Going ape over a bad monkey

The year in news started in much the same way as the last one finished - in tragedy and chaos - but I saw 2026 in oblivious, on a midnight plane flying somewhere over Africa.

- JENNIE RIDYARD

And so it transpired that the first news report I read this year was about the death of the painter of the “Monkey Christ”.

Perhaps you remember this infamously restored church mural of Jesus in an obscure town in Spain, when the Christ figure was rendered more chimp than chap, like a simian potato, which became a viral sensation 14 years ago?

Its restorer died last Monday, aged 94.

There's actually a bittersweet story — and maybe a few life lessons - behind her death.