Monkey

This is Little Red Monkey. Yes, if you looked at his Beanie Baby label, it would have said he was Schweetheart the orangutan, but he's been Little Red Monkey since I first picked him up in the Chemist's shop in Newhaven twenty-odd years ago, around the time I got my first full time academic job. He's been my work mascot ever since, sometimes staying at the office, but more often watching me work at home. At the moment he sits behind me and photobombs all my video meetings (except for a couple of really important serious ones, when I quietly moved him down a shelf). He featured in the online student handbook I created last summer, and one of the questions in the quiz I devised to get students to actually read the handbook was to find which page he was on. When Sebastian and I play Cards Against Humanity, we deal in Little Red Monkey, and even though his selections are random, he always wins. There's something very cheering about Little Red Monkey. I'm very fond of him.

Cups of tea so far this February: 132
Online meetings so far this February: 30