We've lost that loving feline

If you exclude Caractacus - a small fish given to me as a present in my early 20s (complete with bowl) - I'd never had a pet before Lil.

This rescue cat was a lovely little creature, but never one for sitting in someone's lap. Perhaps her early experiences had taught her to be wary around humans. But over time, there was plenty of affectionate marking, nudging and purring, as she grew to know and love the members of the family.

A poisoning incident affected her kidneys back in 2016. We still don't know what it was she ate or drank, but ultimately it's led to a very hard decision today. We agreed that to stop her suffering - and because of a fairly obvious deterioration - that it was better for the vet to put her to sleep. She died very peacefully. I cried a lot more than I anticipated.

Earlier this year, Lil had benefited from a couple of days on a drip and then seemed to get a new lease of life. But just over a month ago, she had to spend a whole week as an in-patient to achieve the same effect. And unfortunately, on this occasion, the recovery was very short-lived. Her kidneys were getting progressively worse and what was described to me as a 'poor man's dialysis' was no longer going to do the trick.

So, Lil, here are a few of the things I'll particularly remember about you:

(1) The weird noise you made when you sighted avian prey. A sort of slightly manic clicking sound, which you never made in any other context.

(2) The way you sat with me while I worked on the desktop computer in my bedroom, often purring contentedly on a window ledge or occasionally jumping up to encourage me to feed you.

(3) The fact you never realised your cat flap and the front door led to the same location. You could never understand how two exits at 90 degrees to one another could arrive in the same place, could you?

(4) The weird noise you made when you brought in mice. A kind of demented yeooowwling sound which made my heart sink.

(5) The fact that you once followed me half a mile to a parade of shops, waited patiently outside while I did my errands and then followed me home.

(6) The time you made me jump out of my skin by carrying in a magpie.

(7) The trick you performed when we first brought you home and you were confined to a particular room. Do you remember lying on the floor on your back and sticking your paw under the door to lever it open? Inventive.

(8) The weird noise frogs made when you brought them in. They screeched. And they were harder for me to deal with than birds or mice, because they moved in every conceivable direction on multiple planes. Up, down, left, right. You never ate them, but liked to lick them.

(9) The way you used to follow Mrs W to work and end up a kilometre away from home. Eventually, you'd stop, go no further and howl. We'd find you later in the day in the same place. You always thought it was better to wait there for us to come back, didn't you?

(10) The effect you had on everyone at the vet's and the fact that they referred to me as your dad.

RIP, little girl. You're now scratching where the carpets are plush velour.

A Fawlty Towers script? Si, senor!

Ok, so I gave ChatGPT the following scenario: "Imagine a theatrical script for a situation comedy set in a hotel in Torquay, England. The proprietor is called Basil, an eccentric man who believes the calibre of guests to be low. His wife, Sybil, is often frustrated by Basil's incompetence. They employ a Spanish waiter called Manuel, who struggles to understand English. Basil suspects that two guests, who claim to be married, may be lying." Here's what our favourite AI came up with: Scene: The hotel lobby in Torquay, England. Basil is standing behind the reception desk, looking at a piece of paper. Sybil is standing next to him, looking annoyed. Manuel is hovering nearby, trying to look busy. Basil: (to Sybil) I don't know why we get such low-calibre guests at this hotel. Look at these two - Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They claim to be married, but I suspect they might be lying. Sybil: (sighing) Basil, it's not our job to judge the marital status of our guests. Just m...

Becoming a Twister board

I spent yesterday evening in an old factory building off Brick Lane playing kids' games with an organisation called Fun Fed. The idea is that a bunch of adults get together and act like children for a couple of hours. We played tag and stuck big coloured discs on ourselves so that we could become human Twister mats. There was an awful lot of running around and I was thinking that I ought to get to aikido a bit more often. Being a child is very hard work.

It's been a tough year. Let's give ourselves a clap.

If something didn’t smell right about the UK handling of the pandemic, the British public was never going to notice. But they knew that if they couldn’t smell something, they really ought to get a Covid test sent to them in the post. There has been something incredibly British about the DIY swabs and their delivery via the gig-economy workers of Amazon, hasn’t there? Touch of corona? I’ll pop something in the post to you. Should be with you tomorrow. I suppose it was inevitable that we’d need some new kind of system. After all, the coronavirus outbreak was the first thing in the history of the NHS that couldn’t be cured by paracetamol, rest and plenty of fluids. This understandably left GPs flummoxed and anxious. The UK decided pretty early on that if you were ill with a novel pathogen – which proved deadly in maybe 1% of cases – you really shouldn’t go to the doctor. You should STAY AT HOME and spread it quickly to your flatmates or family members. And because they were now at ...

WASHED AND READY TO EAT

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