a yeti’s likeness. Partly this is because Mrs. Monkeyshines and I are prone to parental cooing, which renders one somewhat helpless (as the appearance of a mythical man-beast might do, albeit for different reasons). But…

  • Monkey Chuckles

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    The Little Monkey has recently moved on from only laughing in response to physical stimuli, to laughing at sights and sounds. Last week Mrs. Monkeyshines saying “Sick-on-your-face” was the funniest thing in all creation. Here, the rattling of a fork in a bowl is enough to elicit pleasingly full-throated chuckles, alternating with his pensive look…

  • The Rascally Noble*

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    James
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    Sometimes I have something mildly diverting to say about the Little Monkey’s development. Sometimes I just have a picture of the boy that’s too charming not to show off to the world… * There’s a prize** for the first person to solve this anagram. Answers on a postcard, or the back of a stuck-down envelope,…

  • The Comedy Stylings of the Little Monkey

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    The Little Monkey amuses himself, and us, by blowing raspberries and waving his bum in the air. The boy’s clearly a comedic genius; people have built careers on weaker material than this.

  • Twinkle, Twinkle,…

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    James
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    I tend not to re-read books, largely because I extend my library at a faster rate than I read, so I’m slowly accumulating an ever-increasing number of unread books. But sometimes it’s nice to revisit an old favourite, either to find that while the text has remained constant, the reader has changed sufficiently to discover…

  • A Bouncing Little Monkey

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    I was going to rattle on about our Little Monkey developing more complex interactions with the world, etc. But then a lyric from a George Benson song popped into my mind, which I think is comment enough: “Let the children’s laughter remind us how we use to be” *. * The original version by the…

  • Formal Grammars

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    James
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    Throughout the course of my PhD I have found it useful to write summaries of the various aspects of phylogenetics and biology that I have learned. That these will be useful to others is perhaps a vain hope, in both senses of the word, but I thought I might as well publish some of them…