Sunday 23rd April 2006

I made my first smoothie this morning, trying to act on the idea I had yesterday rather than it being another notion that’s good in theory but never put into practice. It was a triumph. It was a very simple recipe because I didn’t have much fruit around the place, but here it is.

Approx 700ml fresh orange juice, not from concentrate.
1 x large banana.
2 x green apples.
3 x baby carrots.

I know a carrot isn’t a fruit, and I was unsure if I should risk them, but they added a bit of bite to the drink and were a welcome addition. I think I shall call this seminal first ‘morning cocktail’ The Pillow Cooler, because just the thought of making it got me up this morning.

Why not make yourself a Pillow Cooler tomorrow and see how your day pans out?

The good thing about this drink is it gives you all the fruit and veg The British Board Of Sell Lots Of Fruit And Veg recommend you eat every day, following on from yesterday’s theme. I can’t see that blending the fruit up into a frothy drink makes any difference, so you can feel righteous about yourself too. It’s a winner.

I think I’ll make myself a new smoothie every morning, noting the recipe each time, and never once consult a smoothie recipe book. Therefore I will be entering brave new territory every morning, going off road if you like, and will soon have concocted the perfect Morning Cocktail (that sounds better than ‘smoothie’ – less Australian surfer slang) which will be unique to the world because if you do something randomly you greatly decrease the chances of anyone else having done it. Obviously someone’s made a Pillow Cooler before because it’s very simple, but you wait – you wait and see what I’ve got in store. We’re going to go Morning Cocktail mental over the next few weeks. And of course some days we’ll be mixing up some alcoholic ones – why not? If it’s a non-work day I’m sure there’s no law against adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It will get the day off to a flier.

Hold tight!

My day was spent horizontal on the sofa editing the manuscript. It’s taking longer than I expected but I don’t know why I thought I could do it in an afternoon because it’s a full length book, and I couldn’t read a full length book comfortably in a day whilst concentrating on each sentence and editing it. I’ll still get it done in time though, I’m positive. Hey, with a Pillow Cooler in your stomach, a man’s pretty positive about anything. Let me tell you. Yes Sir.

Thankfully, what could have been a boring a studious day was enlivened by a brilliant piece in the Sunday Times Travel supplement. It was an article that featured stories by various intrepid travellers who had been attacked by animals. There were stories of shark attacks, an elephant attack, scorpion bites, that sort of thing. And then a letter from a six years old boy. I’ll transcribe it for you here in full for your appreciation. Remember, this is supposed have been written by a SIX year old. Here goes;

‘I was at a zoo and dinosaur park in Combe Martin, Devon, with mummy and daddy, two years ago. It’s the kind of place with giant plastic dinosaurs stuck in the bushes that growl now and then, and then a bunch of scruffy sea lions that smell like cat food. I had eaten about 400 tonnes of ice cream and now I wanted to see more animals. In a large open area next to the pond, daddy saw some big fat pelicans, all full of fish. “There you are!� he said. “Some animals for you to annoy.� I was very pleased and danced up wiggling at them. The pelican was very big close-up and looked at me for a long time – then he tried to eat my T-shirt. It didn’t really hurt and daddy got this great picture while mummy and daddy were trying to rescue me. I did some great paintings and drawings of killer pelicans with lots of teeth when I got home. I just wish I had some kind of scratch on my skin to show my friends.’ Zebedee Ellis (aged six).

That, is not the work of a six year old. I think Zebedee had a little bit of help from mummy and daddy on that don’t you. Good Lord, where to start? Right, the Ellis family are clearly friends of the journalist who’s done the piece and they’ve got a phone call saying ‘Hey Miranda, Giles, do you want Zebedee to be in the paper next weekend? Cool, just get him to write about that time he was attacked by a pelican and e-mail me over that great photo and I’ll sort it out.’

The parents have gone, ‘right, the kid can barely put a sentence together, we’re not having everyone laugh at us. Let’s see what he comes up with and then touch it up a little bit.’

Or a lot.

I like the way Zebedee says ‘It’s the kind of place with giant plastic dinosaurs stuck in bushes that growl now and then’. Oh, those sorts of places, yeah. Zebedee is such a well travelled six year old that those sort of places are meat and potatoes to him. ‘A bunch of scruffy sea lions’. He’s a sea lion expert, did I not mention that?

And his Dad saying “There are some animals for you to annoy.� What sort of a little monster is this kid? Not content at looking at them, no. Appreciating them. Oh no, Zebedee has been given the green light to go and torment them by his fox hunt loving parents, because all animals are there for us to annoy or extinguish as we well know. What a horrid family.

I like it where he says ‘The pelican looked at me for a long time’. I bet it was just dumbfounded by the sheer arrogance of the lad. If I was a pelican and a ridiculously over-confident six year old sea lion expert came up and started ‘wiggling’ in front of me I’d have his head off.

Listen to what he says next ‘It didn’t really hurt and daddy got this great picture’. Photography expert too, did I not mention that? Oh yeah. The bravest photography expert the world has ever known. Forget Sir Randolph Fiennes – the wimp. He’s nothing compared to Zebedee Ellis, aged six.

‘I did some great paintings and drawings of killer pelicans with lots of teeth when I got home’. Yep. We expected nothing less, frankly Zebedee. It’s not like you were just going to go home and go to sleep is it? You got to get the old easel out.

Let me show you what an actual letter, written by an actual six year old, describing a pelican attack (probably to a psychiatrist) would read like.

‘Daddy and mummy took Sophie and me to dino place and it was sunny and wet. I had an ice cream because it was cold and daddy had a ice cream and mummy had an ice cream. Then I and daddy and mummy went to pond with Sophie too and a big bird like a monster ran over and it tried to eat me and BOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO – AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.’

Perhaps Zebedee really is amazing at writing even though he’s only six. Actually, I can picture him in the library every break time catching up on his reading, seeing as he can’t go outside and play because he is incessantly bullied due to his name being Zebedee. But if that’s the case, where does the confidence come from? Lord knows.

I hate over confident kids, don’t you? The ones who are about five, very posh, and march over and shake your hand saying ‘Hello, my name is Zachary. I am Susan and John’s son. Would you like me to show you through to the garden?�

No, I’d like you to go and play with your toy tractor and behave like a five year old.

What are they like when they’re thirty? Seeing a psychologist because they were denied a childhood probably.

Anyway, just to cheer us all up, here’s that ‘great photo’ of Zebedee Ellis, then aged four, taking a beating off a fed up pelican.

Cheers.

(to add - I've just noticed the photo credit above the picture. Max Ellis. Which is short for Maximillion. Maximillion taking a photo of his son Zeberdee getting attacked by a pelican and doing nothing to help. You couldn't make it up, as they say)

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit