Friendly Thoughts - Just Siblings

Siblings. They've been on this planet since the beginning of our time on Earth. There were cave siblings, Roman siblings, Greek siblings and Georgian siblings. But when I think of siblings, I always think of my dog as a sibling to me - me? I'm Horrid Henry. My dog? Perfect Peter.

It all started yesterday at lunch, when we were fighting over air-fryer cooked chicken nuggets - I can talk, Mylo can't so he can't scream "MUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!" like Perfect Peter does. And this morning, we were fighting over Shreddies because it kept spilling on my pyjamas like Adult Swim-produced toxic waste. We were fighting over who gets the bowl of milk as I took it into the kitchen, and as a result my dog ripped up a pair of my pyjamas so I had to lure him away with TreatOs.

As for Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter themselves, their aggressive relationships continue throughout every single book their creator Francesca Simon spews out - so much so that we have repeated catchphrases, the yell of "Don't be horrid, Henry!", and sometimes the occasional repeat of the time when Horrid Henry read some books, or engaged in a bake off, or...I can't even remember that. However in the TV show, Horrid Henry and Peter's relationship slowly changed.

At the beginning of the series, which remained faithful to the original books, Henry and Peter were fighting a lot, but when the series was toned down to feature stuff like modern technology and Number Gnomes and Fimbles references, Henry and Peter suddenly got on very well, and almost every single episode produced at the time showed Henry becoming less and less horrid until he wasn't as horrid as he used to be anymore. Now he is 'Humble Henry'.

Speaking of which...

My characters Furaha and Orko have been siblings ever since Orko welcomed Furaha into her life when she was born. Now, the two get on extremely well, unlike Henry and Peter. They share their interests and secrets, giggle over the funniest things and share the same relationships with their family and friends, neither of them ever gets jealous. That's because Orko had developed a healthy relationship with his sister the moment she was born, and whatever they did from cuddling Furaha's favourite rabbit to tickling and cradling, Furaha wasn't just a pet to Orko, it was like he had a second daughter.

He is so lucky to have a nice, gentle little sister like Furaha.

"Friends like us will never part,

I'll always keep you close to my heart."

- Orko to baby Furaha

Where Are The Beasts?

When we want to learn the language of our ancestors, it can be very tricky to link it up with our sensual love of some scenes from Walking With Beasts, mainly, the human backstory that evolves throughout the mammals' history. The nocturnal godinotia, the apidium, the Australopithecus and especially the humans who came when the mammoths arrived on the plain, all ending with that scene of humans in a museum.

Picture this, right: you're watching Walking With Beasts in 2001 and you don't know what to make of some scenes, like the ants eating the baby bird. Gross! Who'd want to see that? Giant ants eating a baby bird could give you nightmares! But what you're really falling for is the Earthquake scene from the first episode - strong music, loud shrieks from the apes, the gas making its way through the forest and killing every animal in sight - just enough to make you grip the edge of your seat in horror and excitement.

It's exciting, okay, but you're very sorry for those who had to live through this terrible disaster, mainly the monkey characters. What gave you this kind of relief is that when you watch the fourth episode, the Godinotia have evolved to Apidium, who were frightened because a shark ate one of their own kind, and then Australopithecus, who were brave enough not to run from predators, but outsmart them using all the technology and tools they had before we even had AI or smartphones.

It may be stupid to you, but those apes really shed light on what us humans grew to appear as today. They walked upright, they made tools for themselves, they even fended off a Dinofelis! Brave monkeys. However, one thing still bugs me: how are you going to live this moment if you're too stressed to even find anything fascinating?

It's not just about watching the series, it's about developing a technique you will need to understand what this series meant to you. Walking With Beasts isn't just about mammal evolution, it's also about human philosophy and peril, giving us a better chance to look deeper inside our hearts and find out more about ourselves. And that's where Walking With Cavemen comes in - the backstory proved so popular that our ancestors got their own spinoff series - except, it's not narrated, it has a host: Dr Robert Winston, who also presented The Human Body.

So in order to understand what makes you deeply human, when you have reflection time, try this strategy: keep a diary of all the times you found out you were human enough to know everything that happened around you: your emotions, the sensations you were feeling, and the ways and strategies you planned solutions to your problems. The beasts will thank you la-

*STATIC*

But wait! There's more!

Actually, there isn't more.

For God's sake!