Prince Toby has started his own diary for National Novel Writing Month. You can follow his adventures here.
Monday 14th November 2022
Weight: 1320g (even without cucumber!), cucumber consumption: 0 slices (boooo!!), escape attempts: 0 (too glum about Tony Adams to escape), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for No Reason Whatsoever: 0 (too glum about Tony Adams to interrupt), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for Toilet-Related or Other Emergencies: 0 (see above)
7.30 am: Aaaargh! Fell asleep before Strictly results. Still, I’m sure it’s all fine. The dance-off couples are always from the middle of the leader board and Tony Adams was right at the bottom. Am sure he’s safe. Hurrah!
7.45 am: Hmmm. Human No. 1 is humming a jaunty little tune. Am suspicious. She hates Mondays, but this morning she seems to have taken a leaf out of Gladys’s (Torterella’s) book and is celebrating Magnificent Monday.
8.00 am: Mondays aren’t magnificent!! They are cold and doomy and gloomy! Think I shall go back to sleep for a while to escape from horrid Monday!
9.45 am: Human No. 1 is teaching Emma Yarlett’s Nibbles: The Dinosaur Guide. Must remember to re-read this for some mischief-making tips.
10.23 am: Human No. 2 came to feed me and I tried to discover the Strictly result, but he was very evasive about the whole thing. Hmmm.
11.01 am: Got bored waiting for humans to pay attention to me so started reading a book called Tortoises by D.H. Lawrence. Am literary tortoise.
11.47 am: Hmmm. Not sure about this Lawrence fellow. Turns out it was poetry. It started off alright, with a baby tortoise emerging into the world: ‘Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.’ I liked that bit. But it got a bit x-rated later on, so I had to stop reading eventually. Don’t think it was as good as my haiku . . .
12.01 pm: Meant to say, Ollie the turtle’s holographic stickers have arrived and they are super-impressive!!!
12.45 pm: Can smell banana. Human No. 1 is eating banana. But it’s #nananono! Not fair!
1.15 pm: Just discovered that Tony Adams has left Strictly. What? Why? How? This is unacceptable.
1.20 pm: Apparently, he didn’t even do the dance-off. He was in the bottom two but retired with an injury before the dance-off. What bad luck.
1.23 pm: Human No. 1 assures me that he would have been kicked out if he had done dance-off, so injury doesn’t really have much impact on the outcome. Not sure I believe her. Am convinced he would have won the glitterball if he’d stayed in this week.
1.25 pm: Am sulking. Shan’t take food from Human No. 1 ever again . . .
1.47 pm: Some positive feedback on ‘The Final Cucumber’. Fans are hoping that this isn’t the end of Sherlock Tobes. We’ll have to see. I feel I have outgrown him as an artist and might want to compose great works of historical fiction that befit my status as great literary genius of my generation. Perhaps it’s time to give that Jack the Ripper’s tortoise story a go . . .
1.52 pm: Of course, I may bring back Sherlock Tobes . . . for the right price. Perhaps I could pen a story set before his death and, once I’ve done that and been showered with cucumber and attention once more, I’ll remember the perks of writing such a popular character and revive him from the dead with some flimsy explanation for how he survived the fall and then write reams and reams of stories about him (even though I’m perfectly sick of him) of declining quality until, after my death, that is all I will be remembered for.
1.57 pm: Yes, that sounds like a sensible plan.
2.13 pm: Human No. 1 just offered me some food. Was going to refuse on principle but then remembered I was rather hungry so thought I had better have a bit.
2.32 pm: Nibbles the book monster is such good fun! He eats his way through a whole book of dinosaurs and only gets gobbled up right at the end by a T-Rex. And then he gets spat out because he tastes horrid. So, the moral of the story is, cause as much chaos as you please and, if you’re a perfect little monster, then nobody will ever want to eat you. Hurrah! Obviously was far too angelic when demonic rat tried to gnaw on me last year. Have made up for it since. Hah!
2.43 pm: Have also learnt that Velociraptors were about as tall as a koala bear. Hmmm. Don’t think that would have worked so well in Jurassic Park . . .
3.05 pm: Still no sign of that dead husband, by the way. I did smell something a bit funny in the Tortoise Parlour the other day, but that turned out to be that old cucumber that had gone off. Nothing from the murderess or the strange man who was helping her cover up the murder either. (Obviously they’ve done a very good job of it.)
4.00 pm: Ick! Am reading Testudo: The Journal of the British Chelonia Group and there’s some perfectly horrible stuff in here. I enjoyed the study of freshwater turtles in India, particularly about them being worshipped in Hindu mythology as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, but I did not enjoy the numerous close-up photographs accompanying the article on the removal of fish hooks from marsh terrapins in South Africa. Put me right off my cucumber. (Well, it would have done if I’d been offered any – another black mark against the humans today.) But two of the three terrapins survived, so at least there was some good news.
4.25 pm: Have been thinking that fish-hook incident is another reason not to go in the bath. Very dangerous things are baths. I watched a documentary once about a man with knife fingers whose hand popped up through the bottom of the bath to pounce on unsuspecting bath loungers. (Torterella, beware!) Much better to avoid baths altogether, methinks.
4.27 pm: Cousin Grace informs me that she has been having a bath every day since she started wind down. Don’t like the sound of that at all. Hope my humans don’t insist on doing this wind down thingy, but fear that they might as they are always listening to Human No. 3, just because she is a V-E-T. They should listen to me. I won’t do it. I shan’t! If they try to make me have a bath every day, then I will run away to Australia where there will be no wind down ever. Hurrah!
4.30 pm: Hmmm. Too tired (and traumatised about baths/fish hooks) to go to Human No. 1’s seminar. Think I shall have a snooze instead. Hope I don’t dream about fish hooks. Or the man with knife hands. In the documentary, he came for people in their dreams. Remember clever girl telling stupid boy (who looked suspiciously like a young Johnny Depp), ‘whatever you do, DON’T FALL ASLEEP!’ And then he did and he got horribly murdered and he should have listened to her, shouldn’t he?
4.43 pm: Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll try to stay awake a little bit longer. Haven’t gone to seminar though because it seems too much like hard work and I can’t be bothered. Also, still haven’t quite forgiven Human No. 1 for Tony Adams debacle.
5.59 pm: Aaaarggghhh! Fell asleep. Fortunately, wasn’t butchered by knife-finger man in my sleep, but Tony Adams was trying to feed me cucumber and, every time I got close enough to take a bite, he started doing samba rolls and I couldn’t reach. Most frustrating!
6.15 pm: Human No. 1 is still in seminar, so I had to put up with Human No. 2 for the dinnertime and bedtime routine. He never cleans out my food properly! Plus, he hasn’t given me any cucumber. Shan’t give him a good review.
6.30 pm: Woe is me. Off up my corner for a sulk. Begone, murky Monday!
You can follow Prince Toby on Twitter @PrinceTobyTort (and Instagram, but he has no idea what he's doing there). Also, play Tortmaster on Twitter! The prize task is now open! Look out for a new task every Thursday night during the first break of Taskmaster.
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