Prince Toby has started his own diary for National Novel Writing Month. You can follow his adventures here.
Saturday 5th November 2022
Weight: 1336g (am very consistent), cucumber consumption: 0 slices (it’s getting a bit ridiculous now . . .), escape attempts: 1 (but only to avoid huge poo I’d just done), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks For No Reason Whatsoever: 1 (but I was really hungry), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks For Toilet-Related or Other Emergencies: 2
3.17 am: Bleeeuargh! Human No. 1 woke me up in the middle of the night stumbling around the Tortoise Parlour. Not sure what she was doing but it was VERY ANNOYING. Think I’ll need to have a massive lie in to make up for it.
7.30 am: Human No. 2 plonked me under my lamp. Clearly Human No. 1 is having lie in too.
10.00 am: Still snoozing.
10.19 am: Lots of interest in the Bounty debacle yesterday. Must continue stockpiling because Human No. 1 has already gobbled up one of my Bountys. Rude.
10.21 am: Super-clever comedian Mark Watson tweeted to confirm that plural of Bounty is Bountys. Am relieved as had to find creative ways to get around referring to plural Bounty yesterday. Bounty bars and such like.
10.23 am: Think I should become face of Save the Bounty campaign. Then I would be superstar and could publish my literary masterpiece like Richard Osman.
10.24 am: Speaking of Richard Osman, must make plan to pitch House of Torts to him. Will do a Twitter launch to get Twitter friends to play and he’s sure to see it and then he will end up stalking me. Hurrah!
10.44 am: Just launched House of Torts on Twitter. Am sure it will be runaway success!
10.45 am: Just remembered it’s #Haturday and so must find glamorous hat to wear. Usually go for edible flowers to be sustainable and all. Problem is, have worn all of my edible flowers now so very hard to create glamorous new look.
10.46 am: Did try kale hat the other week, but result was a bit underwhelming.
10.49 am: Human No. 1’s response to edible flower shortage has been to plonk several flowers on my head at once, but fear this can only work for so long. Tricky one . . .
10.54 am: My friend Torchy the Diva has a wonderful collection of custom-made hats – including a wonderful witch’s hat for Halloween. This is v.g. idea except Human No. 1 is far too lazy (and terrible at arts and crafts) to actually bother to make me a hat.
10.56 am: Hmmm. Gladys the Magnificent is being picky about my spelling on House of Torts. It’s only a game, Gladys!! I’m sure Richard Osman doesn’t have these problems . . .
11.00 am: I wonder if mysterious lady I have just hired as my new PA could make me a hat. Would quite like a bobble hat for the Winter weather. Or perhaps a balaclava for mischief.
11.04 am: Human No. 1 has informed me that a balaclava is out of the question as I might suffocate. (Really I think she’s worried about the mischief. And she can’t knit.)
11.11 am: Will ask mysterious new PA if she can knit me a hat.
11.12 am: But don’t think it will be ready in time for today. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board . . .
12.03 pm: Just heard from my cousin Grace (she’s not my blood-relative cousin, but she is the tort of Human No. 1’s sister (Human No. 3) so is cousin) that she has not been given any food today. Horrifying! What on earth is going on?! Perhaps there is a cucumber shortage. (Still haven’t had any, by the way.)
12.07 pm: Am guarding my food, just in case Human No. 2 decides to take it away.
12.22 pm: Hmmm. Richard Osman has not seen my super-duper House of Torts quiz yet. Perhaps he’s busy plotting a murder . . .
12.27 pm: Just remembered that I promised Twitter friend Ayesha I would read her a story, so had better dig out my copy of Elmer.
12.31 pm: Have finished reading Elmer. Like the idea of Elmer’s day. Perhaps I can have Prince Toby’s day, where everyone has to dress like me and eat cucumber.
12.33 pm: On second thoughts, perhaps they don’t need to eat cucumber. Wouldn’t want to contribute to the Great Cucumber Shortage.
12.35 pm: Still no sign of cucumber.
12.43 pm: Hmmm. Think my shell is a bit of a boring colour. Wonder if I could do something to jazz it up a bit . . .
12.58 pm: Have done big poo but humans haven’t cleaned me yet. Will charge around my pen and climb up walls until they PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!
1.03 pm: Human No. 2 has finally noticed and is cleaning me up (with much unnecessary grumbling, I might add).
1.04 pm: Human No. 1 has come to see what all the fuss is about. Hurrah!
1.05 pm: Human No. 1 says I can’t decorate my shell because it is very dangerous. In particular she says ABSOLUTELY NO PAINT because I won’t be able to breathe. She also says that I am perfect, just as I am. (Think she might have stolen that line from Mark Darcy – she must have read Bridget’s diary too.)
1.35 pm: Hmmm. Wonder if I could create natural paint from tomato and snapdragons and cucumber.
1.37 pm: If I can find any cucumber, that is.
1.58 pm: I’m on the rampage on account of missing cucumber. Also, am quite hungry but can’t be bothered to feed myself so will throw my food around my pen and wait for humans to come and tell me off and feed me.
1.59 pm: Human No. 1 just fed me a nice leaf of lettuce (and called me a chaos monster). Still no cucumber . . .
2.01 pm: Just remembered that I have Instagram. Don’t really understand it, but should probably go on there and do something Instagrammy at some point.
2.03 pm: Hmmm. Just need to remember my password.
2.05 pm: I wonder if Richard Osman is on Instagram . . .
2.09 pm: I’m in, finally! (Human No. 1 helped with the password, although she really shouldn’t keep it lying around the house. I don’t want to be hacked!)
2.11 pm: Richard Osman is on Instagram. Have followed him. I’m sure it will be much easier to get his attention on here. Just waiting for him to follow me back . . .
2.23 pm: Ooooh! Joyce from the Thursday Murder Club is on Instagram too. Shall give her a follow. She’s posted some lovely pictures of Alan the dog, and a squirrel and a tiny weeny W.H. Smiths.
2.40 pm: Got my #Haturday hat sorted. Phew! Human No. 1 has gone for the whole shove-a-load-of-flowers-together-to-make-a-statement-hat approach again. She did try for four flowers but the snapdragon kept leaping off so had to settle for three in the end.
2.41 pm: All this social media posting is very hard work. Think I will have a snooze to recover.
3.45 pm: Had a terrible fright! Just woke up to a huge banging which sounded like someone was trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
3.47 pm: Remembered that it’s Bonfire Night, so it’s probably just fireworks.
4.03 pm: Reading about the Gunpowder Plot in Horrible Histories: Slimy Stuarts. Not sure who Stuart is.
4.05 pm: It’s all a bit gory.
4.09 pm: Oh, the King is called Stuart! And apparently not very nice. Says he planned the whole nearly-getting-blown-up thing himself to make people feel sorry for him because he wasn’t very popular. Seems a bit extreme to me.
4.13 pm: Also, he was nowhere near to actually getting blown up. Guy Fawkes was caught over twelve hours before King Stuart was due at the Houses of Parliament. (So really not that big of a deal. Not sure why everyone was so het up about it.)
4.17 pm: You can get a lot done in twelve hours. Just look at everything I’ve managed to do in the last twelve hours.
4.27 pm: Feel a bit sorry for Guy Fawkes with all that torture. But at least he gets his own day now! Like Elmer! (And me, soon!!)
4.43 pm: Hmmm. Richard Osman hasn’t followed me on Instagram yet. Or on Twitter. But I think Twitter’s a bit broken at the moment so that must be it. (Something to do with the Body Shop man.)
5.13 pm: Might stay up for Strictly tonight. Probably be too many fireworks going off to sleep anyway, so I may as well.
5.21 pm: Wonder what dance Tony Adams is doing this week.
5.23 pm: Got in a bit of trouble with Human No. 1 last week for running up huge phone bill with Tony Adams votes. Human is Gooner so thought she would be happy to see Arsenal winning.
5.43 pm: Human has explained that Strictly is dance competition rather than football match and whilst Tony Adams is very good at the football, he is not so good at the dancing and really we should be voting for the best dancers.
5.52 pm: Perhaps I’ll vote for Hamza instead. I liked his crown last week! Think I need as crown as am prince. Also, bet Hamza could take some good pictures of me for my calendar.
6.00 pm: Dinner time. STILL NO CUCUMBER!!!
6.30 pm: Humans are eating hotdogs for bonfire night. I am watching The Wheel and waiting for Strictly. I’m really looking forward to—
(Editortial note from Human No. 1: Toby fell asleep again. He’ll have to watch Strictly on catch-up. After the vote has closed. What a shame.)
You can follow Prince Toby (and join him for House of Torts) on Twitter @PrinceTobyTort
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