Thursday, April 30, 2009

Cats no less liquid than their shadows, offer no angles to the wind


It was about 20 years ago that my brother, my sister and I went down to the Shenton Park cat haven with one thing on our minds. Mum and Dad - presumably sick of our whining and having extracted a promise that of COURSE we would clean up after the wee pussies - had caved in to our catty demands. On the shopping list: two adorable kittens.

The first one was easy: the cutest little Russian Blue puff of grey fur and blue eyes you've ever seen. We called him Templeton and his pastimes, we would soon learn, included walking us kids to the bus stop in the morning and being groomed. Impossibly good-natured, beautiful and affectionate he was the sort of cat that even cat-haters could not help loving. His companion, our second cat, would spend hours licking his fur, their little paws all tangled up together in apparent bliss.

Which brings me to Tikki.

For the second kitten we were,inexplicably, determined to choose a ginger one (I still have no idea why). Crouched down with our heads against the bars, watching a handful of ginger kittens gambolling about like demented pixies, we nearly missed the scrap of black and white fur high above our heads: the tiniest kitten you've ever seen halfway up the side of the cage and heading for the roof. Only her little cries (loosely translated as What The Fuck Have I Done?) made us look up to see her gamely clinging on with three paws, while the fourth scrambled for a toehold.

20ish years later Tikki has seen off Templeton and his short-lived (and, I’m sorry to say it, generally unpopular) replacement, Squeak. She has patiently tolerated the arrival of two poodles in the house, the trauma of moving out with me to a strange home, for which she became the protector against the neighbourhood cats who liked to nip in through the cat-flap whenever they damn well felt like it. She has earned her reputation as an escape artist by an as-yet-unexplained ability to get out of locked rooms, grown plump and lazy and earned the grudging respect of the household's two dogs, via a series of perfectly-timed nose smacks.

At least, that was the state of affairs up until a year or so ago. Now she shows every sign of, Martin Amis is fond of saying, growing old painfully. She is rail thin - I can feel practically every bone of her body when I stroke her - and her limbs are stiff. Her coat is still shiny in most places but there are now rough patches where she can no longer reach to clean properly. For a cat whose favourite pastime has always been lying down, she now takes what feels like a freaking eon to even sit down, and twice as long to get up again.

For all these reasons we’ve decided to have her put down tomorrow. And given that I’ve been expecting it for months I’m quite amazed at how sad I feel about it. I’ve lost grandparents before, and pets, but never anybody who has been in my life for as long as Tikki has. Now - predictably too late, of course - I feel incredibly guilty for not lavishing more attention on her, not visiting her more now that she is living with my parents and for all the bitching I did about the long stretch spent cleaning up after her in the months and months where she lost control of the more disgusting of her bodily functions. More than anything else I will miss her dreadfully.

NOTE: Apologies for the sap factor. Next time: some jokes.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I would like to go on the record right now...

...as having said that THIS is a fucking terrible idea.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Oh...no


NOTE: Thanks to Alley Cat for ending the dream...

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Kate is...

As is this the case in my relationships with many people in this world, my relationship with that most cheeky of scoundrels, facebook, is a complex one.

Being a cynic, a party pooper and a general wet blankety type I want to make fun of both it and the people who use it. I want to mock those chronicle his or her every silent fart or cheeky nose pick. I would, if I could, crib terribly off Dorothy Parker to rubbish the wanky profile pics of others. I'd like to savage it as a sign of everything that has gone wrong with our corrupt and decadant society. And yet I'm slightly hamstrung by the fact that I love it.

Honestly, I don't mean to be a gusher but I love everything about it. I love being offered a little glimpse into what other people are up to at any precise moment; I love being able to tell others what I'm up to and have them volley something back; most of all, perhaps, I love being able to cyber stalk those who would rather I left them well enough alone.

I mention this because I was listening to someone bag out facebook the other day as a substitute for human contact. Blah blah blah, she said, why can't people just pick up the phone and call each other. I offered something equally banal as a defence. Blah blah blah, I said, it's just a nice way to stay in touch with people you son't necessarily have time to see or catch up with someone you might never otherwise catch up with.

Nonesense, she said, getting (on my tits a bit by now), with all this new technology nobody has ever made a PROPER new friend through it. So I dealt the trump card by telling her the story of how I did just that some time ago. That shut the bitch up, let me tell you.

I didn't go on but I could have. Because I can think of more than one other person I now consider a friend with whom I would probably never have become friends if not for facebook or this blog or some such. So, nyah, stick it up your face random girl I talked to the other day and let's all have a technology love-in.

Except for the freaks who enjoy twitter. What's up with THAT, eh?

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

In my dreams...


...this is what Andy will be like in 30 years.

No comment

This isn't really my post to make so I will merely point you in the general direction of The Worst of Perth:

Monday, April 20, 2009

How much of a pussy does it make me...

... if I wussed out on my (free) fringe trim at Maurice Meade entirely because Mr Maurice Meade himself was sitting on the waiting room couch as I was about to go in? Oh fuck that's pretty bad, right?

Has anybody been to Planet in Mt Lawley lately?


Because I don't want to alarm you but Russell Brand's freaking doppleganger is now working there.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

L-O-V-E is spelt J-C-V-D


Let’s make one thing very clear: Jean-Claude Van Damme is no David Hasselhoff. And I mean that as the hightest possible compliment.

The comparison is there to be made: both The Hoff and JCVD have a sort of kitchy appeal. Both have enjoyed (or in JCVD's case is just beginning to enjoy) something of a comeback by taking the piss out of their own respective images.

And yet, while merely typing the words "The Hoff" fills me with a nameless terror, tapping out "JCVD" fills me with nothing so much as a burning desire to be thrown about like a rag doll.

Have you read The Hoff’s biography? I have. (Actually, Lindsay, I still have your copy. Apologies.) For those who haven’t read it, let me tell you right now that it begins with The Hoff single-handedly waking a boy from a coma. Yeeeeeeah I’m not even joking. For me that incident right there pretty much sums up both the book and the man: fucking preposterous.

Compare that, then, to JCVD’s brilliant turn in his latest movie, aptly titled JCVD, in which he manages to be both an incredibly sad and extremely amusing a caricature of himself, even while delivering the most comically timed roundhouse kick you’ve ever seen.

Yes, reader, you can see where this is going: I am madly in love. With JCVD.

It’s not just the movie – that was merely the beginning of the romance: the bit where you fancy the pants off someone but aren’t really sure if you actually LIKE them very much.

But the love between JCVD and I has moved past superficiality and onto something incredibly profound and - gosh dare I say it - DEEPLY spiritually. And it’s entirely because I bloody caved to the inevitable and joined Twitter.

Now, before you get all Oh Kate You're Terrible, I must insist that I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon purely for work purposes. Honest. And although my opinion on the whole thing still remains undecided, JCDV's presence has made it all worthwhile. Because, my God, the man can twit.

Sidestepping the fact that half his tweets are in French and I don't speak a lick of it (although actually I rather like those ones too, for which I invent my own saucy translations) the rest are pure gold. They range from the comedic (“Let’s all blame Steven Seagal for Mondays”) to the curious (“if you talk to the liquid soap while you clean the dishes it will be less concentrated”) and all the ones where you kinda suspect he is almost certainly on seven different types of crack ("The bee that leaves the hive can't make honey, but is free to become aware of the world around").

I laughed, I swooned, I said What The Fuck?

The only thing I did not do is go back and rewatch Wrong Bet. Because, while JCVD may be awesome, that movie is... not. Seriously, I'm not ending on a joke: just do yourself a favour and don't see that movie. Ever.

Overheard in my office (I'm pretty sure that's what Shakespeare meant)

(PEON): Thursday, 11.10am: "All the world's a football"

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Oh dear


News just in for women's bodies, and the men who love them: apparently the curvy silhouette is back in style. Forget twiglets and drainpipe jeans that bag around the thigh - from here on out it's going to be all about plump tits, swollen hips and a rump you can park your bike on. Right? Right? Er... right?

Well perhaps we should step back a little and consider our source material for this semi-outrageous claim. The Times this week became the first (but sadly not the last) of the UK broadsheets to make the 'curvy is back' call... for this month at least. And while all this is very good in theory, particularly for those of us who are not only blessed with an excessive amount of soft corners but have just polished of an embarrassing quantity of Cadbury Creme Eggs, I think some scepticism is in order.

Mostly because the "evidence" The Times uses to justify this (alleged) return of the rounded arse is Kate Moss. In particular, the photo of Kate Moss shown above.

"Women rejoice [the Times says], Kate Moss has gone curvy."

To which I say: you have got to be freaking kidding me. I mean, I like Kate Moss, I envy Kate Moss, I even sort of fancy Kate Moss. But when I look at Kate Moss, the word that springs to mind is most certainly not "curvy". And when I look at the photo above I still do not think of the word "curvy". I might think "there is a skinny girl who looks like she's just had a big meal". But even that's pushing it a bit.

I do realise that "skinny still in" does not exactly a story make but Come On. Can we not try a little harder? I can stare at Scarlett Johansen's tits and believe for a moment that T&A is back in vogue, and I could, frankly, look at pictures of that saucy redhead from Mad Men for DAYS and believe anything she wanted me to, but Kate Moss? I could still build an entire outfit for her twiglet frame from the wrappings of the easter eggs I have just consumed. And while I have eaten quite a few easter eggs I have not, I assure you, eaten THAT many.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

I suppose I'm supposed to be a cynic about this kind of thing...


... but I love Easter. I mean, it's such a brilliantly useless holiday... based around CONFECTIONARY, of all things. What's not to love?

Christmas frequently makes me feel a smidgen guilty. I love the food, the booze, the generally festive atmosphere and, of course, the presents, but all of the above inevitably leads onto guilt about Those Less Fortune etc. Tin rattlers corner me on the street and in desperation I make a monthly pledge I probably can't afford but will never get around to cancelling. Ho Frickin' Ho.

Birthdays don't count because, although you get spoilt rotten if you're lucky, you don't actually get any time off work and nobody other than yourself (and hopefully your loved ones) gives a shit.

But easter.. Easter! I mean CHILDHOOD easter was good enough, what with the treasure hunting for eggs, weekends at the beach house and the end - dear god the end - of Lent. Adult easter is even better, given I no longer care a fig for the religious stuff. On the downside, I no longer dream about the easter egg haul with quite such enthusiasm (I would but I'm not sure anyone buys them for me anymore) but the pleasure of a)having a rare Friday off work, and b)gorging on Cadbury Cream Eggs I have purchased myself, makes up for it.

Best of all everyone's in a vaguely good mood for very little reason. It's a long weekend! We can eat chocolate openly in the street! Let's CELEBRATE! All of which makes up for the dispiriting fact that the pubs will be closed tomorrow rather well I think.

Monday, April 6, 2009

I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger...

... but I do have an excuse. Honestly. You see, I'm a lazy, fucking cunt.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Today's meeting did not go at all well, actually.