Tiger Cub Birthday

On Tuesday the London Zoo tiger cubs were a year old, but for some reason the celebrations were held over till Wednesday. In anticipation I went along.

There were lots of colourful parcels laid out for them, laced with meat, but mum Melati took advantage of the cubs' caution to help herself to all the treats before the day even started properly!



One of the parcels ended up in the water, and tentatively the cubs started trying to retrieve it.





Success!



Now let the destruction begin.



"I think I'll have this bit." "Mmm, me too."



Fight!



He bullied me, mum. I love you.



Everyone ended up with pink paws from the (edible) paint on the favourite box.



Job done.

Tuxedo Hill

I'm glad the nasty perp didn't get away with his crimes by trying to sell out others. Bobby was really angry.
 

Tomorrow

So many gorgeous pictures to choose from, but I'd like to be being held by him in the second picture...

 

 

The Third Horseman

I will never understand the kind of person portrayed in this episode. I know they exist in the US - fortunately not in the UK - but I don't get how they don't understand that Christian fundamentalism and Muslim fundamentalism both embrace terrorism.

Luckily, Bobby's gorgeousness manages to help me to put that on the back burner for a while.




Bonus bottom picture!

Suite Sorrow

My favourite scene in this was when Eames went to the unofficial Botox clinic. But Eames isn't Bobby.Or the famed eyebrow...

Babies - primate and feline

Here's Mjukuu with her new baby. They think it's a girl, which is good, as she's less likely to be attacked if they ever need to import yet another male.




As for the tigers, they are nos so big at 11 months, it's mostly their fluffiness that helps one tell the difference between them and mum. Here we have mum Melati in the middle, flanked by the two boys, and the girl cub at the front.



And here's a very relaxed boy cub.

Stress Position

One of those episodes where Vincent looks so tired.

Not baby gorilla pictures

There is a new baby gorilla at the zoo, but I wasn't able to get a picture.

So here are some lovely tiger pictures to compensate:

Mum Melati has a stretch

Look, mum, I can do it too!

Huh! See what I can do with my claws and a tree.

Well, at least I don't mind getting my feet wet.

I go strolling with my dad...as long as there's this glass screen between us!

I found a chew toy. No idea what's in it...

And I found a sunny spot. Clever cub.

Time for mum to take a nap using us cubs as a pillow - though number 3 is still up the tree!

Goodnight.

Stray

So photogenic. So hunky.

Sound Bodies

Mr super-hottie hot hot.

Famous names

Look at how lucky we are to have Hollywood superstars in Britain.

Kevin Spacey has been running the Old Vic theatre company (way back this famous old theatre housed the National Theatre before its own new premises were built next to the river - and it was run by Laurence Olivier).

Then there's Gillain Anderson. Wonder why she's been off your radar recdently, my US readers? She's been living over here and making great programmes. The latest is a really creepy serial killer crime drama, The Fall. If it makes it over there, you must watch.

I've also been musing on the "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon" scenario, since it occurred to me that a late acquaintance of mine interviewed gazillions of famous people over many years.

He was called Roy Plomley, and he invented and presented a radio programme called Desert Island \discs for over 40 years:

I knew him because I served on a committee with him in 1984, just before he died. Therefore everyone he ever interviewed for his programme is someone I am just 2 degrees from. Here are a few examples. Not as few as it could have been, I got carried away...





Louis Armstrong       Dirk Bogarde       Mel Brooks        James Cameron       Richard Chamberlain       

Bing Crosby       Noel Coward       Marlene Dietrich       Brian Epstein        Douglas Fairbanks Jr          

Alec Guinness       Liberace        David Niven       Norman Mailer       Peter Sellers       Paul Robeson

Ginger Rogers       Stephen Sondheim       Tennessee Williams   

There are a few that stand out. As well as Julie Andrews, there is the person she is most famous for portraying, Baroness Maria Von Trapp. There's Guy Gibson, who led the Dambusters raid during WWII - and died before the end of the war - and the actor who played him in the film, Richard Todd. There's also actress Valerie Hobson, who played the Wife of Frankenstein, and after whom I was named. Sadly, she is most famous for being the wife of politician John Profumo, whose affair with Christine Keeler led to fears of a major security breach in 1963.

 I wish I'd actually met a few of these people, or even discussed them with Roy way back then. Two degrees of separation seem a bit pointless now.

Smothered

First appearance of the BTSOH!

You Dirty Rat

It's weeks now since Twiglet carried out her own catch-and-release programme on a rat. She caught it outdoors and released it in the kitchen.

Eventually it was murdered by the pest controller. I phoned the company (KnowHow - hello, nothing good to say about you) that provides the insurance on my ravaged dishwasher. First they said it wasn't covered because it was rodent infestation. Then they decided a one-off wasn't infestation. But the engineer didn't have the necessary parts. They were ordered and when they arrived I got a message to make an appointment. The first available when I could be there was last Friday.

They texted me the night before - a time between 8.50 and 12.50.

They didn't show up.

A phone call with 10,000,000 "press this key, press that key" options led me to someone who said the appointment had been cancelled! "They've been trying to phone you". No. My phone didn't ring while I was sitting next to it. There were no missed calls on the mobile. And no, your next non-working day of next Tuesday is not available.

Eventually they managed to book me a morning appointment for next Tuesday, but I have few hopes they will bother to turn up. After all, this is insurance. They already have my money. And it was my fault that they only allowed an hour for the visit, and the engineer said he needed more.

Couldn't be their fault, could it?

Pissed off? Moi?

Smile

Handsome is as handsome ... is.

All kitties great and small

It seems to me that I don't have many pictures of my one remaining cat, Twiglet. I've started to remedy that.

As she spends most of her time now on my bed, I didn't have much choice of scene.





She looks pretty grumpy, but she's actually one of the best-natured cats imaginable.

Then there are the tigers. I didn't get any pictures of the cubs on Friday because they chose to sit in one of those places that makes photos difficult to take. But mum and dad were quite co-operative.

Jae-Jae looks stern but majestic

Until he yawns...

Meanwhile Melati takes advantage of her rest from her young'uns to have a wash.

Slither

Ooh, super-creepy episode. Super-lovely Bobby.
 

Mum of One

On November 17th I lost my darling Jaspa at the age of 20yrs 8mths. She was very poorly, and had probably had a second stroke on the day I came home from work to find her in a state of total collapse.

 

 

This is how my lovely girl looked on her 20th birthday. She was painfully thin, but was still enjoying her rather limited life.

 

Now she's gone, down from 7 cats, I only have one, 15-year-old Twiglet.

 

 

 

 

Here she is snuggling up her large frame with Jaspa in happier times. She is a lovely girl.

 

Twiglet brought me in a present a few weeks ago in her latest catch-and-release programme. Not the usual mouse, but a rat. It escaped under a kitchen cabinet and down into the cellar. I tried to catch it in a humane trap, but it wasn't interested in the lovely foods I offered it, preferring to eat its way through foam insulation and pipe lagging, electrical cord and plastic drainage pipe, leaving my dishwasher unusable and the floor flooded.

 

The first pest controller, sent by an insurer I've been paying good money to for years, refused to go down into the cellar, backing off with fear in his eyes and yelling "health and safety, health and safety". This is because he would have to lower himself through an opening on to a step ladder - no danger of falling, as he could easily hold on to the edge of the hatch. Once down there, there is no tiny cramped space, but the full size of the house. But he claimed he might get stuck. No doubt going into a loft area to destroy a wasp's nest would have produced a similar reaction. Maybe he should consider a change of career.

 

I called in a company of my own, and a man twice his size in every direction inspected the area and left the dreaded poison. Eventually an unpleasant smell permeated the house, which I presumed to be mummifying rat. He had to hunt quite extensively for it, as it had tucked itself away into one of its many nests high in a corner. And the insurance company has paid me the fee I had to fork out on my own behalf.

 

Even the company supposedly repairing the dishwasher initially said it wasn't covered because the damage was caused by "rodent infestation". When I pointed out that such an exclusion didn't appear on my policy, they decided that it wasn't an actual infestation (which would have counted as "neglect", I kid you not!) if it was just one rat brought in by a cat. They will pay. Yippee.

 

Then I'll have to persuade a further insurance company to pay for the flooring to be replaced. No chance this will all be done before Christmas.

Siren Call

That neck still does it for me.

Silver Lining

Remember that luscious tongue we all used to gag for?

Silencer

Big, beefy, burly, broad-shouldered, brown-eyed...