STOP PRESS: RETURN OF CIRCUS MONKEY'S MOJO

Marcel the Circus Monkey, who has been recently indisposed due to stress, depression and a hernia brought on by a too strenuous bicycle act, will soon be returning to the sawdust ring.


From his bed at the "Home For Distressed Circus Monkeys" he would like to thank all his fans for their good wishes and gifts of bananas, peanuts and toffee apples. But he would like to ask people to desist from sending bars of peanut brittle as it tends to get stuck in his choppers.

SEE YOU ALL SOON!

THE BEST LAID SCHEMES...................

I'll give you "I do like to be beside the seaside......." What passes for management at "the Circus of Fools" decided that, since we were booked to appear at Sandy Cove On Sea, it would be a good idea for us artistes to mingle with the hoi polloi along the Esplanade as a way of drumming up some free publicity.
Whoever was responsible wants to sit down in a darkened room and put their head between their knees the next time that they get a bright idea.

Strangely, the idea might have worked tolerably well had it not been for the spite, malice and sheer stupidity of some of my so called colleagues.........oh, and a pair of roller skates! But more about that later.

As I say, the "Big Plan" was for all of us Merry Circus to do our "sctick" on the Esplanade in the hope that this would lead to a stampede to the Box Office.

The juggler was to perform tricks with his new coloured balls (stop it, you at the back). Stromboli was to tow a baby Fiat with his teeth - and after all that expensive dental work too!

Mario was to wave his wand and produce things out of thin air. The last time he waved his "wand" in public it produced a desperate need to pay out a tidy sum to hush things up.

THE DOGGING DAYS OF SUMMER

Apologies for the lapse in communication my little chums but morale round here has been lower than a snail's Dr. Scholl's recently. We are in the middle of the dog days of summer and most of our dysfunctional little band of jugglers, clowns and cut throats are even more "barking" than usual. We are currently encamped in a remote part of the West Country ( whose bright idea was that - it means that the audiences are even remoter)where the heat is something brutal. Oh the heat!, the torpor, the unattractive sight of circus workers in string vests!. It's like Tennessee Williams with Cream Teas! It's so hot that I can't sleep at night. I tried lying on a mat on the grass outside the caravan but the local wildlife kept nicking me crisps. Weeeeeeeeell, if I can't sleep I've got occupy myself somehow haven't I? It's not just the heat though. At night there are strange noises coming from the woods at the edge of the field where we are camped. The sound of car engines, doors opening and shutting and, oddly, creaking metal and the odd horn sounding - in more ways than one!. Beppo reckons its some Pagan group celebrating midsummer but its a bunch of the local, randy "stoats" doing what randy "stoats" do with no consideration for the peace and repose of hard working show folk. That Beppo! For all his bravado he is as innocent as a day old babe - only a lot less intelligent. Allow me to give you an example. The other night, just as I was sitting on my mat polishing off my umpteenth bag of crisps and longing for the "arms of Morpheus", dopey comes around the corner, trips over yours truly and falls flat on his face. The good news was that he was wearing his three foot long comedy shoes and so sprang straight back up again. The bad news was that he bent his new video camera all out of shape. Apparently, those sniggering little psychopaths, Zippo and Bippo, told him that the lady who rides the big white horse had a habit of sleep walking in the nude and Beppo had the idea of capturing the event for posterity - not to mention selling the footage to "You've Been Framed". Is there nothing that some people won't do for £250? I hope he takes it out on Zippo and Bippo's hides with that big comedy belt of his - the one with the massive ornamental buckle. Just so long as he doesn't do it at night. As I've just mentioned, it's hard enough trying to get to sleep around here as it is! P.S. A word to the wise: Never eat more than six bags of salt and vinegar crisps at the one sitting. I did last night and I my bl***in lips are still numb!

P.S. A special treat for all you pleasure seekers this time! Play the clip at the top of the posting and hear Mr G. Colonna sing his little heart out. Mr. C is currently the Assistant Pachyderm officer but, who knows,if your response is favourable the management may find a late night spot for him. It will probably be a very late spot - and not necessarily at this venue! If the response isn't so hot, well don't worry, the pachyderms speak very highly of him.

HEARTFELT THANKS FOR THE TALENTS OF GERRY COLONNA AND THE KIND FOLKS WHO PUT THE LOVELY FILM TOGETHER, THE MANAGEMENT.

"ON ME 'EAD SON, ON ME 'EAD!"

OR DOWN WITH THE MOB AND THEIR CONFOUNDED FOOTBALL HYSTERIA OR "OH, THOSE WORLD CUP BLUES

Well, folks, its on its way, thundering down upon us like an express train on steroids and, if you feel anything like I do about the prospect, you'll feel as though you are tied to the track with no hope of escape like that lady in the silent pictures that Stromboli and I are so fond of.

It would all be bad and bad enough but we look out of the caravan window and what do we see? None other than the sight of Beppo practising his ball skills (stop it!!!!) in his spare time. Have you ever seen someone practising "keepie ups" with two foot long shoes. No? Thought not. Add to that an orange wig and a big red nose and he looks like........well a proper clown - and not in a family entertainment sort of way. I'll say this for him though, he is a proper Millwall supporter - no-one likes him and he don't care!

No use bogging off abroad on holiday either! It'll be he same there. Only the colours and the language'll be different. Has the whole world gone mad? Even the Bedouins will be clustered round the old Panasonic Wide Screen Grrr!

Football? I just don't get it "mes amis". What's so special about 22 grown men kicking a leather ball around a field anyway? Don't they have proper jobs?

We actually had a similar game back in the jungle but at least there was a reason for it.

The object of our game was to get rid of members of the tribe who, in one way or another, had become liabilities to the rest of us.

We'd chase the miscreant through the jungle kicking coconuts aimed at his head. The one who scored the most "goals" got first dibs on the most nubile young female in the tribe. I'll tell you what, as incentives go you can keep your Porsches and Maseratis and Lamborghinis.

Needless to say, yours truly was absolutely hopeless at the "game" and once had to be stretchered off after my coconut bounced off the trunk of a Ban Yan tree and hit me square between the eyes.

As for the aforementioned miscreants, after the umpteenth missile connected with their noggins they usually got the message and were seldom seen again.

Brutal little savages, I hear you say, but, face it, it's no worse than what you lot can do to your Team Managers. Besides, we had a great esprit de corps - and there wasn't so much as a dodgy footballer's haircut between us!!!!!

CIRCUS MONKEY ATTACKS NICK CLEGG

You folks don't half get yourselves into some scrapes when picking your leaders!

A certain baby faced individual called Nick Clegg performed well in a couple of T.V. debates and now, all of a sudden, he is the "Great White Hope".

Performed well? Let's not get carried away (although many of you seemed to have).Basically, he performed as well as Wally The Seal when he manages to keep that big coloured beach ball balanced on the end of his nose for a few minutes.

I can understand letting T.V. advise you on which soap powder to buy, but choosing a leader for you...........

I live in a circus and see madness up close and personal on a daily basis but choosing a leader that way is just......well madness!

I know that I am just a jelly bean munching, toffee apple chewing circus performer with questionable personal habits and none of it is any of my business anyway, but baby face wants to let 58,000 criminals out of jail to paint fences, tidy up gardens and help old ladies over the road. He wants to give up the good old pound to join the crumbling euro and he even favours a law that would give drunks the "right" to demand that the driver stops the bus to let them off wherever they please. Grrrrrr!!!!!!! To add insult to injury he is annoyed at you for being glad that Britain was on the winning side in World War11. What would he be doing now if you'd lost it?

Anyway, what can you expect from a party that managed to find a home for that mad bat Sarah Teather?

By the way, am I the only one that's noticed Cleggie's remarkable resemblance to Private Pike in Dad's Army?

Altogether now.............stuuuupid boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TRUE CONFEZIONS

Talk about feeling dirty and unclean and generally tainted! Stromboli (the Circus Strong Man) and I have been sitting pursed lipped and in high dudgeon in our shared caravan all this past week.

Indeed, my lips are so pursed I could easily suck the filling out of an individual fruit pie through the whole in the top - and try drinking tea with pursed lips and not making a noise. Impossible!

Both Stromboli and I have been badly let down. Our usual high standards in matters moral have been betrayed. We are disgusted, distressed and utterly discombobulated.

The reason for this dramatic upset? Gather round my little playmates and lend an ear. Beppo, the clown, (both in the professional and personal sense) has been exposed.........being, well, exposed. It seems that in his dim, distant and dirty past, before he donned the fright wig, the big shoes and the big red nose, he turned a coin appearing in dirty films.

It was all quite some time ago, back in the days when such items were shown in dodgy clubs in Soho or sold under the counter in plain brown wrappers and he was quite the little star for a while. All his films had an exotic, or should that be erotic, Eastern theme with titles such as "The Nabob Of Neasden", "The Peckham Potentate" and last, but not least, "The Sultan Of Surbiton". Talk about typecasting.

In most of these insults to the art of cinema (or should that be sinema) he was dressed in a fez, baggy trousers and those funny pointed slippers that turn up at the toes. I believe in one film they even had silver bells on the end. Not much chance of him sneaking up on an unsuspecting member of the harem there!

Now it's Beppo's toes that are turning up - in embarrassment - and its all his own fault. Instead of turning his back on his old life completely ( like they do when they join the Foreign Legion) and, before YOU say it, no, there isn't much difference between that and Circus life (Camels and animal droppings feature heavily in both) he hung on to one reel of film, presumably as a memento of his time as a rising star.

He might even have got away with doing that if he hadn't fallen out with Zippo, another member of his troupe, and gotten him fired.

Zippo, a four foot three inch ball of tightly coiled venom and vengeance strode over to Beppo's caravan with the intention of standing on a table and headbutting his malefactor but, finding Beppo was out, Zippo had a forage through Beppo's belongings looking for something of intense sentimental value to steal and sell and found.........you guessed it.

Before you could say "social work report" Zippo had sold the story to the local newspapers and T.V. stations and posted a clip on YOU TUBE. Quelle Scandale. Quelle Horreure! You didn't know I was bi-lingual did you? I said bi - LINGUAL you at the back!

Anyway, we are all laughing stocks now. Our collective skills and talents are set at naught. In the eyes of the public we are merely second fiddles to a loathesome lothario with a spotty bum (the film may be old but its crystal clear).

I feel for Mariella, I really do. An angel like that should never be tainted by the wickedness of ths world. I wonder that girl ever sees fit to come down from her high wire at all!

NEWSFLASH! UPDATE!

Just had the busiest week since I first came to the Circus. Box office is "Boffo" as they say in Variety. Since that clip of the aforementioned S.B. was posted on You Tube the public has flocked to us.

I half think they expected to see Beppo in some triple x rated confection but how they think he could get up to anything wearing shoes two feet long defeats me - as it would Beppo.

Anyway, who cares. Beppo's misdemeanours were all a long time ago, mustn't be judgemental and all that and besides Stromboli and I have both embraced the joys of pragmatism.

The audience are still throwing things, but this time it's money - after each act.
We've been cleaning up. Stromboli, ever the scholar, bought himself a new Thesaurus and I got a catering size jar of Dill Pickles. Oops pardon!

THE UNKINDEST CUTS OF ALL

N. Osferatu, our esteemed, if strangely nocturnal circus accountant has got himself into a lather of almost hysterical activity of late. All the more alarming since he is usually a very inanimate fellow who has been known to sit motionless for hours at his office desk rather like one of those tropical reptiles who only show signs of movement when their overlong tongue flicks out to catch some unfortunate passing insect whose only crime was to be in the vicinity. Osferatu 's tongue, by contrast, usually flicks out to give some unfortunate an ear bashing for spending money - even when it happens to be their own.

All that is by the by, though. No, the real reason for the hysteria is that someone gave him a year's subscription to the Financial Times (you know the big pink paper that you often see worried looking financial types reading across from you in the train or in your local coffee shops).

Osferatu, glad not to have to rely on the financial page in the Daily Star any more, has been drinking in every word of it. But one word has made a bigger impression on this cold fish than all the others. The word in question is "cuts".

He has got it into his head that massive cuts are needed in the circus expenses. He feels it is his duty to make swinging cuts to prove his financial virility. He feels like a veritable little "Master of the Universe".

To him the word has become a talisman, a slogan, a leitmotif.......a sort of verbal accountants Viagra. Mind you, that last one conjures up images too horrible to contemplate.

Anyway he is bandying the word about, wielding it like a sword and generally waving it in people's faces. He loves the power it gives him. The only time you see anything like a glint in those cold dead eyes is when some poor lackey is standing before him, knees knocking at Osferatu's not so veiled inference that the aforesaid lackey should brush up his C.V.

He doesn't even bother with Labour's pretence that his cuts won't hurt you because they are kind cuts. No, he is taking pride in the fact that his cuts will involve much bloodshed.

In fact, on the subject of blood...when the lion tamer made the mistake of taking back Charlie the lion's dinner pale before the King of the Jungle felt he'd finished there was much blood. I wouldn't go quite as far as to say there was carnage but.......... As the medics fought like, well lions, to make sure Solly kept his right arm, Osferatu, I have no idea what his first name is, hung around the scene leering and whetting his lips over and over again. There is something not quite normal about the man and one day I'll find out what it is.

Anyway, like many other dreary, bloodless little men, he takes a pleasure in weilding power over the helpless. He started off in a small way by cutting the length of the sticks on the toffee apples and replacing the useless Latvian jugglers china plates with plastic ones. Takes all the fun out of Laszlo's incompetence if you ask me.

Now he has had the nerve to ask the divine Mariella to wear something a "bit more plain and sensible", if you please. I'm speechless just thinking about it. The man's a barbarian.

What's next, hiring three legged circus horses for goodness sake? I'll tell you something, I'm hiding my spangly shorts until that subscription for the Financial Times runs out.