Not half!

Originally published 5 January 2010

The first comment I ever got for this strip was from someone questioning my use of the phrase 'don't half', a common British usage. "You don't half have some interesting dreams" translates as "You have some very interesting dreams" - or to put it another way, your dreams are not just 50% interesting, they're 100% interesting.

From Webster's:

2 Brit, informal — used to emphasize a statement or description
▪ She doesn't half swear! [=she swears a lot]
▪ It's not half cold today! [=it is very cold today]
▪ “Is it cold out?” “Not half!” [=yes, it is very cold]

The 3am pummel

Dedicated to Gizmo, the reason for more sleepless nights than I care to mention. He'll wait till Linda and I are both asleep before launching himself onto the bed. Then he'll work his way between us, chirruping all the while. Then he'll start pummelling, with his claws out. It's at this point that I have to wrestle him off us, and he retreats to the foot of the bed. A quarter of an hour later he starts moving up the bed and the cycle begins again. Repeat until dawn.

The trumpet in the fourth frame was never scripted but the idea occurred to me as I was drawing the strip, and it was too good to ignore.

Sleep working

I've never seen cats bring their work with them to the realm of dreams, but I can certainly vouch for it happening in humans.

Case No. 1, my Dad. He used to be a driving instructor, spending most of his time in the passenger seat trying to teach hill starts to learner drivers of assorted abilities. I can remember him falling asleep in his armchair one Sunday afternoon. Nothing unusual there, you may think. It was when he yelled "No! No! No!" and then stabbed with his foot at a phantom dual-controlled brake pedal, waking himself up, that we realised something was wrong.

Similarly, I once had an old girlfriend, who was a schoolteacher, give me a history lecture on Canadian/US diplomacy and warfare in the 19th century in her sleep. And my wife, Linda, frequently reverts back to when she was a nurse in the Burns Unit at Covenant, Lubbock, when she's asleep, reeling off lists of painkillers and drug schedules for the patients under her care.

Linda tells me I chuckle in my sleep. Maybe I'm dreaming up ideas for Smith. I wish I could remember them afterwards.

Dreams

If you've ever watched your cat twitch her way through a particularly stimulating bit of REM sleep, have you ever wondered what they're dreaming of? Smith certainly has.