Grey Ted

After the hassle with Harry the Hippo the other night, this time it was the turn of Mr Grey Ted. Why is it that my house sharers are so petulant? I mean to say, last night was rough enough, what with visiting Derek and Rita, meeting Derek's gorgeous new Olympus E-510 and carrying out my mission from Blipcentral when I got back home. Today was the day to get back to work, whip my recalcitrant client into some sort of shape, stress that blame for any slippage of the deadline cannot be attributed to me ... and all that sort of thing.

The last thing I needed was for one of the house mates to throw a wobbler. So when it came towards the end of the night, with midnight fast approaching and no blip done, I really could have done without Mr Grey Ted's whinge-ing and his constant 'Blip me, blip me, blip me' demands. I pointed the camera at mugs and bowls and mats, but nothing was working out right. 'It isn't fair', said Mr Grey Ted, 'that ghastly hippo's been in the limelight twice already. I've been around a lot longer than him and I still haven't got a look-in. Now look at you, running around snapping stupid ornaments and household objects while I'm here ready and willing to strike a pose. I'm even wearing my festive ribbon. Come on, please. Please!'

So I gave in. He perched himself on one of the folding chairs and propped himself up in all his grumpy smugness. To be fair, he didn't move a muscle during the shoot, and we had a presentable shot in the bag eight minutes before the midnight blip cut-off. Maybe he isn't so bad after all. A bit of a life-saver, really.