Curly’s Corner Shop, the blog!

Fun and games with the Monkey

I sometimes wonder about the veracity and credibility of some of the tales and stories told by South Tyneside’s “most popular” blogger Mr. Monkey. Rather like the petty minded teenager who walked into Woolworths and pocketed a handful of sweets from the pick and mix, as time goes by the antics and output become so much more audacious as the confidence rises.

The Monkey has enjoyed a meteoric rise in local popularity as a muck-spreading blog arguably inspired by the now defunct Dad’s Place website which so maligned many councillors and officials in Sunderland, particularly their housing group, now known as Gentoo. Initially the Monkey posted under other guises and closed down at least three other WordPress based blogs including The Chief Whip, The Monkeyhouse and, Mr. Monkey’s Analyst, but as confidence grew so did the cheek, caution is now more or less thrown to the wind and the writer now thinks he/she can get away with anything. The teenager in Woolworths graduated to stealing pocket sized books at W.H. Smith before confidently moving into a life of crime as a shoplifter (probably to feed a nasty habit).

Having published some site figures for the growing readership, I made a remark congratulating the Monkey on the rapid success, today I will help out once again and send a few readers in that direction, in this post The Monkey ’s confidence grows and he puffs his chest out and waves the tail feathers around like a vain peacock, as he copies and pastes my words. Perhaps if he thinks more intently upon what I said, he may be able to detect just a note of sarcasm (unless he really does reach more people than The Shields Gazette.) However, that’s confidence for you.

His confidence took another almighty leap into the unknown with his next post, which was about another South Tyneside Council official leaving the job. Just take a look in the comments, the multi faceted personalities all seem to arrive at once and Caroline Thomas is quickly forgotten as the attack turns once again to the Monkey’s bette noir Cleadon Village Conservative councillor David Potts. Now young Mr. Potts is no mug and he understands that Mr. Monkey likes nothing better than salacious gossip, even more so if it revolves around the sexual proclivities of our elected members in South Tyneside, and the Monkey takes no prisoners here, straight, gay, hedonistic, disfunctional, perverted, sadistic or masochistic, it’s all the same to the Monkey. It’s his food and drink, his raison d’etre, it’s all grist to the mill for him.

Why such an individual should be so interested the sexual prowess of 50 odd councillors in South Shields Town Hall is completely beyond me, I’m more interested in how they plan to develop the town, educate my children, raise taxes or control spending, how they manage MY money. To me those things are a bit more important than which men/women are being chased around the corridors. What sort of individual presumes to think that the wider world is interested in such tat? His blog is in danger of being treated like Zoo Magazine!

I digress  – Cllr. Potts deliberately fabricated an untrue story about his girlfriend being pregnant and allowed it to be dripped into the ears of certain male councillors in the “gents” at South Shields Town Hall. His intention was to see how quickly it got to the Monkey and whether any attempts would be made to verify the tale, sure enough, no attempts were made and  24 hours later the Monkey tries to tell us this morning that he knew all along that it was untrue (allowed it to be published in any case.) He was told back on December 22nd. that the story was fabricated yet he still published!

These are signs of over confidence, and the Monkey has fallen for the trick.

How many other posts contain material that is knowingly fabricated, deliberate lies, or unsubstantiated rumours and gossip?

How low must he stoop in an effort to destroy his own blog’s credibility?

His Christmas Card stunt may have been a big laugh to him as his confidence grew out of all proportions, but it will be seen as just another clue in a long trail that may eventually lead to his demise.

He’ll be glad of the little extra traffic from this, although his readership will now be almost the same as The Times Online so perhaps it will go unnoticed, next step will be to overtake the BBC.

By the way are the piers of local government those two things in South Shields harbour?

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