NATURE WATCHED

Did you see Nature Watch the other night? It was all about my fellow chimpanzees and how dashed clever we all are and how - breathless hush - we have even learned to use tools. Frankly, I thought it was all a bit patronising.

They showed you one of my "brothers" poking away at an old log so that he could feed off the creepy crawlies inside. Big deal! Give me a decent Black and Decker and leave me alone for a couple of hours and I could build Stromboli a DECENT bookcase. I'm sick of looking at the rickety thing he's got at the moment. It's hardly a fitting home for Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zola, Mickey Spillane and all the other literary greats.

Later in the show the scientist chappies gave these monkeys at Edinburgh Zoo a film camera in a shockproof case to see what they did with it whilst, at the same time, making much of the fact that our D.N.A. is 98% the same as yours.

With that sort of percentage and a decent budget,they could probably have got a better end result than the people who make Emmerdale! All of this prompted me to wonder what percentage of MONKEY D.N.A the people who make "Live From Studio 5" and the "Wright Stuff" posess.

98% of human D.N.A. eh? I'll bet that you are all shifting nervously in your seats at the moment because if we had 98% of your rights you'd be in serious schtook. We'd be competing with you and yours for jobs and housing, wouldn't we? We'd be cheaper to employ than your average Lithuanian.

You'd see us everywhere. Delivering your post, serving up big Mac's in the local McDonalds or taking your fare on the good old No.37.

Just imagine us moving in as your next door neighbours. Just as you and your family and friends were enjoying your BBQ on the one hot day in Summer we would be up the tree in our own garden cackling, gesticulating and waving our backsides in your direction. Well, what do you expect when Carlsberg Special is so cheap?

Worst of all, imagine the look of horror on her loving Papa's face when some little Britnee or Chelsee brought her latest agile, if hirsute, beau home to meet the folks saying, "yeah, he ain't much to look at but he's "murder on the dance floor" an' he can spin round on his head faster than any of 'em others".

Relax, folks, relax. As you were. It'll never happen. A number of things stand in our way at the moment but for the sake of brevity I shall mention just three. We're short,we're hairy and we're bandy legged.

McDonald's? We couldn't reach the counter. We would have to sit on it.Health and Safety would never stand for it. Well, you wouldn't want your tray sharing space with a monkey's behind, now would you.

A postman's round? Leave it out! With these legs? It takes me all my time to cross the circus ring.

Mind you, from what I have seen of bus conductor's, we might be in with a shout there.

I can't help feeling that our day will come though. You have seen Planet of the Apes haven't you? HAR! HAR! HAR!

p.s. If anyone out there has a Black and Decker I'd still like to have a bash at that bookshelf!