Honour Off

As we stride (or, in my case, prowl) confidently into another year, your Cat would very much like to take the opportunity to wish you all a very happy New Year in these turbulent Dark Age times. May mice ever be within your reach and fish be in your bowl!

The passing of an old year and the entrance of a new one affords Dagwald Caedmeron - the Archpalooka and Dancing Bear of the Tree/Liberationist Alliance Administration - a golden opportunity to grant awards to the more deserving members of this lovely Northumbrian realm. Each new year is invariably accompanied by the naive and childlike excitement of the soothsayers, who anxiously and endlessly speculate as to who's likely to be next to receive the highest honours that Northumbria can award its notable subjects. Without exception the resulting list of prizewinners ends up taking them by surprise.

I've just heard through my feline contact Lareow - the Rodentfinder General of Caedmeron's household - that one recipient of such an award as the Order of the Ancient Spheres is none other than Caddy Boy's personal foot groom. This particular lackey certainly deserves the honour - along with another servant whose responsibility is to tie the laces of the Great Leader's footwear (his wife - in open defiance of the terms of her marriage contract - has steadfastly refused to perform such a task for some unknown reason).

On careful consideration of this unusual award, this Cat has reached the conclusion that this honour is justifiably merited; only a minuscule percentage of the Northumbrian population would possess sufficient reserves of courage to remove the potentate's footwear without recoiling in horror, let alone scraping the hardened skin from the Great Man's heels and removing the dark and sinister deposits from beneath his toenails. Moreover, it must demand extraordinary powers of endurance to politely ask the despot where he's planning to go on his holidays, and whether or not he requires something special for the weekend.

Without doubt it's an infinitely more honourable occupation that the one his master is engaged in...