Apologies for not posting anything for ages, but I've been living in fear. Every tiny noise in the flat fills me full of dread anticipation. Any creak, bang, jangle or flapping of the wings of a pigeon in the jaws of a cat makes me start in terror. Oh, I think I may have given the game away. Damn.

Yes, the first victim of the Mog Summer of Horror has been taken. A young pigeon by the name of Flappy was bought to an untimely demise by the rampant cat-jaws of our cat earlier in the week, but I've known it was coming. There's something about the demeanour of a cat - perhaps a devillish twinkle in her eye, perhaps the extra vim she puts into chasing the toy panda - that lets you know that SHE WILL KILL AGAIN.

It's the bin-men I feel sorry for. They're the poor buggers who have to take it away.

(NB - cat-kill photo above not done by me or my cat - it's from here. Thanks, Flickr).

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Why is it that the only people to wear shorts all year round are footballers and postmen? What is it that they have in common? Apart from always being down the pub (and I really can only speak for the postmen of the N5 postal district here, not to put any kind of slur upon the good name of postpeople - footballers, however, I feel free to cast aspersions about, as I've seen some right bloody rubbish football recently).

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On a different, and possibly even more whimsical tack: I wonder, am I the only person who regularly sees nuns on the way to work? While I cycle by, slickly oiled machine that I am, habitted-up nuns shuffle past.

Anyone else see any nuns -or better still - monks on their way to work? (NB Buddhists DON'T count. Sorry.)

Summer Is On Its Way (By Science, Comrades, Science)

It's a nice day today, everyone's smiling, the beer gardens are open, and it seems like summer's here. Well, it's not. It's not here. It's still winter. How do I know this? Well, seeing the popularity of meteorologists - they have their own programmes on the telly and everything - I decided that I'd cash in, and use hard facts to prove that it's not summer.

What I've done is decided that 4 seasons is too precise, so I've reduced it to two (summer, the hot one; and winter, the other one). I've also mapped out the number of days that I wear a summer jacket or my winter coat during each month. Therefore, the precise day when Summer! will begin is the day that summer jacket usage exceeds winter jacket wearing. The dotty line on the the not-at-all-knocked-up-in-ninety-seconds graph tells you predicted jacket-wearing days based on the bell-curve that I assume fits the data. This means that mid-April will be summer! It's not far off now people.

[Warning: All 'facts' may have been made up in a fit of whimsy, and maths and statistics sticklers may be able to prove me a fraud. However, they're all too busy dancing in the town centre fountains with their trousers rolled up to care.]

Oh Man, Look at Those Cavemen Go (and USB twigs)

Hope you've been watching Life on Mars recently. If you haven't been, then you won't know how skilled John Simms is at acting drugs. Unless you've seen Human Traffic, which I understand also features him acting drugs. He's really good at it though. He does sweaty, confused, hyper and chewy so well.

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Can anyone explain why I'd need this here item? A USB flash drive embedded in a twiggy wooden stick? Would you believe it though, it's actually the most practical thing on their website. It'd be enough to make Jesus weep (although it'd probably take a while to explain the concept of a USB flash drive to Jesus, and might not be the best use of Our Lord and Saviour's valuable time. He's got bigger fish to fry. Or turn into wine. I seem to remember this TV Show explored the concept of what would happen if Jesus was a cop and it was quite funny, although I'm sure more could have been made of the concept. Worth a look if you accidentally get locked in at work at the weekend and the only other option is to translate the Health & Safety manuals into French.)

Me vs Pigeons

The pigeons have struck back in the ongoing battle for supremacy between featherless, hygienic me and the fearful filthwings. I arrived at work. I picked up a parcel addressed to Nicola Kirkham, c/o me. I wandered into my room thinking, not unfairly, "Who the bloody hell is Nicol Kirkham?" What I wasn't thinking was, "Hello pigeons, how have you enjoyed your time flapping round the office, you disgusting evil beasts?" That's what I should have been thinking, because there were two sickeningly fat and barely able to fly pigeons crashing about. I had to get someone with a stick to help me guide them out of the window. I'm not used to helping pigeons without using the Swift Hammer of Merciful Death, so it was a slightly strange experience for me.

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In brief Evening Standard headline news, I saw one the other day that looked like it might just be a new indie band advertising their new album (available on CD and download from iTunes from Monday):

Missing Internet Girl: New Pictures

(Come to think of it, she can't actually be all that missing if they have new pictures of her. I'm not going to buy the Standard to find out though; they're not going to get me that way, oh no).

Evening Standard Headline Board Mocked

Yes, but who did they attack?

(Cheers, Evening Standard headline poster)

New Newness and Promises That Won't Be Kept

Hey there, little reader, you. In lieu of actually writing anything, I've instead been tinkering with the new Blogger templates (hence the shiny newness on which you read these words). In one fell swoop, they've made it both much easier and also impenetrably difficult to edit the template. Fact was, the old one was looking like a dog, and I had to take it out round the back of the internet and cave its head in with a big spade made of code. Also, I just tweaked one of the default templates slightly. Anyway, enough of that.

Actually, one more thing on the topic - you won't be able to see the comments on the main page any more. The Man can't cope with such free speech, man. You'll have to click on the comments bit at the end of each post, or you could subscribe to the comments feed (see side panel for more on this). Stupid new things that aren't as good as the old things.

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Watching Man Utd v Reading earlier in the week, I was struck by John Motson's introduction to the game, which has been presented here in the form of a poem:

Outside there's a conference centre,
A luxury hotel,
An indoor training complex.
But I think what most of us appreciate,
(Those old enough to drive, anyway - heh!)
Is the location of the Madejski,
Just a mazy dribble
By Christiano Ronaldo
Over a couple of roundabouts
Would take him onto Junction 11
Of the M4,
As that westbound motorway
Roars out of London
Through the Thames Valley
And onwards to Bristol
And Cardiff,
Where the Millenuim Stadium is still on standby
Just in case the new Wembley
Is not ready to stage
The final
From which
These two
Teams tonight
Are just
Three matches
Away.

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I'm in a very excitable musical mood at the moment, and am currently enthusing about:
 
CSS - endearingly gonzo disco-rock from the Brazilians responsible for 'Off the Hook', 'Alala' and 'Lets Make Love and Listen to Death from Above'. The squeaky 40-a-day vocals really help.

Gossip - Oh yes, I can really get into something months after everyone else is fed up of the NME hype. Sounds like a less disorientating Public Image Ltd or a better tunes Radio 4, this is nothing that hasn't been done to death in the recent punk-funk craze of about the past 5 years, but it's done very well, and (agreeing with Noel Gallagher) Beth Ditto has got a great voice.

Regina Spektor - I meant to put 'On The Radio' on the Xmas CD, but forgot, like a durrbrain. Other opinion in my house holds that 'Fidelity' is better, but you don't want to trust the musical opinion of a cat, do you? The whole album is great too, and it gets my Well-Written Lyrics Award for having well-written lyrics that are written well.


My words don't make the music come alive in your brain LIKE YOU ACTUALLY WERE LISTENING TO IT? Well, there's something wrong with your CRITICAL FACULTIES, but I won't hold it against you - low-rate previews of these people follow: CSS, Gossip, Regina Spektor - click click click.

Excuses, Cat Drugs, Debates and Fiscal Tiger

Yeah, so it's been over a month since I last posted. My excuse is: I had a cold. One of those cold that affects your typing and mouse skills. Such a debilitating kind of cold, that. On behalf of the Guild of Internet Artisans, I offer my most humble and profuse apologies, and lay myself at your mercy.

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Going to buy cat drugs from the vet's, I had to show the nurse the previous packet of cat drugs so she knew what cat drugs the cat wanted. The packet had Mog's old name on, the one that the cat home had given her, so I said to the nurse, 'Catrina was her old name.'

'We changed it to Mog,' I then said.

Then, adopting a conspiratorial whisper, I added, 'because Catrina is a shit name.'

There was then an awkward pause as I weighed up the odds that the nurse's name was Catrina. She looked like she might be Spanish, and everyone in Spain who isn't called Maria is called Catrina, so I thought it probably quite likely that she was called Catrina. Damn. I meant to say, 'Catrina is a shit name for a cat'. But I didn't, because that would just lead to me blathering on with things like, 'but it's not a shit name for a person. It's actually a good name for a person. I like you. Give me cat drugs.'

I got the cat drugs, but the cat scratched me to buggery when I gave them to her. I think the nurse switched the worming tablets for some kind of cat psychotic.

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For reasons best left obscure, the other night I went to a debate (the kind where statements like 'The House considers flip-flops to be a modern blessing of convenience upon our benighted land and thinks that their invention should all be honoured with big cash rewards and sloppy kisses' are bandied about) that some schoolkids were having. In a debate about the merits of learning a foreign language, one of the kids came up with

'if it wasn't for languages, we wouldn't be able to use semi-colons. You know, the things you use when writing letters.'

Needless to say, he won his debate.

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I've just found some drawings I did of Fiscal Tiger, of whom I had great hopes once. Fiscal Tiger (FT) is a cartoon tiger I wanted to make a cartoon strip about. He was going to represent rapacious capital in its rampant 1980s throwback form, while also being a tiger. The plan floundered on twofold reasons: I know nothing about finance and I can't draw. However, before plans were shelved, he was given a copyright-infringing catchphrase:

'Greed is grrrrrrrrrrrrreat!'

which he would use at the end of each cartoon, in the absence of a punchline (oh, did I mention the third reason: no punchlines? I couldn't think up any funny stories or punchlines. That was the third reason).

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Is this post long enough now? I've got absolutely priceless thoughts about the merits of gatefold dining tables, but perhaps I'll save them for another occasion.

Happy New Year, Happy New Cakes

Hi, happy new year and all that. Last year I was limping and being grumpy about having to wish everyone happy new year. This year, I'm giving up on trying to keep track of who I've wished a happy new year so far, so I'm just going to be saying happy new year to everyone at every occasion, regardless of how may times I've wished them it so far, until about mid-February. That solves that problem. Who says you don't get more cleverer when you get old?

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I was just in the local corner shop, when something on the edge of my vision caused me to do a proper comedy double-take complete with spin-around while I loudly went 'Ehrrrr?'. What had so ghast my flabber was a cake. A Manor House cake. It's the second North London district to be honoured with a cake, to the best of my confectionery knowledge (the other being a Tottenham cake, which I'm sure I've made mention of in the past). Has anyone ever had a Manor House cake? Was it created in Manor House? Or was the result it a council-funded project to sum up the area around the Picadilly Line station in cake? Given that all Wikipedia can come up with on Manor House is connections to Goths and pornographers, I don't think I'm going to risk tasting the cake soon.

Anyone know of any other North London-related cakes, and the history thereof? Does the Finsbury Park cake exist? What would it taste like? Actually, I think I'm going to use this methodology in meetings when someone raises a bright idea:
- "I think we could rationalise the delivery through structured e-learning technology"
- "Yes, but if it were a cake, what would it taste like?"

(NB the Manor House cake may simply be a name coincidence, but don't spoil my fun. The truth always has to spoil my fun, the bastard.)