Today is International Hamster Day

I am officially naming today International Hamster Day, and have drawn up my International Bill of Hamster Rights.

1. Every hamster should have a clean, well-furnished cage.

2. Every hamster should have fresh carrot, seed or other vegetable crudité to munch on.

3. Every hamster should have a loving family, someone to look after them and talk to them.

4. Every hamster should have the right to express themselves and the freedom of free hamster speech.
5. Every hamster should have the right to play in a safe, non-perilous environment.

Since it’s International Hamster Day, why not draw a picture of your favourite Hamster. You can send drawings or photographs to marketing@templarco.co.uk and the best ones might make it on here...

Hamster Facts No 1: Hamsters don’t like baths – seriously, we can catch a chill and die, so don’t try and give us a bath.

Stinky's top 5 perilous situations

If you read my book – ok, Dave Lowe’s book – My Hamster is a Genius, you’ll discover, thanks to Ben and his Dad, that I often find myself in very perilous situations. But I like a bit of danger, so I’m reliving my exploits with this Top 5

Top 5 Most unpleasant places to find yourself in

1. Inside Ben's pants – not pleasant and not somewhere I indeed on frequenting. The one time I found myself there, was to hide from Ben’s meany maths teacher has left me seriously claustrophobic – not EVER happening again!

 

2. Attached to a small lunchbox whilst flying through the air – almost as bad as being strapped to a frisbee mid flight – almost…

3. Inside a homemade spaceship, strapped to a firework, in your neighbours back garden – this was SO not in my job description.

4. Inside a dolls house, dressed in a tutu, sipping tea with Barbie and Ken – well actually the tea was ok and I liked the cucumber sandwiches, but the tutu is a no-no and to be honest Barbie and Ken are a little dull.

5. Under a size 10 shoe, pumping up and down like a mechanical crusher 

 What are your top 5 most unpleasant places?

Weekly stats

Rotations on wheel: 30 (think I might have pulled a muscle last week...)
Seeds consumed: 120 (I need to make up for all last week's exercise)
Poos not collected: 20 (yuk, Ben has been preoccupied with enjoying the summer...tssk)
Newspaper fragments read: 6
Homework helped: 0 (this summer holidays business is going to turn my brain to mush)
Sarcastic comments: 2 (all this nice weather has improved my mood)

Stinky's Family tree - Who do I think I am?

As you may have gathered, I am a superior hamster, one with far more brains than your average mouse or gerbil. So it will come as no surprise to hear that I come from a long line of rodent genii, (that’s the plural of genius for those at the back).

Archimedes’s hamster Eureka
Now, Archimedes was a very clever Geek bloke, who worked out the reason why some things float on water and others don’t. It is a lesser-known fact that his hamster was called Eureka, and he liked to turn the cold water on whilst Archimedes was having a bath.

Albertus Hamstein
Pet of Einstein, physicist and inventor of the m=mc2, that’s Mmmm = my carrot squared, for those of you who don’t know…

Josy, the war hamster
Forget horses and canaries, the real heroes of WWII were hamsters. A crack core of spy-trained hamsters was used to infiltrate German code headquarters and discover the secrets of the Enigma machine. Those boffins from Bletchley Park took all the credit but I tell you, it was the hamster that won it, and Josy Baker was one of their top agents.

Gladys Burns
Faithful pet to Scottish poet Robert Burns. You can imagine her annoyance when the famous poem is title To a Mouse, rather than To a Hamster – she didn’t speak to Robbie for a month…

The Hamster of Alcatrazaban
Wrongly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, this plucky little fellow managed to escape the infamous prison of Alcatrazaban. He, along with his friends, survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help you, maybe you can call The H-Team.

Sherhamazad
 Hamsters are exceedingly good storytellers, and it was none other than Sherhamazad (Shermy to her friends) one of my relatives who whispers those tales in One Thousand and One Nights, into the ear of Princess Scheherazade – saved her life Shermy did.

Why not create your own family tree? Who can you trace your ancestors back to?

Right, time for a bite to eat. I think I’ll have a sunflower seeds salad, with shavings of carrot. Delicious!

Weekly stats

Rotations on wheel: 108 (caught up by Olympic fever)
Seeds consumed: 120 (Well, all that running...)
Poos not collected: 7 (It's summer holidays so Ben has no excuse!)
Newspaper fragments read: 10 (Although hamster news has been horribly over shadowed by the Olympics)
Homework helped: 0 (Summer holidays have begun)
Sarcastic comments: too many to count (see above = Ben's brain has already turned to mush)

Summer reads

Summer’s here, so why not check out the Summer Reading Challenge at your local library?

Ben’s given me his top five summer reads, and it didn’t take me long to work out which books I’m going to re-read this summer.

Top 5 Summer Reads – according to Ben

My Hamster is a Genius – obviously
Mr Gum in the Hamster of Lamonic Bibber
Diary of a Wimpy Hamster
Horrid Hamster
The Fantastic Mr Hamster

Top 5 Summer Reads – according to Stinky

War and Peace – like living with the Jinks family, only more epic.
The Complete Works of Shakespeare – “Is this a carrot which I see before me/Its orange tip toward my paw? Come, let me munch thee.”

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – in original middle English.
A Brief History of Time – a good example of what an uninterrupted genius mind can achieve. (Take note, Benjamin Jinks.)

The Encyclopaedia Britannica – there’s stuff in here that even I didn’t know.

What are your top 5 books for summer reading fun?

Psst. If you're really stuck for things to occupy you this summer, click here to download my activity sheets

Top 5 perils for hamsters

Afternoon, and welcome to today’s Notes from the Hamster Wheel, coming direct to you from Casa Hamster Cage, chez Benjamin Jink’s bedroom – that’s a bit of Spanish for you (casa – means house) as well as a bit of French (chez – means at or from).

 I think it’s time we talked danger, peril and life or death situations. Now, I am a very courageous and brave hamster – but there are limits to my bravery, and there are numerous perils out there for small, furry creatures like me.

Top 5 – Perils for hamsters 

1. Outdoors – like anywhere outdoors. We don’t want to go there. It’s HUGE… and full of things that would like a nice hamster-sized snack. So please, don’t think you’d be doing me a favour by setting me free, or releasing me into the wild. It’s called WILD for a reason.

2. A mate – do you want a hamster bloodbath, in your bedroom? I think not. We are SOLITARY creatures. That means we like it ON OUR OWN.

3. Cats, dogs and other household pets. Cats like to eat us and dogs like to chase us- both scenarios are not good, and can ultimately end in a nasty furball.

4. Being mistaken for a feather duster – yes I know I'm fluffy but really?

5. Sisters who want to play dress-up. I hate younger sisters (sorry if any younger sisters are reading this). Dressing-up with younger sisters usually involves tutus or tiaras and whilst not exactly life-threatening, it does nothing for a hamster’s self esteem or machismo.

Ooh, just talking of those perilous scenarios has made me come over all a-quiver. Scary stuff! I think I may need a fortifying spin on the old wheel, catch you later…

Weekly stats

Rotations on wheel: 47.5 (a stressful week, ok?)
Seeds consumed: 91 (trying to cut down)
Poos not collected: 37 (yuk, it’s so unhygienic)
Newspaper fragments read: 4 (slow week for hamster news stories)
Homework helped: 5 assignments (maths x 2, English and art)
Sarcastic comments: 8

Gold for Team GB

A gold for the ladies rowing team, congratulations Helen and Heather! All this medal talk has got me thinking about the Olympics, and what I would consider to be suitable Olympic sports for hamsters – none of that beach volleyball nonsense. The sand would get up my nose, for a start.

The Hamster Olympics 
1. Wheel turning – that gold medal has my name on it

2. Running for your life – who needs a starting gun when you have cats, birds and Benjamin’s Neanderthal classmates to choose from?
3. Cage rolling – strength is essential for this extreme sport, and it does depend on the type of cage you’re in, as to how easily you can roll it off the desk. Not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached. 4. Pole vaulting – I recommend HB pencils as a good starting point. 

5. Carrot nibbling. I have to admit, it would not be the most entertaining spectator sport. Delicious, though.

Better get practising…

Welcome to Notes from the Hamster Wheel

My name is Jasper Stinkybottom, but you may call me Stinky.

For your information, I did not choose my name: that responsibility rests with one Benjamin Jinks, aged nine – but more of him later.

If you have chanced upon this virtual hamster blog looking for information about hamster feed, hamster wheels, bedding items for hamster or hamster snacks, you’re in the wrong place. For those things, check out the shelves of your local pet store or, as my owner Ben’s dad calls it, ‘the mini-zoo’.

If you would like more information on the extremely funny book MY HAMSTER IS A GENIUS by Dave Lowe, however, and some insider secrets about the lives and loves of hamsters, you are in the right place.

So I guess we should begin with a Meet the Family.

Here they are… 

A pretty motley crew, don’t you think? And believe me, you want to watch out for that one with pigtails – she may look like sugar and spice and all things nice, but she’s trouble, and likes dressing things up in tutus… *shudders at the thought*

And while we’re doing the introduction, you can read more about me – and the Jinks family – in my very own book. Look, that’s me on the cover…

And as you can read (you can read, can’t you?) I’m a G E N I U S – that spells (you can spell, right?) GENIUS. It means I’m super-smart.

In this excellent account of my first weeks with the Jinks family, you can discover how I help nine-year-old Benjamin Jinks (that was him bottom left of the Jinks family photo) to outsmart his scheming maths teacher, Beardy McCreedy. Along the way Ben gets better at Maths (well, a tiny bit, at least) and also slightly better at removing poo from my cage, which is much more important.

Anyway, you should check it out (in shops from August), it’s really rather something – if I do say so myself.

Right, time for a quick nap, this typing is quite tiring when you have tiny paws…

Find My Hamster is a Genius on Amazon here