The Cat's Toxic Guide To Never-never-land

I'm so sorry not to have blogged for several days, but I've been very ill. For several days now, I've been sleeping practically all of the hours of the day, and I know that my master Caedmon has been very worried about me, as for some time I haven't even responded to plates of fresh Streonaeshalch cod or haddock. And that - to say the least - is unusual.

Needless to say, I'm feeling much better now, and to my master's relief I'm able to eat and continue hunting mice, and patrolling my patch of turf.

I think I know the cause of my illness; late last week I sauntered into the Redistributionist Faction Headquarters, in search of scraps of food (and of course, useful titbits of information). As it happened, a party was in full swing, and a sizeable number of Redistributionist Witangemot members were celebrating something with Edweird The Milliner - the Great And Glorious Leader and Commander-In-Chief. There were also large numbers of window-lickers present, hanging onto every sacred word that dripped from the chops of their revered Leader - and those of Edweird The Spheres, the pathologically mendacious member of the Inner Sanctum of the Faction. Beeby See and her pustule-faced friend Guardy-Ann were also working the room, gracing the attendees with their customary sanctimony and sycophancy.

I have no idea what the purpose of their festivities was - but I expect that they were celebrating yet another illusory triumph on the part of their Glorious Supreme Autocrat. What I do know is that they were feasting on very expensive fare, and drinking the finest wines from the vineyards of Charlemagne. No pie, bread and ale for these worthies, no sir. These representatives of the common Northumbrian peasant were feeding off the fat of the land.

I - being a harmless white cat - managed to charm my way among the assembled guests, and for my troubles was fed - among other things - finest shrimps and foie gras; it was lovely to taste such exotic delights, although I'll admit that it troubled me that this was all at the taxpayers' expense. What I believe knocked me out of action for these few days was a mysterious scrap that appeared on my plate. It tasted rather odd. I suspect that it was a deliberately-planted Magic Mushroom.

Why do I believe this? - mainly because during my subsequent illness, I had the most bizarre dreams, which seemed to endure for an eternity. In these reveries I was in a land of perpetual sunshine, sweetness and light, where groats grew on trees which never ceased to fruit. The harvests of tree-groats were therefore abundant and continuous, and legions of diversity co-ordinators, homeopathic advisors, fish quota accountants, cat license administrators, climate change policy officers, Municipal dog-log informants and other hangers-on all joyously went about their sacred duties, drawing off the necessary groats from the money trees to their hearts' content. The common peasants, farmers, artisans, bakers, butchers and labourers were nowhere to be seen. They evidently didn't enter the picture..

I'll have to admit that those dreams were delightful while they lasted. But I knew that the effect of the toxins I'd ingested were staring to wear off, when the words which hypnotically passed through the lips of the various Redistributionists in my dream took on solid form, and turned into brown, colorectal statements...

I wish those dreams had told me things I didn't already know...