Amnesty (International)

It's said that while the Cat's away, the mice they play. By all accounts, this saying has been confirmed by recent events. While your Cat has been getting on with the momentous issues of cat life (you know - staking and patrolling my territory, fending off intruders and pretenders to my throne, stalking rodents and birds, not to mention running impressive charm offensives with the fish merchants on Streonaeshalh quayside to earn some tasty morsels), it appears that some Tree politico has put his head above the parapet. Noddy the Zadger is a token Viking member of the Tree Faction, who – on account of his Nordic ethnicity and his devotion to Thor, Asgard and the Eddas – has earned favour with Dagwald Caedmeron – the Senior Sister of the Holy Order of St. Platitude and Judas Iscariot. Since the Tree Faction are pathologically determined to redefine their ideology and core support from traditional reactionaries to hip, cool and trendy Redistributionists, this elevation in status to Highly Favoured One has been consistent with their ill-intentioned strategy.

 

Consequently, Noddy the Zadger has been allowed to speak. Behind his guttural Nordic tones, the message has sounded forth that the Tree Administration (in partnership with the near-extinct Liberationist Faction who ostensibly support them in the seat of authority) should grant an amnesty to all those exotic individuals who have remained upon this sacred Northumbrian soil and outstayed their welcome. This would then encourage them to support the greatly hated Trees who have offered such succour.

 

Since the Kingdom of Northumbria is fast becoming a foreign country populated by people of strange customs, speech, diets and religious habits, it's becoming increasingly difficult for this Cat to understand the human world, as the aboriginal Northumbrians are becoming as rare as the Liberationists.

 

This Cat would like to respectfully suggest an alternative strategy for Caddy Boy and his trendy and progressive cronies: why not simply deport all the indigenous population? A few ships over the North Sea back to Jutland and Saxony should do it..

 

Cat's Stop Press

I'm sorry for the absence of posts lately, but I've been busy on my patrol duties, seeking whatever and whomever I may devour. However, I thought it might be useful to quickly inform you that Dagwald Caedmeron - the Arch-demiurge of the Tree/Liberationist Alliance Administration in the Northumbrian Witangemot - has added to his recent controversial legislation, which, if you'll remember, was to allow legitimate marriage between homeopaths. Despite the ensuing outrage and furore about the social acceptability of diluting liquids to the point of potency sufficient to produce severe burns (and, of course, whether it was in accordance with natural law), another development has come to light which has in typical fashion hastened an addendum to the newly-framed and deeply unpopular statute.

Marriage between human beings and inhabitants of another world is to be included in the legislation. One Redistributionist politico has already blazed the trail, and the offspring from such a union is expected in fifteen thousand years. It's rather a long time to wait to wet the baby's head, however..

Reigny Day

Today is a historically significant day, since it's the seven thousandth anniversary of the coronation of King Alhfrith to the coveted throne of Northumbria.

Naturally, the common people of this Realm are in a state of high excitement bordering on torpor,  exacerbated without doubt by the hysterical rantings of the soothsayers, whose references to His Majesticity are - in most cases - couched in sycophantic and breathlessly reverential tones. Thus a mood of extreme deference - tinged with nuanced tones of ennui and indifference - has gripped the man in the Northumbrian Street. I've been feasting on a celebratory mackerel, and I'm now ready for forty winks..

It's certainly true that the ancient monarch has changed the face of the Kingdom; when he succeeded his father those millennia ago, Northumbria was an independent realm, renowned for the stoical warrior spirit of its citizens. Raiders were repelled at every turn, and the infidels were sent back to their longships with a thick ear. Northumbria ruled the waves of the North Sea.

However, the centuries of the Alhfithian Era have signalled a substantial change in the cultural outlook of the Northumbrian psyche, and today, the bellicose spirit has been replaced by a bovine docility as legions of Vikings throng the streets, jabbering in their Nordic babble, clutching their Eddas and pronouncing Odin's woes on the diminishing numbers of Anglo-Saxons. We're now blessed with a kleptocratic demockery-cy comprising the best politicos that Holy Groats can buy, led by the Thief-In-Chief Dagwald Caedmeron, whose inspirational leadership is reminiscent of my friend Feaxede the Fox loose in a chicken run.

Most of these gradual changes can be attributed to the time when Edweird the Thief - the late Tree Supremo - led the Kingdom into the gaping jaws of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy nor Roman, and it doesn't resemble an empire to a rational cat). What has puzzled this moggy is why the Noble King was content to allow his kingdom to be degraded to the status of a mere satrapy.

Perhaps he simply has always had an aversion to power and was anxious to offload it at the first opportunity. He certainly needn't be afraid if it any more. He's playing with the gift wrapping instead..