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Monday, 20 October 2008
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
This Month's Unlikely Prog-Rocking Cat (And Under The Paw) Fan: Ian Anderson From Jethro Tull
As someone who lives musically in 1971 on a near-permanent basis, I was extremely pleased to get an email yesterday from Ian Anderson, the lead singer of one of my favourite bands, Jethro Tull, about how much he'd enjoyed Under The Paw...
"A man who knows his cats - almost as much as the cats know the man!" wrote Ian. "Fascinating insight and anecdotal musings.... Never mawkish or sentimental but filled with the respect, love and regrets all cat-lovers know so well. Purr-fect for the Christmas stocking."
It turns out Ian's interest in cats goes further than just writing a song called Cat's Squirrel. He keeps Bengals, and even has a kitten advice page on the Tull website, for "new parents"! What with this and my discovery last month of Rick Wakeman's secret feline love, it's clearly only a matter of time before we find out that Keith Emerson owns his own cat sanctuary, where Mike Rutherford and the guitarist from Greenslade help out with poop patrol.
"A man who knows his cats - almost as much as the cats know the man!" wrote Ian. "Fascinating insight and anecdotal musings.... Never mawkish or sentimental but filled with the respect, love and regrets all cat-lovers know so well. Purr-fect for the Christmas stocking."
It turns out Ian's interest in cats goes further than just writing a song called Cat's Squirrel. He keeps Bengals, and even has a kitten advice page on the Tull website, for "new parents"! What with this and my discovery last month of Rick Wakeman's secret feline love, it's clearly only a matter of time before we find out that Keith Emerson owns his own cat sanctuary, where Mike Rutherford and the guitarist from Greenslade help out with poop patrol.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Some More Random Selections From The Cat Dictionary
CATGUT
The quality of feline true grit in the face of adversity (e.g. managing to stoically wait out the twenty minutes between the biscuit dispenser becoming empty and your human serf abandoning his overdue, half-finished piece of journalism to hotfoot it down to the pet store for replacement supplies).
DSDASIGHGDSHSDDC
Feline scholars are split upon estimating when the ancient language of dsdasighgdshsddc first emerged. Some put the date around about 1983, during the rise of the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum. Others claim that techno geek cats in San Francisco's South Park district were communicating in it as far back as 1974. Whatever the case, it is generally agreed that dsdasighgdshsddc has been in regular use since the early 90s. While often written off by humans as a random, unintentional series of letters generated by the patter of mischievous paws across a keyboard, what many people don't know is that dsdasighgdshsddc actually forms an entire exclamatory, often insult-heavy, feline language: a kind of profane moggy binary, if you like, being sent to other cats across the globe via a complex email system invisible to the human eye. Popular examples of dsdasighgdshsddc "dissing" include auoagfoylhgo ("Eat my tail scum!") and oiaiuhagiuggghafug ("Your mum was a Griffon Bruxellois!"). Of course, with the rise of the Internet, dsdasighgdshsddc has evolved, mutated and, some would claim, been irrevocably dumbed down. For example, jhjdhjdhdddddddvvvd ("Oh my god! How much do I want my owner to get off this computer and let me pad his stomach!") is now lazily abbreviated by many Generation Y cats to to a simpler, less poetic jhdvvvvd.
GRUDGIN
A half-hearted version of the Nuggin (see Random Selections From The Cat Dictionary Part One), The Grudgin more often than not marks a bargain between cat and owner: "I am feeling too bored/self-important/generally unarsed to push the side of my nose into your hand, but will do so, half-heartedly, knowing that this is the price one must pay for leftover, past-its-sell-by-date honey-glazed turkey."
LITEBEER
The kind of middling, tepid water still bafflingly placed by humans for cats in a combination of receptacles all over the globe, in spite of empirical evidence suggesting that the favourite tipple of most felines is a) water straight from the tap (see below for demonstration from Bootsy), or b) stagnant pond soup, seasoned with the death juice of as many tiny creatures as possible. It is felt by many cats that the continuing marketing of Litebeer encapsulates humans' overall failure to understand a fundamental fact of feline nature: that cats are animals of extremes, unwilling to accept the middle-ground and eternally fearful of the mediocre.
SATAN'S COAL
The one dried, blackened gribbly bit at the bottom of the food bowl that a cat will always leave behind, no matter how hungry it seems to be before (or after) feeding time. The legend of Satan's Coal, which hasn't got anything to do with coal whatsoever, goes all the way back to the time when Osiris, a farm cat in 18th Century Yorkshire, found a nugget of dried shrew corpse on the floor of a neighbour's barn that had been mysteriously ignored by whichever animal had caught it. So moggy folkore says, Osiris was "dared" to eat the tempting nugget by a local witch's cat, and subsequently keeled over and died. Even pragmatic, hardheaded cats who view the story of Satan's Coal as "gobbledigook" often find themselves steering away from that last gribbly bit at feeding time, putting a paw to their stomach and offering such transparent excuses as "I'm on the Catkins diet at the moment" and "No, seriously, I'm podged - I found a smoky bacon-flavoured crisp on the floor earlier and, as you know, those things are surprisingly filling".
The quality of feline true grit in the face of adversity (e.g. managing to stoically wait out the twenty minutes between the biscuit dispenser becoming empty and your human serf abandoning his overdue, half-finished piece of journalism to hotfoot it down to the pet store for replacement supplies).
DSDASIGHGDSHSDDC
Feline scholars are split upon estimating when the ancient language of dsdasighgdshsddc first emerged. Some put the date around about 1983, during the rise of the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum. Others claim that techno geek cats in San Francisco's South Park district were communicating in it as far back as 1974. Whatever the case, it is generally agreed that dsdasighgdshsddc has been in regular use since the early 90s. While often written off by humans as a random, unintentional series of letters generated by the patter of mischievous paws across a keyboard, what many people don't know is that dsdasighgdshsddc actually forms an entire exclamatory, often insult-heavy, feline language: a kind of profane moggy binary, if you like, being sent to other cats across the globe via a complex email system invisible to the human eye. Popular examples of dsdasighgdshsddc "dissing" include auoagfoylhgo ("Eat my tail scum!") and oiaiuhagiuggghafug ("Your mum was a Griffon Bruxellois!"). Of course, with the rise of the Internet, dsdasighgdshsddc has evolved, mutated and, some would claim, been irrevocably dumbed down. For example, jhjdhjdhdddddddvvvd ("Oh my god! How much do I want my owner to get off this computer and let me pad his stomach!") is now lazily abbreviated by many Generation Y cats to to a simpler, less poetic jhdvvvvd.
GRUDGIN
A half-hearted version of the Nuggin (see Random Selections From The Cat Dictionary Part One), The Grudgin more often than not marks a bargain between cat and owner: "I am feeling too bored/self-important/generally unarsed to push the side of my nose into your hand, but will do so, half-heartedly, knowing that this is the price one must pay for leftover, past-its-sell-by-date honey-glazed turkey."
LITEBEER
The kind of middling, tepid water still bafflingly placed by humans for cats in a combination of receptacles all over the globe, in spite of empirical evidence suggesting that the favourite tipple of most felines is a) water straight from the tap (see below for demonstration from Bootsy), or b) stagnant pond soup, seasoned with the death juice of as many tiny creatures as possible. It is felt by many cats that the continuing marketing of Litebeer encapsulates humans' overall failure to understand a fundamental fact of feline nature: that cats are animals of extremes, unwilling to accept the middle-ground and eternally fearful of the mediocre.
SATAN'S COAL
The one dried, blackened gribbly bit at the bottom of the food bowl that a cat will always leave behind, no matter how hungry it seems to be before (or after) feeding time. The legend of Satan's Coal, which hasn't got anything to do with coal whatsoever, goes all the way back to the time when Osiris, a farm cat in 18th Century Yorkshire, found a nugget of dried shrew corpse on the floor of a neighbour's barn that had been mysteriously ignored by whichever animal had caught it. So moggy folkore says, Osiris was "dared" to eat the tempting nugget by a local witch's cat, and subsequently keeled over and died. Even pragmatic, hardheaded cats who view the story of Satan's Coal as "gobbledigook" often find themselves steering away from that last gribbly bit at feeding time, putting a paw to their stomach and offering such transparent excuses as "I'm on the Catkins diet at the moment" and "No, seriously, I'm podged - I found a smoky bacon-flavoured crisp on the floor earlier and, as you know, those things are surprisingly filling".
Monday, 6 October 2008
Piece About Men And Cats From Yesterday's New York Times
It seems that a man's best friend is no longer a golden retriever, but a creature named Fluffy, writes Abby Ellin...
Shipley, Ralph, Janet, Bootsy, The Bear and Pablo would concur...
:
Shipley, Ralph, Janet, Bootsy, The Bear and Pablo would concur...
:
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Cat Of The Month for October: Fluffy-Nuts
Name?
"Fluffy-Nuts."
Nickname?
"Fluffles"
Age?
"Three."
Owners?
"Kristian and Diane from Victoria, Australia."
CATchphrase?
"Admire me, I am beautiful"
Favourite habits?
"Scratching, preening, snuggling and boxing with my brother"
What constitutes a perfect evening for you?
"Being fed a meal of Fancy Feast at an appropriate hour - I don't like waiting around to be served - before cleaning myself in front of the heater and then letting my she-slave brush my coat to a glossy perfection all the
while cooing about how beautiful I am"
Favourite foods?
"Fancy Feast and raw chicken"
Defining moment of your life?
"Discovering the she-slave was more likely to meet my demands more often and more swiftly than my beloved he-master."
Any enemies (inc people, animals or objects)?
"Zoe, my sister. My she-slave gives her too much attention for my liking. Hence my repeated attacks when she comes out of hiding. Also, I do not like strange people entering my domain. My she-slave and he-master are adequate human companionship for me."
If you could do one thing to make the world better for felines, what would
it be?
"Rid all supermarket shelves of any brand of cat food other than Fancy Feast."
If you could meet one celebrity, who would it be, and why?
"Cesar Millan. I would like him to help me further understand the canine mentality. Living with dogs is often challenging, although a quick swipe to their noses and the corresponding squeals is always enjoyable."
Which one of the cats in Under The Paw would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
"Initially I would say Ralph, but on second thoughts Bootsy and I would probably have more in common. We could swap masterful human manipulation stories."
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