Edweird the Weird?

On this typical Northumbrian Spring day, the Soothsayers are as ever busily reporting on the Momentous Things of life which have a bearing on the existence of the everyday common-and-garden Northumbrians.

Today we've been greeted by the message that a survey has been conducted amongst the denizens of this beautiful Realm concerning their opinion of the Great Czar-In-Waiting, the smart-talking, slow-walking, slobbering Redistributionist Faction supremo, Edweird the Milliner. In eagerly expectant anticipation and biscuit, the Northumbrian populace has been anxiously awaiting this vital piece of information, and their collective patience has been more than adequately rewarded. (Contrary to the misleading clues furnished by his family name, Eddie Boy's chosen station in life is not in fact a maker of high quality hats, helmets and headgear; his chosen profession - like that of his Tree and Liberationist peers - is aristocrat. Having seized the Redistributionist Crown from his more personable and communicative, banana-waving brother Dagwald, Eddie has been anxious to stamp his unmemorable mark on the Faction, and to assertively lead his merry band to the Promised Land of Fairydust and Fairy Shares of Poverty For All.) Good luck with that.

The Soothsayers however are reporting that the average Northumbrian man and woman in the street thinks that Eddy is rather weird, which may have some bearing on his electability when the Great Northumbrian Witangemot Selection takes place next year.

Your average Cat thinks differently, however. Having observed Eddy from afar, and listened with bated breath to the utterances from his overactive salivary glands and chops (both the news and the weather), I can state that Edweird the Milliner is not in any way bizarre, strange, idiosyncratic or even slightly odd. It's perfectly normal for a Redistributionist to dance around fairy rings of fly agaric mushrooms at night. After all, they all do it, don't they...?

De-bloat Groat Float

Your Cat would like to apologise for a lack of communication over this last few weeks; this is chiefly attributable to a catatonic (and why not dogatonic?) state of disillusionment on my part with the turgid details of human history, narrative and biscuit. Some details have been too horrible, tedious, repetitive or downright boring to comment on...

However, this feline has now been suitably re-illusioned, and with a new spring in my step, a new Spring in the air (not to mention a dodecatonic song in my heart), I'm now ready to take on the world and enthuse about new developments in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria.

And what better to rejoice about than the recent announcement from Oswine, the Grand Vizier and Keeper of the King's Treasury? The Momentous Announcement is that the Anglo-Saxon Groat - the staple of the Northumbrian economic system for untold millennia  - is going to be redesigned! Hooray for Oswine - and a welcome shaft of wit to cheer the heavily-laden masses! Such cheer and anticipation in boundless abandon and a bun dance.

When I shared the news - disseminated by the soothsayers in a fit of existential angst, boredom and crabcakes - with my vulpine friend Feaxede, he was positively overjoyed. As an instinctively progressive Redistributionist (despite abandoning his mother ship the Redistributionist Faction some time ago), Feaxede was excited that some measure of Change was at last coming to the Kingdom. However, apart from the fact that I have a fundamentally different ideological outlook to my foxy friend, I really can't say that I share his enthusiasm for this new development. Especially when I later discovered that the new coin of the Realm will be modelled on the diminutive Anglo-Saxon farthing, and will be adorned on one side with the jowls of Holy Empress Jose Borracho, the Mint Imperial of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an Empire). I also understand that special glass lenses will be needed in order to identify it...