No more monkey busness

[albertliss1935]

I was on an athol tanker in mid 1950s when we called at nicaragua one of the lads told me you can buy a monkey for a couple of pound here and sell it for £25 when we get home as £25 at that time was a months pay it seemed like a good idea I had a couple of pound on me so I went ashore I had only walked ab out a quarter of a mile when I was acosted by a couple of pimps asking me was I looking for a senorita I told them no that I was looking for a monkey they started laughing and said no monkey we find you senorita So I told the monkey plenty busness senorita plenty monkey busness with that they started laughing and walked away only to return a few minutes later with a young lad who had a monkey on his shoulder after a bit of haggling I paid him £2 for the monkey the ship went home from there it took us about 3 weeks to get home during this period the monkey had got to know me and become quite friendly but when the ship docked in Liverpool the policeman on the dock gate stopped me and said you have got to have permit from the ministry of agticulture and fisheries to take the monkey home so to get my self passed the dock gate I gave him £1 and he turned a blind eye. the following day I took the monkey round several pet shops but no one would buy it because it was a male they were only interested in female monkeys for breeding with.the following morning I went out and left the monkey at home but when I returned it had run amock it had pulled all the crtains on the windows to shreds and I found my sister locked in the bath room it had bitten her. I had a motor bike at the time so I put the monkey on my shoulder and set off to some pet shops on the outskirts of Liverpool but wile I was driving there was all kinds of cars slowing down and children banging on the windows looking at the monkey on my shoulder. so I opened the throttle on the bike to get out of the way the next thing I new a police car overtook me and flagged me down and said dont you know you are doing 40 mile a30 an hour zone and I was a £5 ticket for speeding then the policeman said do you know what drew my attention to you I said no and he said I seen the monkey on your shoulder. I carried on to a market stall and the man there said can I examin the monkey to see what sex it is he picked it up and it bit him then jumped on to the canopy of the market stall and from there on to the roof and that was the last that I seen of it.has anyone else tried to make money by bringing live stock home from sea.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Your having a giraffe!, Cockney Rhyming Slang for a Laugh.

Your monkey business was really entertaining, pos with all the fines a little taxing on yourself.

Cheers for that.

K.

[Gulliver]

re Alberts Posting:-



A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.


Gulliver

[happy daze john in oz]

Gulliver that sounds much like the Australian Wombat, eats, roots and leaves.

[Phil Crawley]

Every trip on the Apapa the topside men brought home two african greys each, you wrote for a permit from Lagos and it was in the mail at Liverpool, they cost £2.10/- in the wet season and £5 in the dry, being harder to catch in the dry, they were sold for £20 each in Liverpool, we didn't even have to peddle them a guy came to the ship at the stage looked them over and paid cash, if you could get one on your hand you could get £30/35 for it and if one had picked up a few words even swearing you could name your own price, big bucks in those days.
Phil Crawley.

[albertliss1935]

I was in one of elder dempsters called the oti in the 50s and one of the crew bought a parrot for a couple of pound in port harcourt and taught the parrot to say I am worth £50 and when he took it to a pet shop in Liverpool to sell it the owner said how much do you want for the parrot and the parrot blurted out I am worth £50.

[albertliss1935]

Hi Keith
I am glad you had a jiraffe about my monkey busness story believe it or not it was a true story, sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. I was on watch with 2 cockneys on a cunard boat and they both spoke in cockney ryming slang one of them was filling his overtime sheet in and where you should put nature of work he wrote nature of george raft. the mate called him up to the bridge and said to him what on earths this nature of george raft he replied nature of graft cockney rying slang.
Later on the same trip some one brought crabs on board the ship and we all caught them one of the cockneys went to the chief steward and told him I have caught hansome cabs and the other one went up and said I have caught dibs and dabs.What a giraffe I had with them happy days.

[Neil Morton]

I thought that was the "Sandy McNabs".

[happy daze john in oz]

Had an engineer who brought a Bush Baby, eyes the size of saucers, on board in Cape Town with the hope of taking it back to U.K. Was O.K. for the fiirst few days then the smell began when the little critter decided to carp just about anywhere it liked. He got it back to U.K. byt we refused to clean his cabin for the last ten days. Back in Southampton it had to be fumigated, not sure how the animal ended up.

[john james]

Hello Albertliss,my late Brother brought a monkey home from the West Coast of Africa when he was sailing on Elder Dempsters as Chippy,to get it home from the ship he made a wooden box with air holes bored in it.When he set it down in our kitchen and opened it up all hell broke loose,the monkey came flying out ,ran across the mantlepiece scattering Mums ornaments all over the place,it climbed up the curtains ,the monkey was screaming and so was Mum.My Dad said we cant have that thing in the house it will have to go.So my Brother gave it to his Girlfriends little Brother,he used to walk around with it on his shoulder followed by crowds of kids,and a very jealous me because i knew it should have been my Monkey.