Of the two I’m living with now, one is easier to trick than the other.
They have a stick with feathers on, a toy, and while one is happier to sit and watch it get moved around the floor, it’s pretty simple to get the other running round in circles until he gets dizzy and falls over.
It’s very funny.

Not as funny as the cat my family had though, a long while ago.
He was very stupid.
Cute, but really, really stupid. His name was Bobbins, for flatulent reasons, but thats another story.

Usually they were fed pretty run of the mill food, dry food actually, in an attempt to stop Bobbins getting any more obese than he already was.
Of course, Bobbins was getting fat mainly because he was eating at every other house in the road as well as our own, but we didn’t know that at the time, so we carried on feeding him diet pussy food, in the hope that hed get thinner.
Occasionally, however, for a treat, we’d boil up some cheap fish, and they’d have a little bit at a time, to go with the diet food, which lets face it, must have been horrible, as all diet food is.

Now, bobbins could smell the fish boiling away, as could the other (clever) cat, Poppy. But while Poppy would sit quietly, waiting, Bobbins would make your life hell until he got his fish.

While it was boiling away, in the pan, and while it was sitting in a sieve, cooling down, he’d spring from chair to chair, leap up onto your shoulders, find a place of reasonable height to stand and catch you with his claws every time you wandered past, wander along any shelves he could reach, swing on the door handle, break stuff and fart.

The fish took about 20 minutes to cool to a cat-edible standard.
There was no way Bobbins was waiting 20 minutes.

After about five he would annoy you so much that youd cave in.
Alright, you’d say. I’ll give you some fish, but I’m telling you, Cat, its hot. You don’t want it now, you want to wait. You just don’t know it. Alright. Yes, I’m fetching it. Get your claws out of my arm. NOW, or there’ll be no fish. Stupid Mog.

Then you’d put the bowl on the floor, after mashing it with a spoon to try and cool it, and youd retreat to the stairs, sit down and watch.

Bobbins would rush at the bowl, open his mouth, just get his little cat lips around the steaming fish, and then spring backwards, in surprise. He would look around the kitchen, suspiciously, and his gaze would rest on you. He’d trot over.
paddapaddapaddapaddapadda.

This fish is Hot! he would say. With his eyes. He was a very good communicator, for all his IQ limitations. It is Hot. You have given me hot fish! Why?
“Look, Bobbins!” You would say, and point at the bowl “Fish!”

And he would turn around and look where you were pointing. Oooh! his posture would exclaim, racing over to his bowl. What’s this?! Someone’s given me fish, yum yum yum yum… Ouch!
And with his little puss lips almost around the pile of steaming fish, he’d jump backwards, then look around the room suspiciously.
His gaze would settle on you, and he’d come trotting over.
paddapaddapaddapaddapadda

Excuse me He would say, This fish is hot! You have given me hot fish! Why?
“Look Bobbins!” You’d say, and point “Fish!”

Oooh! Someones given me fish, must eat the nice fish, yum yum yum yum… Ouch!
suspicious look.
paddapaddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
This fish is Hot!
“Look, Bobbins, Fish!”
Ooooh!
padapadapadapadapada, head down, jump back, suspicious look.
paddapaddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
This fish is hot!
“Look, Bobbins, Fish!”
Ooh! etc etc.
Once we did it 12 times before the fish cooled down enough to eat.

My gloriously adorable idiot.

Sitting on the Sofa for three hours this evening, after Id finally got through putting other peoples children to bed.

Sitting on the sofa for three hours, wrestling with Oscar Wilde.
And he’s a big fucker, too.

I mean, you’d think if I was going to pick a classic playwright to tussle with, I could at least have picked someone like Samuel Beckett, who was old and thin and weak and would have been out after a couple of punches to the knees.
Or George Bernard Shaw, who had a beard that you could grab onto while you were kicking him in the nuts.

But no, not on the reading list for next week. So Wilde it was.

And I’m having to research a play I really love; The Importance of being Earnest, which is great.
But for some reason, it took me 3 hours to get through 6 pages of it.
For… some reason.

Or perhaps some reasons.
I was watching television. That was one reason. And then I had to change a fuse, and get a sandwich. And a cup of coffee. More reasons.
And play with the kittens, and then one of the girls woke up. And then something good came on television.
And then I had a sudden compulsion to use the phone.
And then the toilet. And then the phone again. And then there was something else on the television.
And I have the concentration span of a carton of Orange Juice.
Those were some reasons.

ALSO: It was in French.
That was the over-riding reason.
It was, well, it is, in French. Its sitting there, on my bedside table, glaring at me. In French.
And I don’t read french. I don’t speak French, I did 4 years of French 10 years ago, and received quite poor grades for it.

But something deep in me seems to believe strongly that I know how to read French.

This is the second time that I’ve borrowed a script from the Library in French, and I’ve no idea why I do it.

I’m looking around for a different angle on the text, a different edition, edit, something that might help understand the evolution of the play through production or the fine-tuning of the playwright over time. And then lo and behold, I find a translation, and I think “Well now! Won’t this be fascinating, learning a little something about how the wordplay translates, and all that, yes, this will be brilliant!”

So yes, when I pick it up, it seems like the best idea in the world, and I go, I check it out at the desk,
and its only when I’m outside, walking away from the library that I realise…

Je ne parle pas français.