'Attitude deliberately indifferent - made no effort to learn his work. Progress very poor.'

Monty the wise weasel - not a toy!

Monty is driving me nuts! Thinks he's a toy all of a sudden...

"You're not a toy Monty, you're a wise little weasel, that's what you are mate," says I. But still he won't be comforted...

"I'm a toy I tell you DeBunkem - a flippin' inanimate, pointless little plaything..."

"No, no, no! You're a..."

"... an object upon which you project your infantile fantasies, you sad little freak DeBunkem!"

Well, that wasn't very nice was it. Still, the eloquence with which he expresses himself only serves to reassure me completely that I'm not having conversations with my daughter's toys...

Following that historic Tuesday, I emailed an American friend of mine to say 'RESPECT!' and all that. Anyway, here's part of her reply. Says it all really...

'The best moment of the day was taking my 94 year old Aunt Alice to vote. She was so excited. As a teacher in Virginia in the 1930s, she sued the state of Virginia to obtain school buses for her students. African American children in her area walked three miles to and from school each day, and were not allowed on county school buses. Her lawyer was a young Oliver Hill (later a famous Civil Rights attorney). She won the case, and her county was forced to provide buses for African American students. Unfortunately, she lost her job and had threats to her life. Unable to work in Virginia, she moved to DC and worked for the federal government.

Yesterday, I was able to take my aunt's picture coming out of the polling station. You have never seen a happier woman. Later, after Obama won, I had a chance to call her. She was in tears, never thinking she would live to see an African American president of the United States.'

During this, my most recent absence from Blogstream, I've moved away, somewhat, from my preoccupation with bikinis, and have developed, instead, a penchant for knitwear. There is nothing I like better than to recline in a comfy chair in my knitted body stocking with hood, and sit in silence with my new pal, The Snoog.

The Snoog has a towling body and a sullen underslung fish mouth, fringed by a blonde roof of hair. We flick through Sixties pattern books together and I occasionally punch him in the gob - a random act of violence which, as The Snoog himself declares, is 'an act of irrationalist randomness sure to crack the edifice of petit bourgeois complacency' (not so random actually - it's comments like this that tend to prompt my rather unbecoming outbursts of physical rage).

Anyway, gotta go now as I'm absolutely kippered, and I've got to be up early for a delivery of angry dolly limbs which Aunty Gary has asked me to collect on his behalf.

PS I've been having some very strange thoughts recently

I was strolling through Flirty Peter's Wood the other day when I noticed some movement on the periphery of my vision. A couple of times I swivelled round in an attempt to see who or what it was that seemed to be watching me. I could hear a low growling, whirring sound, and for a while there I thought that it might be the Round-Saw of Obliteration... but no, it was not that. Instead it proved to be a troublesome Woodsprite named Jeffrey Marlpit.

'Hello DeBumken' he screeched in his un-oiled bike wheel of a voice.

'What d'ya think ya doin' here in ma woods daddyo?'

I explained to him that this was actually Flirty Peter's woods, not his, and that I had permission from Michael the possessive Magpie to walk wherever I wished in this verdant paradise of sinister dappled loveliness.

'Bollacks DeBum old chap - give us ya jacket ya fecker!'

Now that was a step too far folks. For what I wore was a genuine Flakey O'Marley jacket made from the finest Jagger lip-skin.

'So this is where we draw the hard lines, is it', said I.

Mr. Marlpit stopped and staggered, wondered and reeled. He clutched his temples and grimaced in confusion as these words took effect. And that is how I left him; there within the sherds of sunlight; there with the tinsel tinkling of the leaves tickled by the breeze in Flirty Peter's Wood...

It is at times like this that one's inner Keithness kicks in - I assume that you are familiar with my belief that we are all actually called Keith, and that we should surrender to this essential reality - and we may find the strength to utterly confuse our enemies. This was, indeed, a moment of immaculate Keith.