This week we have been mainly listening to.....

This is Hamish here with what I hope to be a regular update on what we have been listening to on Tony the Chimp's iPod (see attached photograph).

We have been listening to a wide variety of music this week, including Mozart, Mahler's 2nd Symphony (a bit high-brow for us bears, but hey it was on the iPod so why not listen to it) and lots of Rock music, including U2, the Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers and the Killers - excellent stuff! Oh, and there was some house music in there as well for all the bears to dance to.

So, what audio books have we been listening to? Well, this week we have been mainly listening to - The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien - the unabridged version read by Rob Inglis. it is an excellent book and an equally excellent reading by Rob.

This is the classic tale of a timid little Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins being volunteered to help a group of dwarves to recover their hoard of treasure from the dragon Smaug. And in the process of their adventures, Bilbo Baggins discovers that he is actually a rather brave and resourceful little Hobbit, rescuing his friends on numerous occasions and returning home a very different Hobbit from the one who worried about going out his front door without a pocket handkerchief.

And during his adventures, he encounters the creature Gollum and the magic ring, both of which are central to the sequel, Lord of the Rings.

All in all, a great read and an excellent audio book - this comes highly recommended by us bears, though Phoebe found the bits with the dragon Smaug a little scary.