Game On

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

- I've been up to London to look at the Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?

- I frightened a little mouse under her chair.

(Nursery rhyme)

The arrival of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) Games to the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria must surely be the greatest historical event since the last one - whatever that was. The other day saw the formal opening of the Games, where the Sacred Flame (all hail) was brought with great pomp and ceremony to the Great Octopus Brazier, which was duly lit after a span of several years to solemnly signify the beginning of the Feast. It was a truly pseudo-religious experience. Your Cat went along to Yorvik to witness the spectacle.

In the Great Amphitheatre (originally built by the ancient Romans), crowds of men, women and children - attired in the obligatory Addy Dust attire, with fists wrapped devotedly around MuckRodents pies, waited for the spectacle to unfold.

What followed was what could best be described as a circus without animals, which presented a spectacular series of tableaux whose primary purpose was to educate the knuckle-dragging hordes of humanity in the finer (and subnormally simplified) points of Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian culture and history. It was an unashamed celebration of Redistributionism, which in typical fashion disembowelled the true historical narrative, and from the remaining entrails pieced together a selective pastiche or parody of Anglo-Saxon history in line with the grossly deformed (and ever-so-slightly skewed) Redistributionist meta-narrative. Hooray for reinvented history! The scene migrated from the green and pleasant fields of pristine Northumbria in its bucolic splendour to the building of workshops and forges - and the inevitable smoke. The initiators of these developments were booed and hissed by the crowd as they paraded themselves in a grotesque dance. Following this bizarre presentation was a series of pictorial representations commemorating the establishment of the sacred Northumbrian Herbal Service - a monolithic triumph that the Redistributionists doggedly claim to be their finest achievement. There was the sight of Good King Alhfrith playing in a sketch alongside a sleb actor and comedy hero known and loved by the Unwashed as "Guthlac the Bone - licensed to skew". There were modern caterwauling minstrels and an ancient musician in advanced state of decomposition known affectionately as Pull Muck Heart Knee, whose performance suggested a glorious future behind him.

The King - like all of his entourage and the other visiting monarchs, world emperors and despots - looked distinctly bored. And so was I. So I decided to play a game of my own of cat-and-mouse with the Monarch's shoe thongs, and in so doing I untied them - and deposited a hairball before his feet. He didn't notice, and I had a great time...