Ismism

I'm getting fed up with the professionally offended.

Lets get one thing straight. I'm not complaining about Political Correctness - that's just the Politically Correct term for what used to be called politeness, as used by people who think being polite is an assault on their own personal liberty.

I'm talking about its opposite - people who get offended because they think they can get advantage out of it. Or even worse, people who get offended on behalf of other people, but don't seem to know why and just follow some sort of mindless herd instinct. Twitter thrives on these people. I'm forever deleting the latest 'outrage' I'm being expected to condemn from my Facebook feed. Invariably the person who is complaining about a silly xenophobic joke on Top Gear is the same person who forwards nonsense about immigrants swamping the UK.

Sexism, Racism and Homophobia are real important issues. Beakism isn't. But if we persuade enough stupid people that it is we can make it happen.

Smith just has a paper cup stuck to his face. He's not a beakist. Neither is he a Jimmy Duante fan. He'd just like to be able to get the cup off his face.

If you or anyone you know has been affected by the issues brought up in this cartoon please don't bother me with them.

Reverse

Once Cholmondeley had got his face stuck in a paper cup, this was inevitably what he’d try to do next, walk backwards in the vain hope he’d be able to escape the cup by reversing away from it. It would take quite a while before it occurred to him that he could remove it by knocking it with one of his paws.

Cup

This was a Cholmondeley trait. He loved coffee – or rather, he liked licking out what was left inside discarded coffee cups. I’d quite often return to a half drunk cup of coffee to find a grey face embedded in the middle of it. If it was a paper cup from Costa’s or Mr Bean, he’d frequently end up wearing it.

Millie Week 90; Mon 25 - Sat 30 May 1992

The two boys who gatecrash in strip No 5 become important later on...

Spider art

He’s just playing with your mind, Jones.

Spiders suck

And now the tables start to turn. Our nameless Money Spider (let’s call him Goodwin) realises that Jones has an irrational fear and starts playing it up for all he’s worth…

Big web

Revisiting another theme planted earlier in the year, Jones’ fear of spiders. If you look back at the photos of The Cat Who Stares at Stuff, you’ll see he’s sitting next to an outbuilding, which contains garden sheds for the downstairs flats and a communal bin area. There’s a walkway between that and the main building, and that where the spiders like to spin their webs overnight. You’d think they’d learn not to do it by now, as the first thing that happens every morning is someone taking their trash out and walking straight through the middle of it.

Millie Week 89; Mon 18 - Sat 23 May 1992

In Britain, 18 is the magic age at which it is legal to buy drink in licensed premises. Of course, no teenager takes any notice of that. I've never understood the need to prevent children from drinking alcohol anyway - it strikes me as one of those self defeating prohibitions. I think the best way to keep kids away from alcohol is to do what my parents did to me - invite me to take a sip of warm British bitter at the age of seven. Words cannot describe how revolting the taste of Watneys Red Barrel is to a palate more accustomed to R Whites Lemonade or Orange Quosh. Bleeeee! That sip was enough to inoculate me from even considering drinking until I was about 20.

Dapple

We’re now starting to see the influence of Billy and Annabelle on the strip. The last few months were written while Smudge and Gizmo were declining and I’ve noticed a recurring motif of entrapment and release creep into the strip (there’s one more example to come, folks). Now things are going to start to become more slapstick, as the effect of living with two adolescent kittens with boundless energy and curiosity starts to filter into the strip.

This is a Billy trait. The cats have a favourite toy, a flexible plastic stick with a bit of fluff on the end – there used to be a furry snake thing attached to it but that got torn off, and now only a stump of fluff remains. If I wave it in the air, Billy will chase the shadow it casts on the ground. Bella, on the other hand, will wait till Billy’s exhausted himself, and then reach up and fell the fluff pole with a single swipe of her paw.

...and rest.

Ssshhhh... this doesn't happen often. Let's enjoy it while it lasts...

Fulcrum

We have one of those bent wood coat stands in our hallway – I bought it specifically because it looked like the one in the TARDIS. To be fair to the cats, I’m usually the one that knocks it over with a side swipe of a heavily laden backpack when coming in through the front door. This coat stand seems to be particularly brittle.

The fitting of boxes

More cat observation, and this time I have the right cat doing it. Cholmondeley was a great one for sitting in boxes, whether they were big enough for him or not. I’ve seen him with both forelegs in a cereal packet, trying to work out how to fit his back legs in.

Of course, some cats have become incredibly famous for their box gymnastics...

Millie Week 87: Mon 11 - Sat 16 May 1992

 

Millie's about to enter its imperial phase here, where for the next six months it can do no wrong. A storyline begins here that flows effortlessly for the next three months until it is interrupted in late July by the summer holidays.

Torpedo Jones

Sunday attempted to do this a few times, but as the room she was launching herself into was carpeted, she didn’t have much success.

Torpedo Jones is one of those names that just sounds right.

Billy and Annabelle - there's a big world out there...

I love this photo of Bella. She's caught by the rays of the setting sun, absolutely transfixed by the birds fluttering on and off the ledge above the window of my study.

What you can't see in that photo is how precariously she is perched on top of a perspex display cabinet.

The cats have been showing a lot of interest in the outdoors lately, so we've opened up the balcony to them. When we first opened the door both cats spent a good half hour not crossing the threshold, but simply sniffing the air. Then they sniffed the doorstep for another half hour. Then they both sat on the doorstep and planned their next move. That was day one.

Day two, and Billy has ventured about a foot onto the balcony. Guess what, he's spotted a pigeon in the tree opposite. What this photo doesn't show is the extreme amount of concentration he's putting into watching the pigeon. His ears are literally quivering with excitement at this moment. Then he spotted his first seagull and retreated back indoors again.

Bella was less nervous, and gave the balcony a good explore. Last years plant pots were of especial interest.

The undersofa world of Jones

This was a favourite pastime of Sunday, my first cat. She worked out that by hanging onto the fabric underneath the sofa with her claws she could propel herself around while lying on her back. Eventually she had the fabric underneath the sofa so ragged that she could wriggle into the undersides of the sofa and play with all the coins that had got lost down the back of the cushions.

A quiet day in Hastings

May Day in Hastings is never the quietest of days. There are two separate events happening simultaneously, The May Day Bike Run, and the Jack-in-the-Green festival. And just to add to the chaos, a old London Routemaster Bus was cruising around the town as well, searching for places to park so that the theatre group I'm part of could publicise its upcoming production of Summer Holiday. Here's the bus, about to arrive at Harold Place in the centre of the 'new town'.

It's estimated that 15,000 bikes descend on Hastings during the May Bank Holiday. Bear in mind that's a Police estimate, so if it works the same way that demo marches do, we can safely double that figure. An endless stream of bikes of all kinds, from candy coloured crotch rockets to lovingly cared for vintage Triumphs, from Honda spaceships on two wheels to outlandish custom trikes, from enormous Harleys to tiny Vespas, comes down the A21 and ends up trying to park along a couple of miles of seafront. Here's what it looked like in the morning, before all the sea mist had had a chance to burn off. As you can see, even then, the only place left to park was down the middle of the road.

By midday the pavements were starting to fill up as well.

And then the fishing beach started to fill up.

It was time to move up to the top of the hill in search of some peace. No such luck. This is where the Jack-in-the-Green festival is taking place. Here's a small section of the crowd on top of the West Hill. The Old town nestles in the valley and more people can be seen on top of the East Hill, as can the forlorn sign 'No Link Road', vainly hoping that by pretending it doesn't exist it can prevent the progress of the the pointless bypass currently being built between Bexhill and Hastings.

Here's Jack in the Green and his court. He's not the big green bloke to the right, he's actually the Christmas tree wearing a crown to the left. He's soon to be escorted to the main stage by the Bogies surrounding him, where he will be ritually slain and the spirit of Summer will be released for another year. Or something like that.

 And that's what this cartoon from last year was all about.

Schwif

I’ve had this happen before, opening my curtains first thing in the morning.

Millie Week 87: Mon 4 - Sat 9 May 1992

More memories of school. I very rarely got put in detention - if I ever did it would have been for boring stuff like handing in homework late. The nuclear option for the worst miscreants was the Saturday detention which involved coming to school for three hours on Saturday mornings. Not too onerous, but for one thing - you had to go to school in full uniform - and everyone in town knew that wearing uniform on a Saturday could only mean one thing...

The book punishment was one I remembered from primary school. An encycopedia would be put on each outstretched hand, and you had to keep them there without dropping the books for two minutes. Try it on your five year old tonight, a fun time is guaranteed for all.

I've talked about chalk throwing in the past. We had a French teacher who was the best at it - the chalk embedded back wall of his hut was an effective deterrent to any misbehaviour in class. Teachers with less finesse threw board rubbers - luckily they tended not to have any aim at all.

Go.

Gizmo was the exact opposite of this; he loved an audience. The litter box is in the bathroom, next to the toilet for humans. Being the kind of cat that follows you around the house, he would follow you into the bathroom, and one you had plonked your self on the toilet, he’d sit in his litter box and join in. Then, like all male cats tend to, he’d scrape the litter over his doings, and then continue to scrape the tiled floor, the walls, the toilet roll, and anything else he could find in the room.

Schrödinger

 This is of course, similar to the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, but nowhere near as cruel.

At last, I actually have a photo of the real Cat Who Stares at Stuff. The stuff he is staring at today is me, taking a photo of him. However, he’s in his favourite place, where he can gaze at everything that happens in the balconies above him. The laundry on the second floor is his favourite.