My first trial of the day is The Way of the Fluffy End of the Lollipop, which entails cleaning [...]]]> As part of my rehabilitation back into the Order I have to undergo a series of tasks designed to humble the spirit. This my due lot after the great failure of being captured on a mission.

My first trial of the day is The Way of the Fluffy End of the Lollipop, which entails cleaning out the latrines. Now do not let this conjur up images of shining porcelain and rubber gloves. Ninja toilets are – as one would expect – unpleasant and fraught with lurking danger. They consist of a long log suspended over a deep ditch. The cleaning operation requires crawling through said trench with a large brush – or in my case, my fur.

This task has been made less bearable by Brother Niguri and his friends, who appear to have been subsisting on a diet of broccoli vindaloos and laxatives – and who “fail” to see me in the trench.

However, there seems to have been an instance of instant karma here because each one of the them has been hospitalised with a series of mysterious bowel perforations. These are exceedingly large and  painful in a way that baffles the doctors.

When I heard of this I mused on the workings of sin and fate a while. Then I returned to my second trial of the day, loading hay into a barn … with a large pitchfork.

So long ago.  So much has changed. So many blossoms have flowed under the bridge since then.  I have suffered much and have  learned much.

It shames me further to confess that I am no [...]]]> Friends, ah friends, I look with shame at my last entry. The pride. The hubris. The talk of “large cheques”.

So long ago.  So much has changed. So many blossoms have flowed under the bridge since then.  I have suffered much and have  learned much.

It shames me further to confess that I am no longer a fully fledged Ninja (Junior Class, Order of the Shape of the Pear). I am now a lowly Adept once more, and this only thanks to the mercy of Master Hamzo. Without his intercession, my skin would be a fur rug in the Order’s library and my genitals would have been sold to aphrodisiac manufacturers.

I have brought disgrace on myself and the Order by committing the only act deemed unacceptable for a ninja. I got caught.

As for my long silence on this and other matters, let me put it this way: it’s not easy being a panda in prison. Especially not a pretty one…

True, no money has been forthcoming. And, come to think [...]]]> Please accept my apologies for not writing in a while.  My agent has advised me to reduce my output in advance of a six-figure book deal, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Great Silence Before The Large Cheque.

True, no money has been forthcoming. And, come to think of it, I have never met my agent face-to-face. She has, however, instructed me to wear lady’s underwear and to grab the private parts of any senior member of the order I encounter. I note that Brother Niguri is suspiciously cheerful at the moment. Hmmmmm.

The grabbing, coupled with my lack of earning through assassination “because I am a literary genius” has caused Honoured Master Toro, the dojo’s Finance Director, to start dropping hints about selling my genitals again.

Before Christmas, I was sent on a secret mission by Master Toro, the dojo’s Finance Director. He told me only I could pull it off. I was to lie in wait outside a certain business watching for one individual – for weeks if necessary. I was given a [...]]]> At last I return to the Order.

Before Christmas, I was sent on a secret mission by Master Toro, the dojo’s Finance Director. He told me only I could pull it off. I was to lie in wait outside a certain business watching for one individual – for weeks if necessary. I was given a brief description of the target and told to kill on sight. Such was the sensitivity of the mission that it would require special concealment measures.
As Master Toro had only very briefly briefed me, I asked him for more details, to which
he replied: “Ninjas who would be worth more to the Order as a bucket of
ingredients for traditional medicines should not ask too many questions
when work comes their way.”

So it was that I was dressed, with the help of some adepts, in a disguise that so encumbered me I could barely move and could not see down at all. I was then driven at speed to the location and placed in some kind of hidden bunker. I was not told where so that, if captured, I could not betray the plan. I was told to blend in, to be still, to be silent and to watch for a gaunt Arab with a black beard and a kidney dialysis machine.

I have barely blinked since mid-December, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Ongoing Eye. I have the image of the shop I was watching burned into my retinas. Because I was there during the pre-Christmas rush I also have the sounds of Slade’s Merry Christmas and crying children ringing in my ears. My target did not appear.

Eventually, after dark yesterday, I was relieved by a giggling Brother Niguri. He removed me from my “bunker” and helped me out of my disguise. It was then – and only then – I realised that I, a trained ninja, a feared killer, a being who has transformed himself into a living shuriken, had been hired out to the nearby shopping mall as … Frosty the sodding Snowman for their Christmas grotto.

And, oddly, Osama bin Laden did not pop into our branch of Argos to do his shopping.