Small Monkey is definitely not so small any more: double digits in the PC house at last. A year ago, I presented nine years’ worth of monkey-related quotes. My notepad wasn’t quite as busy over the last 12 months but I managed to get a few things down. Happy birthday, SM – ten years old and chattier than ever:

24 MARCH
Me: ‘I’m sitting next to you, please don’t pick your nose and eat it.’
SM: ‘Then don’t sit next to me.’

23 JUNE
[‘Imagine‘ gets played at school graduation day, and after school SM is keen to talk about the life and times of the great songwriter]
‘Oh poor John Lennon, it’s a shame, I’d like to have known him.’

3 JULY
[I collect SM from summer camp and attractive young group leader Josie tells me about a conversation she had with him earlier on]
“He said to me: ‘I’m single, you know.’ I said: ‘Really?’ He said: ‘Yes, I don’t have any brothers or sisters.'”

4 JULY
[walking to summer camp we discuss Tregeagle, a Cornish legend, and how Grandpa has told the story to all of us in turn]
‘And I’ll tell it to my kids, too.’

6 JULY
[imparting random advice en route to the toilets at Changi Airport]
‘Whenever you feel guilty and you feel like you’ve done something wrong, just think about all the exciting things to come and what’s about to happen. That’s my encouragement.’

12 JULY
[watching the penultimate World Cup game]
SM: ‘Oh, they’re doing The Honka.’
Us: ‘The what?’
SM: ‘Where they all dance about and chant before a game.’

25 AUG
[watching me send an SMS at breakfast]
‘You know why grown-ups are so addicted to phones? Because they weren’t invented in the 1960s. But *I* have always had them. Kids right now, in the present, are used to it.’

26 SEP
[at the doc]
‘This place creeps me out sometimes. Usually there are nice things around but here it’s just [gestures at the leaflets]: “All your dentals will fall out”.’

DEC 14
[after a chat about Xmas]
‘Mum, I’m FREAKIN’ excited. Not physically. That would be embarrassing.’

Dec 15
[Mr PC is overseas]
‘I’m really missing Dad, you know. I mean, I don’t want to be a sissy but…’

JAN 20
[a cake discussion the day before the birthday]
‘Can you make it the best cake ever? You know like in SimCity where you build the sewage factories and make everyone happy 100 per cent? We need to do that with the cake.’

Coming right up, SM xxx