1. A cat’s miaow includes frequencies below the range of human hearing, in fact sounding quite different to other cats that it does to humans. This is why elephants are normally kept separate from cats in societies where both are common, as the lower frequencies in the miaow often mimic elephant mating calls.
2. Despite their short lives, adult mayflies are obsessive groomers. They twitch and vibrate to rid their bodies of dust several thousand times an hour, an action which can sometimes be heard by bystanders as a low clicking noise.
3. In times of scarcity, lions will enter an unusual type of pseudo-hibernation in which they are lethargic and do not eat or excrete. This means that, in extreme cases, lions can go months without defecating. The first lion turd of the post-famine season is unusually pungent and is highly prized in traditional perfumery.
4. Guinea pigs are not true tailless animals. In fact they are born with a small vestigial tail which is shed at around three weeks old, typically being eaten by the mother guinea pig to restore vital nutrients after the rigours of pregnancy, birth and nursing.
5. The expression ‘the bee’s knees’ comes from the small pollen-collecting pads that bees have behind the knees on their four hind legs. These pads are so efficient at attracting small particles that the air filters on the international space station were designed along similar principles.
6. Deer are so fond of strawberries that Muntjacs have been known to chew through a wire fence in order to reach them. It is thought that the red pigment in strawberries acts on the brain of adult deer similarly to catnip on cats. However, juvenile deer are typically unaffected and scientists have not yet discovered why.
Behold this drooling, snoring cat!
All snuggly sat upon my lap.
This purring, petted bag of fur,
This connoisseur of hug and nap.
Her hoary form is far from svelte,
Her scruffy pelt is wearing thin.
Behold, such domesticity,
Her days of roaming free all done!
And would you call her, on first glance,
A veteran of chance and scrape
As, heedless of my epithets,
She slyly lets a fart escape?
Yet in her time she ruled the sea,
A prodigy of salt and storm!
Who knows how many men she drowned,
This fury bound in feline form?
They say she studied piracy
As by the sea, in kittenhood,
She saw a score of feline foes
Assuage their woes as pirates could;
Her mind was keen, her claws were good;
She thought she could defeat them all;
She sought the pirates in their dens
And fiercely then she yowled this call:
“Join me or die, ye flea-flecked cads!”
And soon she had (from those not dead)
A cat-boat with a cutthroat crew,
As through the realm the rumour spread:
“Beware the queen who rules the waves,
Enslaves the humans whom she meets
And paws them up at 5 a.m.
To summon them to bring her treats!”
And oh, what terrors she dispersed
To all who cursed her years afloat!
The scourge of scurvy sea-swept dogs
Whose epilogues in blood she wrote;
The scourge of sleepy piratekind
Who’d wake to find their treasure gone;
The scourge of undiscovered lands
Whose unspoilt sands she shat upon.
They say she once, when feeling bored,
Made war toward the Mouse-King’s halls,
And all victorious, she stole
His underlings for cannonballs -
And how the mouse-king loudly wailed
And quailed before her unsheathed claws
As from the cannon’s mouth his hordes
Were launched towards the tropopause!
And on an archipelago
Where South winds blow all summer-sweet,
She kept a troupe of eager Toms
Who with aplomb her joyous heat
Attended to; and as she lay
All sunlight-splayed and satisfied,
They rolled in catnip on the shore
And swore they’d serve her ‘til they died.
The end? The ship by Blackbeard sunk
As she lay drunk; the boat’s capsize;
Her fearsome crew all forced to scatter,
Pitter-patter counterwise.
Until, rainswept and woebegone,
She caused some consternation when,
Escaped from Blackbeard’s Oubliette,
She asked to get back in again.
So though for seas to soothe her soul
Her water-bowl must now suffice,
Who knows what recollections strut
Behind her shut and sleeping eyes?
Where seated on a silver throne
On pirate-flesh alone she dines
With blood-red wines, and in her dreams
Are quinqueremes and barquentines.
1. You rub the chicken with butter, garlic, thyme, rosemary and salt and put it in a hot oven for twenty minutes. You turn the oven down and cook the chicken until the juices run clear, adding some pre-boiled potatoes in the meantime. You take the chicken out of the oven and let it stand for twenty minutes, meanwhile turning up the oven to crisp the potatoes. You eat it.
2. The chicken helps peel the potatoes. You boil them, then put them in a hot oven to cook. You sit opposite the chicken at a low table, eating the potatoes with butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary. The chicken shits on its chair.
3. The chicken sits on the countertop, pecking the potatoes and fixing you with a steely eye until you give in. You take the chicken outside to look for worms, forgetting about the potatoes. They subsequently grow into vigorous potato plants, putting out greedy roots into the butter.
4. The chicken summons the ghosts of the potato people and the potatoes stand up and dance. Before you know it, they have you staked down with sharpened rosemary twigs. The chicken and potatoes cook you for forty minutes in a hot oven, then turn down the temperature and continue cooking until the juices run clear. They toast their newfound relationship with cups of butter and garlands of thyme. After letting you stand for some time, they serve you up. The chicken wanders off into the garden to eat worms, but the potatoes eat until their small round bellies are bulging.
5. You, the chicken and the potatoes accidentally get small and end up trapped in a great forest of rosemary. By laying a trail of buttered potatoes, you are able to attract an enormous worm which you ride to freedom. You celebrate your freedom by joining the worm in consuming a single, huge thyme leaf.
6. You, the chicken, the potato people, the herbs and the butter ghost go to a banquet hosted by the King of the Worms, where you eat strictly anonymous food that has never been invested with a personality. The butter ghost is held to have spoiled the occasion by sending back its main course on the grounds that it is too hot.
-8911.1 Those in familar places
–8911.11 In your home, but there are extra rooms
–8911.12 In some educational venue
—8911.121 In which you are late for an exam
—8911.122 In which you unaccountably appear to be missing clothes
–8911.13 Those in which you need to find a toilet, but cannot go when you find one
–8911.14 Those in which you are entrusted with some solemn responsibility
—8911.141 In which you mess this responsibility up
—8911.142 In which for some reason you appear to be evil
–8911.15 In your place of work, in which you are, unremarkably, doing work
—8911.151 Set inside a virtual-reality flat which you did not realise was hidden in your simulation code
-8911.2 Those in locations from song and story
–8911.21 Those that mix fictional characters with people who you know, and nobody involved thinks that this is odd
-8911.3 Those in entirely unfamiliar places
–8911.31 Dreams of vast snowfields, forgotten mountains and the edge of the world
–8911.32 Those that feature huge buildings built by architecture cut and paste, and there are great sunlit libraries on the upper floors and vast candlelit theatres below
–8911.33 Those that feature mysterious staircases up or down
-8911.4 Those that involve flying
–8911.31 Flying without any extra devices
—8911.311 Those where you can lift up your legs at the knee and fly over the autumn fields
–8911.32 Flying in aeroplanes
—8911.321 Those where large aircraft fly close to the ground without any seeming alarm, darting under bridges with consummate ease
-8911.5 Those of short duration
–8911.51 Tiny dreams that fit into tiny sleeps, barely noticeable save for a lingering sense of nonsense
-8911.6 Those that fold in on themselves
–8911.61 Dreams that end with a dream of waking up
–8911.62 Those dreams that involve a realisation that one may be dreaming, and a check thereof
—8911.621 Dreams that fail the dreaming test but are nevertheless still dreams
-8911.7 Those that have disappeared
–8911.71 Dreams which you know you could remember on waking, but can remember no longer
–8911.72 Dreams which leave you only with a vague waking memory itch
1. The cursed emeralds of La Spezia. The story of the cursed emeralds begins in 1830, with the return of teenaged Bostonian adventurer-poet Hiram Johnson from Italy. Hiram refused to give details of his adventures, let it be widely known that he had suffered some dreadful trauma, and subsequently released a series of increasingly fevered poems about emeralds. Although the actual details were obscured by florid language, this served only to stoke up interest in the hidden treasure and its mysterious curse. Before long, a stream of would-be adventurers were making the trip to Italy. One by one, they returned empty-handed, refusing to say what they had seen. This state of affairs lasted some seventy years, until one Theodora P. Blunderbuss, a writer, decided to make the pilgrimage herself. She followed the coded directions of the poems, which led swiftly to a small house by the seashore, inhabited by an old woman with curiously green eyes. One learning her mission, she gave an extravagant eye-roll and informed her that all the adventurers had been taken in by a series of poems in the ‘why can’t I get laid’ tradition, stemming from the occasion, seventy years distant, when she had turned down Hiram’s propositions and brained him with a frying pan. The emeralds were none other than her eyes, the vast and brazen force protecting them the pan, and the identity of the poem’s damp forbidden caves was pretty obvious when you think about it. Since then, she had run a profitable business selling green glass souvenirs to visiting Americans, and so had been unwilling to reveal the secret until retirement.
2. Feldmann’s Contrary Bezoar. Believed to have been discovered in the stomach of a goat with two heads, Feldmann’s Contrary Bezoar was a dull grey stone with two rumoured properties. First, when turned the right way up, it was said to have the power to cure cancer. Second, when turned upside-down, it was said to have the power to cause cancer. Unfortunately, the difference between the two sides was rather difficult to discern. In fact, the bezoar was distressingly spherical and nobody really felt like finding out what would happen if one turned it on its side. As a result, its supposed curative powers were rarely invoked and it languished in a box in someone’s shed for years after its initial discovery. These days it is rumoured to have been sold on to a group of scientists in the pay of certain scurrilous newspapers, for the purposes of headline generation.
3. The Star of the Southern Ocean. This large star sapphire was originally discovered in 1892 in Queensland and subsequently displayed in the Australian Museum in Sydney for some years. On the night of June 27th 1950, however, it was stolen by notorious jewel thief Gideon 'Fingers’ Blackthorne. The full details of his cunning plan have never been revealed, but we do know that he smuggled the jewel out of the building up his bottom whilst dressed as a member of the cleaning staff. Scarcely had he had time to admire his new possession when a massive police search was launched. Back went the gem, and on went the next disguise. Over the next few months Gideon masqueraded as, respectively, a nun with a sapphire up her bottom; a fortune teller with a sapphire up his bottom; a chef with a sapphire up his bottom; and a well-known opera singer with a sapphire up her bottom. Eventually the search was scaled down. By this time, however, Gideon had discovered that he quite liked having a sapphire up his bottom. He continued to store it there, on and off, for the rest of his life, disclosing its location only in a secret will distributed to his heirs shortly before death and marked 'read BEFORE cremation!!!’. The Star of the Southern Ocean was returned to its rightful owners, who were oddly loath to have it back. It has not yet been returned to public display. There are those who say the stone remains curiously warm, with a mild pungency that cannot quite be erased.
4. The Stone of Ultimate Power. It is a little-known fact that, some years ago, there existed a diamond of exquisite purity, save that it was seeded throughout with atoms of an element hitherto unknown in our paltry human dimension. Besides giving the Stone an eerie green glow, these atoms allowed it to align the vast energies of the Void of Space and Time and channel them into an easily controllable and near-infinite power source. Thus the Stone was possessed of great power for good or for evil. The stage was set for a giant, all-encompassing struggle for the future of mankind. Before this could take place, however, the Stone was purchased by a French lapidiarist, cut into multiple pieces, and set in a matching necklace and earrings. The setting was quite beautiful and commanded a record price at auction; nevertheless, it also completely erased any world-changing properties the gems had once possessed. The remnants of the Stone are believed lost following a bomb blast in WWII Paris, which is probably for the best.
Lumpy shadows, cats that have three eyes and all of them a different
colour, great grey stones half-seen through the rain, serpents who have
lost their hearts and will take any replacement, old woodlice, naked
squirrels with long white fingers, round pebbles that take a single
breath a day, orphaned songs, frostbitten swifts, things that sit in
hollow logs cracking sticks, blackbirds with one white wing, the spirits
of stagnant ponds, bottle imps, the lonely bees of the last light of
day, those who have forgotten everything other than carving clocks,
toads with a stone in their head, things that are raised from the mud,
lantern-bearers, lavender-weavers, ticking whisperers, cold and lonely
moles, evaporating ghosts, genial hosts who have taken off their masks,
holes that skitter over the faces of trees, the holders of keys, bitter
architects, lost horses from centuries past, wrong paths, the white hart
turned red, charcoal-singers, stag-headed bonebags, gentlewomen all of
sticks, counterwise-shades, those things that are inside-out and have no
wish to be, caterwaulers, veiled chalkmen.
1. Extragalactic Gastronomy. The study of food originating beyond the Milky Way.
2. Comparative Cunnilinguistics. The study of similarities and differences between oral sex techniques in different cultures.
3. History of Fart. The study of momentous releases of wind throughout time.
4. Non-Invasive Cardie-ology. The in-depth, but very polite and completely consensual, study of cardigans and the people who wear them.
5. Chemical Whengineering. The science of using chemistry to travel through time and/or determine which time you have ended up in.
6. Metametametaphysics. The study of the study of the study of the fundamental notions by which people understand the world. Metametametaphysicians spend a lot of time in research institutes, looking over people’s shoulders and making copious notes in pencil. Occasionally they get beaten up by irritated Metametaphysicians.
7. Feline String Theory. What is string? Where did it come from? Why is it jumping around like that? Is there a mouse on the end of it? Oh crap, did I just land on my butt and look silly? Quick, lick a paw until they forget about it. What is string? Wait, where did the string go? Why do I need to kick it like this? What is string?
8. Nanotheology. The study of really, really small gods.
9. Bayesian Hatistics. A discipline in which you work to update your hats in the light of new information that has become available, before wearing them on your posterior.
1. The Mascar-Pony. No matter the hour, there is one who listens out for the plaintive calls of those who find themselves in need of a creamy cooking cheese. Hark! What is that noise at the door? Could it be the knocking of a hollow hoof, and the subtle crinkle of a soft package being dropped onto the mat? It may be that we, too, have been touched by her mild and milky presence.
2. The Shit Shower Sheep. When misfortune strikes, pauses a little, then strikes again, possibly with a bit of extra striking on the side and some extra striking just for fun, only then can you be sure that the Shit Shower Sheep has passed over. Few ever set eyes on the Sheep, but the chunky pellets of ill-fortune he scatters behind him have a peculiar pungency that all who have encountered him will recognise for the rest of their lives.
3. The Anxiety Hamster. Furry, warm and nervous, the Anxiety Hamster sits on your shoulder and gently reminds you of that time you were accidentally rude to your next-door neighbour and got too flustered to say sorry and now they hate you and they’ve probably told everyone else they know about it.
4. The Category Cat. Every time you put something into the right place, the Category Cat peers over your shoulder and nods sagely. The Category cat is grey, short-haired and likes to be filed under ‘C’. If you meet it in person, you should be unfailingly polite and if possible provide it with a box that it can be placed in. In return, it may bless you with the power of Being In The Right Place At The Right Time.
5. The Tangle Two-Toed Sloth. As the soft light of day gloops over the horizon, the Sloth hangs motionless, its super-sensitive hearing alert for the little swears floating up from those poor souls who have just discovered the night’s tangles in their hair. A particularly juicy curse stands a good chance of summoning the Sloth itself. You should be wary of doing this, however; although the Sloth will clumsily attempt to get the tangle out with its claws, it usually ends up making the situation worse.
1. Have you ever been eaten by an elephant? It happened to me. That is, the elephant was actually a taxi and I was able to get out again at the other end of the journey, but in all other vital respects it was exactly the same. Anyway, that’s the start of the story. The second part of the story is that I left my hat in the taxi, which is a bit like part of me getting stuck in the elephant and requiring the attention of a vet.
2. Anyway, I called the vet, who due to a misunderstanding laid me out on the table and began a fevered but unsuccessful search for the ether. Caught up in the occasion, I suggested phoning it to see if it would ring. We tried this. Alas, we had a wrong number. Instead of finding the ether, we had accidentally called North Korea and arranged a custom missile strike for the next day. This was obviously a problem. For a start, I was completely unsure how to break it to my employers, whose premises we were on at the time.
3. When one is in trouble, I find it helpful to sit back and have a little something. Fortunately, there was a something takeaway just down the road. I ordered a thing and a whatnot for myself and a doodah for the vet, should she ever come back (I think I neglected to mention that she had made her excuses). Imagine my surprise when I found that the thing had a beetle cooked right through the centre. Well, no right-thinking person could stand for that. Missile strike or no, I needed to set the record straight.
4. If I may, I find it helps immeasurably in explaining the next part to take a brief excursion into numismatics - specifically, the history of the threepenny bit. Let us cast our minds back to the reign of good Queen Anne. Unfortunately I cast my mind back a little too far, unsettled as I was by the events of the day. I ended up with my body in the present day and my mind somewhere South of the Great Fire of London. Worse yet, my mind was stuck up a tree being stared at by hungry squirrels. Meanwhile, overjoyed at finding a vacant body, a family of beavers set up home in my navel.
5. I find that being wedged in time concentrates the liver marvellously, and right on cue, my liver took control of the situation. We agreed to split the difference, add the remainder and copy the rest, with the somewhat predictable result that all my constituent parts were hastily reunited. I believe the beavers may have been launched through time at a hitherto unprecedented velocity for a semiaquatic rodent. I hope that the folk of the far future will be grateful for this intervention, but you never can tell. Anyway, we ended up on Shit Creek. Interestingly, this is a real place, with its own fascinating ecosystem based on the shit cycle.
6. You may have noticed that I always have a paddle on me. Well, that time was no exception. You will appreciate that I am not at liberty to disclose the location of Shit Creek until the various papers that I have in preparation are published. Nonetheless, I hope you will believe me when I say that the outlet of the creek lies not more than thirty minute gentle stroll from a major centre of civilization. In defiance of all probability, I found myself within reach of home. All I needed was the ability to charter a modest charabanc or some such device.
7. Now, as it happened, a taxi was passing. Hailing it with my one remaining flipper, I was astonished to find that it was the very taxi I had left not twenty minutes earlier. And there, resplendent in inky felt on the back seat, was my hat! I was filled with that peculiar joy that comes from fate’s occasional acts of outrageous serendipity. For some reason, the taxi driver failed to share my effervscent joy, although she did pat me on the back a few times and perform the Heimlich manoeuvre. In any case, I found myself chewing down on a Happy Ending, so I shall leave it here too for you to have a bite. Enjoy!
1. Po from Teletubbies. I feel this choice would improve Prime Minister’s questions immeasurably. PMQs could start with a rousing round of ‘Eh-oh!’ and proceed thereafter as a game of peek-a-boo with the Shadow Cabinet (by that time likely consisting of Jeremy Corbyn plus fifteen-odd glove puppets). Political engagement among future generations would skyrocket.
2. A small round of camembert. The unity candidate, with a strong hope of patching up relations with France. Why pay a 150,000 pound salary when you could pay one pound twenty at Sainsbury’s for a Prime Minister who is not actively trying to trash the economy?
3. The giant pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini). If we are going to have someone who squirms out of tough decisions, let’s at least get an expert squirmer. Plus probably a lot of signing stuff is going to be needed in the next few years, which will be faster with eight arms. The giant octopus’s cthulhoid appearance may also strike terror into the hearts of Britain’s negotiating partners which, on balance, is probably better than derision.
4. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). Bear with me here. Machiavelli’s main qualification for the post is that he is dead. OK, there may be some minor diplomatic issues involved with going to Italy and digging him up. But on the plus side, we would have a Prime Minister with global name recognition who is nevertheless, at present, completely unable to lie, backstab, make incompetent power grabs or stir up popular prejudice for personal gain. And after 500-ish years dead, he’s probably not even smelly anymore.