and so are you;

Sir, I must protest. As a vegetarian interested only in vegetarian animals, your site referrals are misleading. I Googled big grass eaters and got big cats in grass. This is now embedded in my search list and should I ever have this computer taken in for examination, I will be denounced as a fraud and a secret big cat lover.

Anne Noyed of Grimbsy.

Are you muddled about where you live, Ms Noyed? You're very lucky to have come across nice piccies when you have googled; I googled male babes once and that turned out to be A VERY BAD IDEA. But our television has added to this sort of trauma. They - at 7.30pm, when CHILDREN are watching, mentioned 'milf'. My husband refused to explain 'milf ' to me, and felt googling it was another BAD IDEA. But he did help by saying the first word was Mothers, and I worked out the rest.

Yours, B Goode, Hull.

This apparently couldn't be a headline on a nice American site. I read where American media have difficulty writing about Pussy Riot, and have had to resort to referring to them as Russian Pop Group with a Profane Name. Do Americans really not have the word pussy for cats? How do they get on in other countries where half the country go out calling " Puss, Puss, Puss" at twilight?

Quote :

I read where American media have difficulty writing about Pussy Riot,

And from a country which finds this quite acceptable!




Oh lord, will that bring in another batch of disappointed googlers?

To Mrs B. Good of Hull.

I am not confused about where I am. Grimbsy has a nice veggie group that nurtures veggy animals. Do not confuse me with A.N. Oid of Grimsby. I get his mail so I know what he is into - and the above poster will suit him no end....I do not have this problem.

As to the above, from what I recall of the US of A people grow their own now.

Good buxom backsides there! (Can you have buxom backsides?) I wouldn't have thought they needed falsies. I don't know why and I don't even know if it is general in NZ, but I always have the American view of fanny in my head. How do you read Mansfield Park if you have different visions in your minds?

Anyway you can't fool me, Ms Noyed. I can tell you are just Mr Oid in disguise, trying to infiltrate us animal lovers. (It is a shame farmers didn't stick to vege animals before they gave cows BSE, really.)

Caro wrote:

... but I always have the American view of fanny in my head. How do you read Mansfield Park if you have different visions in your minds?

You try teaching Mansfield Park, Caro - everytime Sir Thomas Bertram says, "My dear little Fanny!"...

Worse than Jane Eyre's muff. "Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff..." (Ch. 12).

It's just a short version of Frances;

Ah, these were the days.

Days I shudder to remember. What a dreadful programme!

Those were the days indeed, ID

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cat-Empire-Moscow-Moggy-M-Weigall-1986-Humor-POSTCARD-/120616443956

Cat Hero of the Soviet Union. He's a lovely moggy.

Tried to make just the picture appear, but it wouldn't.

Never underestimate the influence of a well connected pussy.

Islanddawn wrote:

Ah, these were the days.

It happens that we have the same name...in our dialect...heur poesje (her pussy) and "poesje" is little cat in the "normal" language...of course we have a lot of other descriptions, wordings...but let us not start at that...

And my wife, Nordmann, liked the program, as I also a bit...but "On the busses", in my humble opinion was better...or is that also from the same "category"....? and subjugated to the same harsh judgement...? And what then about "Keeping up appearances"? is that a step higher in your classification...? Or has it to be "To the manor born" to seduce you...?

Kind regards from your mutual friend, Paul.

On "mutual": my paperback Collins English dictionary says:

Mutual was originally used when only two people, or groups of people, were concerned, but is nowadays often extended to cover more than two and to mean "common"" rather than "reciprocal"...

Just been looking through some famous cats in history and quite liked the story of Unsinkable Sam



Unsinkable Sam was rescued from the sea by the crew members of HMS Cossack after the sinking of the Bismark in 1941 and became the ships mascot. He served for the next few months until the sinking of the Cossack later the same year, but he survived this too and was bought ashore on Gibraltar. He was then transferred to HMS Ark Royal and had no more luck there, as the Ark Royal was too torpedoed and sunk a mere few weeks later.

Unsinkable Sam was found clinging to a plank by rescuers and described (understandably) as 'angry but quite unharmed'! He was then transferred to HMS Lightening, but the sinking of the Ark Royal was really the end of his sea going career and he saw the remainder of his days in retirement at a seamans home in Belfast. By this stage poor Sam was possibly considered bad luck?

ID, your photo of 'Unsinkable Sam' is, I think, actually of Simon, ship's cat of HMS Amethyst who served during the 1949 Yangtze Incident. For his courage under fire while injured and for raising the ship's morale Simon was awarded the PDSA Dicken Medal.

I can't find a pic of Unsinkable Sam.

You could be right MM, re-checking there seems to be a bit of confusion between Sam and Simon, as both were black and white and appear to have had similar markings.
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/unsinkable-sam

This one could be Unsinkable Sam?

ID, not that I'm cat mad you understand, but I think you'll find the cat pictured on that site is Blackie, ship's cat of HMS Prince of Wales, photographed with Winston Churchill. But yes I think the painting might well be of Unsinkable Sam.

We're certainly getting a good cat-alogue of felines. Might appeal to the latent Bolivian audience purr-haps.

EDIT : There's also Peebles of HMS Western Isles, Convoy of HMS Hermione, and Tiddles of HMS Victorious.... and they're all black and white moggies.

The Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare's chum) was allowed to have his cat with him in the Tower. He looks a right stuck-up moggy to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wriothesley_southampton.jpg

(I don't seem able to make any picture appear at the moment, even though I am following instuctions which have always worked before. Just keep getting the little cross-in-a-box - can the Benign Leader please help?)

I couldn't get that link you had tried to work either but when I checked the name of the picture's name in "properties" on the Wiki page, Wikipedia had given it this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Wriothesley_southampton.jpg

When I used that in the "insert image" box it works:



The cat is cross-eyed. Probably expains the "X" you got when you tried.

He is still a fine cat, sir, a very fine cat!

Talking of which, no discussion of famous moggies would be complete without mention of this one:

"Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeede is still a fine cat, sir, a very fine cat!' "

Will try to find a picture of him - there is a statue of Hodge in London - he is enjoying an oyster.

PS Thank you, Nordmann.

Here he is.

This is Bast or Bastet, the ancient Egyptian Goddess of Cats. She began life as a lioness in the 3rd millenium BC but in the 1st millenium, when the keeping of cats as pets became more popular, she was more regularly portrayed as a domestic cat.

I wish I'd not been worshipped, this is just embarrassing.

Mrs. Chippy had an amazingly adventurous life, but a tragic end.

He - for she was a boy (a Glaswegian tomcat, ferval - and by all accounts a real bruiser!) - was a member of Shackleton's Trans-Antartic expedition of 1914-1917.

http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/chippy.html

So sad that MacNeish could never forget Mrs. Chippy nor forgive Shackleton - that haunting comment, "Shackleton shot my cat!"

Picture follows, I hope. Ms Chippy is another very handsome feline.

Surprised no one has mentioned Humphrey yet - the little innocent so cruelly done away with by Cherie Blair.

Here is Mrs Chippy. Isn't he lovely?

Re the tale of Mrs Chippy - I didn't realise that Shackleton, who I've always thought worthy of respect, could be so spiteful and mean spirited. He made sure MacNeish was excluded from receiving the Polar Medal because of his 'insubordination' in trying to pursuade the crew to save the cat from being shot. This despite the fact that, as carpenter responsible for making the boats ready for their desperate escape, MacNeish certainly contributed in no small way to the crew's survival.

Poor MacNeish, not only did Shackleton shoot his cat but the blighter spitefully refused him any official recognition.

Cat doors have been around for a while, Chaucer describes a cat hole in the Miller's Tale. In the narrative a servant whose knocks go unanswered uses the cat hole to look in

An hole he foond, full lowe upon a bord
Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe
And at the hole he looked in ful depe
And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte

The invention of the cat door is sometimes attested to Sir Isaac Newton who, apparently, was tired of his cat neither wanting to be in or out. But this could be mere urban legend as the stories didn't seem to appear until some time after his death.

Wasn't it also, apocryphally, ascribed to Newton that when his cat had kittens he said how he had better cut a second, smaller hole, next to the first.

In modern mythology this is repeated to show that even the finest minds sometimes say and do things without really thinking. But there is of course no truth, whatsoever, in the story.

This is the door in the North Transept of Exeter Cathedral - the door below the famous astronomical clock. The cat hole was cut to allow access to the clock tower for the Cathedral Cat. This moggy was so important that he was listed on the Bishop's payroll - he received 1d per week for his mouse-catching duties. The clock tower swarmed with mice - they were attracted to the animal fat used as lubricant for the great clock. They also munched away happily on the pulley ropes - which were continually having to be replaced.

Heavens, sounds like the Bishop needed more than one cat..

Forgot to put date of the cat hole. They think it was cut in the door about 1598.

The clock had already been there for a century - it was donated by Bishop Peter Courtenay who rebelled against guess who in the autumn of 1483. After the failure of the Buckingham Rebellion, Courtenay left England to join Henry Tudor's "court" in Brittany. Came back to Exeter in 1485 to find mice everywhere.

Edit: Put Britanny instead of Brittany. It looks wrong, but Brittany is correct.

She'd disagree with both spellings.

Cats were favoured pets in China, as this 12C painting by Mao Yi, titled Cats in The Garden, attests.

But during the Middle Ages in Europe poor moggies went through a rough time when it was believed that cats were in league with the devil and thousands were slaughtered during the Black Death. Which lead to an increase in very thing that caused the plague, rather than a decrease.

Cats continued to have a bad reputation into the Renaissance when it was thought that they were the familiars of witches. During some European festivities, cats were sometimes burnt alive or thrown off tall buildings.

Cat tossing is still a popular traditional sport in Scotland.

Last year's winner;

Quote :

Cats were favoured pets in China,

I recall it in my youth it being claimed that there was something rather unusual about Chinese pussies.

Before you say it, my coat is on already!

The invading Monguls on India - later to be called there the Mogul dynasty - often had their cats shown in minature paintings enjoying a life of considerable comfort on silken carpets with smug satisfaction. Er - moggies would they have be?..... the local word for cat though is 'Billi.'

That's my coat ferv, find your own.

Huh, make fun you guys!

I used to have a copy of Simon Bond's 101 Uses for a Dead Cat. Can't think were it has gone now but was a very funny book in its day.

http://www.amazon.com/101-Uses-Dead-Simon-Bond/dp/0517545160

No, I amend that, I've just looked and it still is funny

I looked up "dead cat bounce" on Wiki to see if it had an interesting history. Not really. I thought that the expression perhaps went back to the early days of the London Stock Exchange - some coffee-drinking investor hurling a cat out of a window, perhaps - but apparently not. 1985 is the earliest use of the phrase - on Wall St.


'The term "dead cat bounce" is derived from the idea that "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height."^[2] The phrase has been used on Wall Street for many years. The earliest use of the phrase dates from 1985 when the Singaporean and Malaysian stock markets bounced back after a hard fall during the recession of that year. Journalists Horace Brag and Wong Sulong of the Financial Times were reported as saying the market rise was a "dead cat bounce."^[3] A similar expression in Cantonese has an older history and this may be the origin of the term.'

I had the 'dead cat' book too and mine has also vanished, I suspect my cat has hidden it just in case I get ideas.

I've been thinking about all the meanings of 'pussy': cat, female pudenda, coward. Are these "deceptive" lexemes? (I hope you're impressed by my admittedly selective memory.)

The Purr 'n' Fur site (don't be put off by the awful name) is really good - lots of fascinating stuff about famous and/or interesting cats.

Good piece - very informative - about the origins of Carroll's Cheshire Cat here.

http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/fabled/cheshirecat.html


I've just been reading Ch. 8 of "Alice in Wonderland" - the bit where they want to execute the grinning cat, but only his head is there. Can you behead a head that isn't attached to a body? The executioner says you can't, but the King's argument is "that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense."

The Cheshire Cat (or rather its head) just fades away, "so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game."

Which is a very good way to end a chapter.

And it all makes perfectly good sense when you’ve downed a bottle of the loopy juice.

Not quite of the furry type, but I am reading a book on cricket suicides (may have mentioned this before) and it happens that George, fourth Baron Lyttelton and W.E. Gladstone married sisters called "The Pussies". They were daughters of Sir Stephen Glynne and I don't know why they were called Pussies.

My book calls his lordship 'potty' but some of its examples of weirdness seem reasonable to me. "He and W.E. Gladstone passed some of their time trandlating Milton and Tennyson into Greek...While watching his boys playing for Eton at Lord's George Lyttelton unashamedly read from Herodotus whenever they were not engaged in the action." Why should be ashamed of this?

He committed suicide by throwing himself down a staircase which does seem to me an inadequate way to kill yourself - although on television anyone falling down stairs dies it seems to me as likely to break your neck, or just a few bones.

I have got sidetracked looking for his wife's surname and found the port of Lyttelton in Canterbury is named after him, and he was Secretary of the Colonies and bought a very decent amount of land there, worth a lot to his heir. So why did his daughter say he killed himself because of the 'moneyums'? Perhaps his 15 children ate into his cash.

Another group of literary cats;

A contemporary cat, but I love these books



Slinky Malinky is a thief and from the same author as the Hairy Maclary series.



And Hairy and friends arch enemy is Scarface Claw

Another modern favourite

and of course

Ferval, I've never seen 'Simon's Cat' before... they're brilliant.

But unfortunately while watching several of 'em, the cat-like noises have convinced my dog that there's a cat hiding behind the PC.... So he's just scrabbled all the printer/fax/telephone/pc wires out of place in the hunt for this elusive but non-existant puss. I've been forced to watch them with the sound muted.

I reckon Simon could do his dog too if the cat theme starts to wane.

The author of Slinky Malinki and the Hairy Maclary books, Lynley Dodd, was made a Distinguished Companion of the NZ Order of Merit in 2001, mostly because of the success of these books, and that was converted to her being called a Dame when the National Government reversed the earlier Labour Government's decision to do away with sirs and dames (which hadn't been a popular policy).

http://www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/news/its-dame-lynley-but-cat-still-rules/1007720/

The old Felix the Cat cartoons from the 1920s/30s were really good - and just a touch (?) surreal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxailD4Ofq4