Talk To Rex

During our improv fun yesterday, we were covering the topic of status and I mentioned that it’s always worth observing cats, which generally project a high status. (Not my idea, but something that the great Keith Johnstone suggests in Impro.)

So when I saw a cat across the road this morning I decided I would play high status to it. I met its gaze unflinchingly and stood in the manner of one who is better than a cat.

The cat sniffed and turned its head away from me. Before I knew it, by implying that I was not even worthy of consideration the cat had out-statused me in a flash. Ye gods, thought I, cats are even better at this game than Andrew Ormerod.

As I gathered my thoughts, I realised that the cat had now emerged from behind a nearby car and was once again staring at me. Caught off my guard, my status was lowered even further. As I stared back, my rival did the looking away trick again, adding an imperious gaze into the sky to cement its evident opinion of my worthlessness.

But then it made a fatal error: it looked back at me. Seeing that I was still staring at it, it quickly looked away again, and the contest was mine.

The cat slunk away, desperately trying to cling to its dignity, but losing all status by occasionally glancing back to see if I was still watching it. Which indeed I was.

Is it petty to feel so pleased with myself for having proved my worth against a neighbouring tabby?

I just got an email from English National Opera offering me a free Mozart ringtone.

I am enraged.

God forbid that we should forget to write something here about England winning the Ashes. After all, there may well be people who hadn’t even realised and, but for all the English blogs on the internet, would still be ignorant about it now.

I am being cautiously happy about the whole thing; certainly it feels like pay-back time for when I lost house cricket at school eleven years ago, though strictly speaking that was not against the Australians.

I just can’t help feeling that the Ashes are, and always have been, a bit of an insult. An urn containing the bails which were burnt in 1882 to signify “the death of English cricket” – well, hang on, I’m not sure we want those, do we? Why can’t we burn our own bails to represent the misplaced confidence of those surly Antipodeans? That’d put ’em in their place. It would also be a more lasting gesture for when the Aussies win the Ashes back next time round.

I think I’d feel happier if Ian Botham had been playing yesterday. Perhaps they think he’s a bit past it, I don’t know, but I remember him fondly from A Question of Sport and he was always very good at the brilliant “What happens next?” round. That surely would have put him in a good position to anticipate the moves of the Australians.

Just now I was nearly run down by a tall woman on a bike.

The way she almost glided into me was oddly graceful; she didn’t swerve, just swept past me as I dived out of the way, calm and straight as if she hadn’t seen me. She had a very long neck.

I imagine it was similar to how it would feel to be almost trampled by a giraffe.

The slightly oddly-named Life Begins At 30 blog (everyone knows that after 29 you are 21 again) has a great post about why you should eat locally produced food.

However it’s a disturbing post because of a couple of the comments further down. One person says:

Oh and another thing – I hate to be the one to tell you this, but life actually begins at 0. If you’re a Republican I guess you’d say life begins at -.75, but you wouldn’t say it to me because I’d karate chop you in the neck for voting for a retarded monkey twice in a row.

which is unnecessary, but at least the view of some people. Then someone replies:

jeez, some of you wacky liberals can’t even take a nice, simple post about the pleasures of fresh food without taking a pointless partisan swipe. Pathetic.

which is necessary, and I guess the view of some people. But liberals? I find it amazing, sometimes, that the word ‘liberal’ has become a mark of derision, of disrespect, in modern America. Perhaps I just don’t understand human nature very well. Perhaps I just don’t understand Americans very well.

Today it all got decidedly surreal.

Halfway through the episode a sweaty out-of-breath Harold burst in to tell everyone that big yellow bulldozers had arrived to knock down their houses. And so they had.

In tomorrow’s episode I understand that the residents of Ramsey Street are prevented from making any formal complaints when the earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

It was such a lovely idea to end Neighbours today with Paul falling off a cliff.

Unfortunately it was abysmally filmed. What we got was: Paul running into shot from a low angle, followed by him faltering then a different shot of a sheer drop. Then we got a close-up of Paul’s face with the word ‘whoops…’ dubbed onto the soundtrack, and another shot of the sheer drop with a fast zoom in to suggest falling.

This kind of effect I produced equally well myself as a 15-year-old with a camcorder.

How is it that Neighbours does brilliant explosions and car crashes, but can’t even show a man falling off a cliff?

JohnF has a go at crap comedy cliches.

Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s ease up on the dumb blonde jokes, because they just don’t understand them.

Well, I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s had a difficult week, what with the Bush administration’s lazy response to Hurricane Katrina tempting me at times to wonder whether he’s really such a capable President after all. So it is greatly reassuring to see all the photographs of him shaking hands with people in New Orleans – some black people, even! – proving that he does care about them after all.

Better still, he has asked his Daddy, popular former President George Bush Senior, to lead a relief fund in his own name (not sure who this Clinton character he’s doing it with is, though). So the Bush family are well and truly on the case, and let’s hear no more of this childish sniping that it took the President a long time to respond to the crisis. He is a busy man and probably had an important game of golf to finish.

I suppose it’s obvious why George W. Bush needs a relief fund to help with the problem, when he’s clearly so unwilling to part with any of the billions of dollars he already has for such things. No doubt these are needed for more important funds – the nuclear stockpile fund, perhaps, and the all-important space race – so thank God that America has been able to depend on aid from bigger countries such as Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in the mean time.

You can donate to the Bush-Clinton fund here.

On the other hand, if the thought of giving money to a fund with the name Bush in the title makes you want to vomit up a week’s worth of meals, as I have found to be a problem, you might consider donating to the Red Cross, who I would point out were on the scene of the disaster several days before George W. Bush even noticed that it had happened.

Going through old emails I discovered that I had written:

I don’t want to upset people (because I’m weak like that (unless they’re David
Blunkett; he can roast in hell and I’ll toast marshmallows)).

For which I apologise. Sorry, David: obviously you’re not all alone as an outcast in my otherwise pleasant society. Charles Clarke and Tessa Jowell are there with you.

(Tessa, if you’re reading: I know you’re all happy that we’ve got the Olympics, but can we try to prevent a six year drought in British arts funding just a little bit? You could auction your children or something.)