My name is Nikesh Patel.
I have an English Literature degree from Warwick University, and wish I did more reading and writing.
I have a Canon EOS 350D digital camera, and really don’t use it as much as I should.
I want to play a part, however small, in stopping the planet from hurtling down the toilet, but I sometimes struggle to get out of bed.
I have a vague idea that I should be a bit more aware of what’s going on in the world, but every time I try to read the news I flick to the Arts pages.
I’m a second year acting student at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
I tend to get hooked on things. When I get interested in something, I usually like to explore it in near-obsessive detail.
I’m a sucker for lists. ‘Top 10/40/1,000′ lists, ‘Best of…’ lists, ‘Introduction to…’ lists, ‘Things to look out for…’ lists. Especially when people have ‘What we’re listening to/watching/eating, etc…. now’ lists. I like making lists of lists, of films, books, plays, comics, websites that I should look at. One day I hope to look at all of them.
This is my blog. It’s here because I’ve decided I should have one. I like the idea of keeping a scrapbook or a journal, but I’ve never got round to either. But a blog? I think I can do that.
I don’t quite know what it’s for yet, but I think that’s okay. For the meantime I’ve decided I might as well use it as a kind of dumping ground for interesting things and ideas that I come across, and would like to share. “Who would you like to share them with?” you might ask – perhaps with a mocking glint in your eye. Well, with you my cynical friend! It’s about me, about the things I’m interested in, the things I’m learning about, the things I like. Feedback (from you) every so often would be nice, because I think dialogue is A Good Thing. Even if it’s feedback telling me that I’m wrong or rubbish. As long as it’s polite.
Then again, if there is no-one reading and this is just an overelaborate way of talking to myself, hey, at least I’m talking, and at least there’s a way for me to keep track of what I’m saying (provided the interweb doesn’t go kablooey any time soon). This blog is an online journal for me to turn to when I become restless (which happens a lot) and want to do something creative. I spend a lot of time thinking that I’m an aspiring artist – whatever that is. Maybe this’ll help me create something.
[The title for the blog was the best I could come up with after trying to find something that associated the word "monkey" (an animal to which I have often been told I bear more than a passing likeness) with a quotation from Shakespeare (a playwright that I like a lot). So I did a quick search, found a line that I liked, and monkeyed around with it.
You might ask, do I see myself as the monkey, scrambling through the urban jungle and trying to make sense of the wilderness of life?
To which I would reply, “Ook.”
