Prince Toby has started his own diary for National Novel Writing Month. You can follow his adventures here.
Tuesday 15th November 2022
Weight: 1318g (lost 2g through excessive tunnelling to Australia), cucumber consumption: 3½ slices (but tricked into #TongueOutTuesday pictures), escape attempts: 73 (I’ve nearly dug my way out!), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for No Reason Whatsoever: 52 (mainly mud-related), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for Toilet-Related or Other Emergencies: 3
7.30 am: Too early. Too early. Too early. Shan’t get up!
8.00 am: Ooooh! Snapdragons! Shan’t eat them though because they are much too far away. At least two tortoise lengths. Can only eat snapdragons directly from human fingers. Even delicious raspberry ripple ones that Human Number 3 brought with her at the weekend.
8.30 am: Humans, where are you? I want snapdragons!
8.33 am: Just remembered it’s #TongueOutTuesday so will have to be careful to keep my mouth closed whilst eating snapdragons.
8.37 am: Hmmm. Perhaps it would be safer to cross great void to snapdragons and gobble them up without assistance to avoid paparazzi (a.k.a. Human No. 1’s phone).
8.43 am: Nope. Can’t do it. Will just have to eat with mouth closed.
8.51 am: If anyone ever offers to feed me, that is . . .
9.01 am: Human No. 1 came to feed me, but she had her phone with her, so I refused to eat.
9.15 am: Hmmm. Something odd is happening. The humans have swapped offices (as they like to call the living room and the second bedroom when they are working in them). Why????? Human No. 2 is now downstairs which means no chance of any snapdragons at all because he’s likely to ignore me for the next several hours. Help! Will starve!
9.32 am: Stupid doomy, gloomy rain. Am trying to think and all I can hear is SPLAT – SPLAT – SPLAT!! BOG OFF!!! (That bit was me, not the rain.)
10.01 am: Hmmm. Have been reading an article entitles ‘Strictly fans “work out real reason” Tony Adams landed in dance-off as he exits amid injury’. And then it quotes some random people of Twitter who suggest it was because of the Wolves v. Arsenal night match. I SAID THAT!!!! BEFORE THE RESULT!! Didn’t I? Didn’t I? They didn’t quote me! Rude!
10.07 am: Actually, this journalism business looks rather easy if all you have to do is quote people on Twitter and ignore the most important sources (the super-successful tort blogs). Think I might give it a go . . .
10.37 am:
Twitter Torts in ‘Huge Row’ Over Bath Time
The torts of Twitter took to their keyboards last week to express their views about bath day after celibritort blogger Prince Toby Tort catalogued his bath-time horror in his hugely popular literary masterpiece Toby Tort’s Diary: The Edge of Hibernation on The Reptile Files blog.
In his inimitable style, with his trademark wit and intelligence, Prince Toby told of his terrifying bath-time ordeal in which he revealed that he ‘might actually drown’.
Responding to his post on Twitter, rusticrecipe asked ‘Tort’s don’t like bath day?’ to which Gatbsy the tortoise replied: ‘This is a contested area – some love (Gladys) some hate like Toby (Albie) . . . for me it depends on my mood.'
Toby himself responded by insisting (quite rightly) that ‘Bath Day is the WORST!!!!!’
However, Gladys (otherwise known as Torterella) suggested that ‘Every day is bath day!! (almost)' and posted a picture of herself luxuriating in the bath.
Albie didn’t comment on the thread and I couldn’t be bothered to see what he had said about baths elsewhere on Twitter because that sounded too much like hard work.
But, anyway, this is definitely an actual (and thrilling) news story and I have definitely done some journalism worthy of a national newspaper here, so I had better get paid for this.
THE END.
(For now. I might do a follow-up article if anyone else bothers to reply to the Twitter thread.)
10.43 am: Am now successful journalist. Hurrah!
10.50 am: Haha! Human No. 1 just came downstairs to make cup of tea and I decided to become mud monster to punish her for abandonment. Don’t think she was very happy with me. Serves her right! She still offered me snapdragons afterwards, but I’m pretty sure that was just for #TongueOutTuesday purposes and so I shan’t eat them! Hah!
11.00 am: Hmmm. Strange man has appeared in living room. He appears to be messing around with the tv. Think he might be a burglar. Turf him out, Human No. 2! CALL THE POLICE!!!!
11.15 am: Turns out suspected burglar was actually Virgin Media engineer who had come to replace the tv box. He’s gone now and humans are all back in the correct rooms. Hurrah!
11.46 am: Couldn’t calm down after all the burglar excitement and so decided to tunnel out of my pen to see if I could get to Australia. It was going quite well until Human No. 1 turned up and undid all my good work. Boooo!
12.09 pm: Have started tunnelling again (in manner of dog-pound dachshund in Lady and the Tramp). Think I’m nearly out now! Just a few more minutes.
12.12 pm: Ugh! Human No. 1 interrupted again, waving snapdragons right under my nose. I DON’T WANT SNAPDRAGONS!! I WANT TO ESCAPE!!!
12.13 pm: Well, actually, I do want snapdragons, but shall continue to refuse them for aforementioned #TongueOutTuesday reason.
12.23 pm: So very hungry. Think I’ll have a snooze to take my mind off it.
2.25 pm: Awoke to the sweet scent of cucumber. Hurrah!
2.26 pm: Aaaaargggh! Human No. 1 tricked me! I was so excited to smell the cucumber that I completely forgot about #TongueOutTuesday and was gobbling away, as happy as can be, when— SNAP!!! She got me with the camera phone! Several times! Oh, the shame!
2.35 pm: Am sulking now. (But the cucumber was delicious.)
3.37 pm: Taskmaster on Thursday. Must come up with a super-duper exciting new tasks to wow my fans and to woo Little Alex Horne. (It’s very odd that I still haven’t heard back from him. Will have to get my PA on the case again.) It must be a grand affair. I think it should definitely involve daring stunts and international travel and diamonds.
3.41 pm: Hmmm. Human No. 1 says we don’t have that kind of budget so looks like it’s back to the drawing board . . .
4.15 am: Must remember to read that thrilling article on parasite burdens in captive tortoises in Testudo journal as a nice lady called Alice asked me a question about it yesterday and I didn’t know the answer. Embarrassing!
4.30 pm: Have read article now and answered question. Phew! It’s a tough life being the font of all tort knowledge. Think I’ll have a snooze to recover!
6.00 pm: More cucumber! Hurrah! But am suspicious because Human No. 1 has been packing a bag of tortoise supplies.
6.05 pm: Ooooh! Perhaps we’re going on an exciting trip to Australia!! Hurrah! Didn’t need to bother with all that tunnelling, did I?
6.33 pm: Must get some sleep, in readiness for exciting journey to Australia.
7.11 pm: Humans being noisy about Hollyoaks in the Tortoise Parlour. SHUT UP!!! I’M SLEEPING FOR AUSTRALIA!!!
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.
Comments