Plain and Simple

As I was musing over the parlous state of human political affairs in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, I was visited by an extraneous thought which in consequence has propelled me into a zealous campaign mode. Beware of a Cat on a mission!

During one of my mouse-chewing reveries, it occurred to me that all of the three principal political factions in the Kingdom have the greatest majority of characteristics in common. 

For a start, they're all equally committed to plundering the long-suffering Northumbrian yeoman, tradesman, craftsman and artisan for every Holy Groat that they can extract - at the pain of death, dungeon or dog biscuit. They're also single-mindedly devoted to the appropriation of such funds for their own aggrandisement, as well as to bolster their own scanty fortunes. Moreover, it's abundantly evident that they share a healthy contempt for the poor unfortunates whom they pretend to represent in the chamber of the Witangemot talking parlour where their pontificating and posturing can be witnessed. Furthermore, they all - to the last one - favour the uninhibited growth of the Northumbrian State so that it ultimately dictates the last minutiae of the average common-or-garden Northumbrian's brief span of years in this vale of tears.

With all of this considered - and bearing in mind that each of the main factions has its own distinctive name, tradition and colour (the Trees are symbolised in blue, although their symbol is a green arboreal device; the Redistributionists use red to symbolise the danger they represent, and the Liberationists are a sickly yellow to depict their gritty and courageous moral fibre) - it occurred to me that they're all essentially identical. Perhaps the Trees may claim to (allegedly) save the hard-earned tax revenues while the Redistributionists purportedly spend it like water, but, all of these cosmetic differences aside, they could all be repackaged as one solitary State faction. It all makes it so much easier for the wealthy Northumbrian establishment to manipulate and manage.

So your Cat is campaigning for Plain Packaging for the main factions. This will then discourage the children of the Realm from becoming enmeshed with sordid and soul-destroying political habits. Their tender minds must not be depraved any longer with ideas of making the Kingdom a better place in the name of whichever colour they decide to fly.

This Cat is proposing a uniform brown colour for all of them - the shade should match the colonic outpourings of a dog's diarrhoea. That'll put the little blighters off...

Passing Clouds

The soothsayers have all been in a state of great excitement for several days now. This highly irregular occurrence owes to the fact that the weather has created a gentle southerly breeze, which, as well as introducing milder temperatures to the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, has also blessed the land with a shroud of miasma, bringing to the landscape a foggy film of North African dust, which has delighted all the housewives of the Realm whose principal hobby is cleaning. The gardeners are also very pleased, as they are now able to admire their assorted spring blooms in a uniform hue of beige.

This unusual cloud has enveloped the entire land, introducing fresh aromas of rotting vegetation, decomposing fish, dog waste, canine breath and fermented beansprouts.

The speculations of the soothsayers all seem to attribute blame for this to polluted air from the direction of the Holy Roman Empire (which can't legitimately claim to be holy, Roman or an empire). This explanation would seem to carry some reasonable weight; however, this Cat can't help but wonder if the origin of it is somewhat closer to home - especially since it also seems to be proceeding from the general direction of the politicos. My master Caedmon has helpfully suggested that these smells are a manifestation of the odours of inverse sanctity. I think he's right...

Hoo'd Believe It?

Since my last posting I've gained the acquaintance of a new associate in the animal kingdom - or, to be more precise, in the avian realm.

I met Doctor Hoo a few nights ago while I was conducting my nocturnal patrol of my territory. His loud cry (from which I suppose his name derives) revealed that it was an owl: a rival hunter of small rodent creatures, similar to those of my own dietary preference and an educated and worldly-wise bird to boot.

Although cats and owls don't normally associate (except perhaps on rare occasions in small pea-green boats), I struck up a conversation with him, and after a short time I discovered that we actually have a great deal in common, not only being like-minded in the hunting stakes, but also taking a keen interest in the activities of the wiser human world.

Indeed, my new friend also told me that he'd recently heard from the soothsayers (whom he'd eavesdropped from various eves) that a Major Disaster and Catastrophe was going to befall the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria. Famines, wars, floods pestilences, plagues, locusts, dog breath, deep darkness, frozen wastelands, frogs, boils, bongoes and biscuit were the prognosis with which they were soothing their eager-eared audiences. Woe, thrice woe and rhubarb. I immediately reached the conclusion that this new piece of apocalyptic had all the old familiar hallmarks of the Grand Druid Moonbat - the Grand High Wizard of the Holy Mother Earth Cult and his legions of well-paid alchemist acolytes.

It would appear that Doctor Hoo was inclined to accept such prognostications at face value, so I assured him that I'd heard all of this before. I've heard prophecies concerning the Ten Plagues of Egypt and rivers of blood so many times before: if I had a fish for every one I've heard, I'd never need a dinner again. Ever.

I told Hoo not to worry; the antidote to such tales was close at hand. All that the human population have to do is to eat fifteen different types of vegetable every day, and all would be well. It's worked before...

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...

Caddie’s Caledonian Cri De Coeur

News has reached this Cat from the sacred auguries of the soothsayers that Dagwald Caedmeron – the Archangel Cake-In-Chief of the Tree/Liberationist Alliance Administration – has been on a visit to the wild and inhospitable uplands of the Caledonians.

Surprisingly, the reason of his visit hasn't merely been for recreation, rhubarb and uisge beatha; nor, it must be said, has it been to survey the rugged crags and cliffs, banks and braes in the howling rain and driving wind. This visit has been of Momentous Importance – well, at least to himself and his sycophantic window-licking acolytes. He's gone to those barbaric realms to appeal to them in the light of the forthcoming Wee Referendum Votie, the results of which will determine whether or not the Caledonians remain in the existing loose affiliation to the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria.

The High Chieftain of the Caledonians – Angus McTrout – has never concealed his desire to pull away his people from the benign Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence, and has tirelessly campaigned among his compatriots to persuade them of the beauty and the utter necessity of separation from the wicked Sassenachs (for whom he has the highest regard and the deepest contempt).

In spite of this posturing, many Caledonians are either ambivalent or unconvinced by the rhetoric, having realised that such a separation would spell out ruin rather than romance, since the average Northumbrian taxpayer has unwittingly helped to maintain the Caledonian Kingdom in magic mushrooms, Holy Groats, oats, boats, coats, goats and stoats. How possibly could they support themselves if the goodwill of Northumbria is withdrawn?

In view of this, Caddy Boy has ventured over the border to address the Caledonians and appeal to those of their number who are of two minds.

This Cat sincerely wishes him well, but somehow suspects that the majority of the indigenous populace won't understand a word he says – unless he affects an appropriate accent. Perhaps the uisge beatha will help; after a few bottles of it, his speech should be slurred enough to be discernible…

On The Run

I was quite intrigued to hear this morning from the soothsayers that a crocodile has been reported as having been seen loose within the Kingdom of Wessex.

For the benefit of those who are unaccustomed to the intricacies of life on these glorious islands, I must point out that crocodiles are not indigenous to the Northumbrian, Mercian or Wessex lands; indeed their own native habitat is to be found in the warm currents and sultry banks of the river Nile, along with other similarly humid regions where, in similar fashion to a Trade Guild chieftain, they indolently lounge in the sweltering heat, cheerfully tearing off the leg of a hapless passer-by for a tasty snack.

Naturally such a sighting has been greeted by a mixture of incredulity and panic by the Anglo-Saxon public; some have automatically assumed that such stories are apocryphal fancies designed to keep the gullible and malleable public in a state of fear, dread and biscuit. Others are genuinely afraid lest they should return home to their hovels to discover the creature making itself comfortable while digesting their family members.

Your Cat is quite sure that such accounts are indeed bona fide; the fact that the Slimy Yeoman has recently been deselected by his Tree Faction constituency is surely not inconsequential. After all, it's not natural to see crocodiles in trees, is it?