Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Cat of the Day
A loss-making Japanese rail company has found the perfect mascot to bring back business - Tama the tortoiseshell cat.
All the nine-year-old cat does is sit by the entrance of Kishi station in a railway uniform cap and pose for photos for the tourists. Tama has done such a good job of raising revenue for the Kishikawa train line that she was recently promoted to “super-station-master”.
The Wakayama Electric Railway Co said: “She is the perfect station master. She never complains, even though passengers touch her all over. She has patience and charisma.”
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Cats for Obama
With supporters like Leo from Antioch, CA, how can he lose?
Thanks to Paula Keavney.
Labels: Cats, US Politics
Friday, March 21, 2008
Cat of the Day: Dorofei
Well done, Dorofei, who belongs to the newly-elected Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev.The blue-eyed cat has an experience of “political” struggle. Dorofei once had a fight with a cat owned by Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, who used to live next to Dmitry Medvedev. Dorofei did not win the fight with Gorbachev’s cat. The Medvedevs had to treat their cat with antibiotics for a month. Afterwards, they decided to castrate the cat to protect him from possible unpleasant situations in the future.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
All is well at the Stiperstones Inn
It is authentic, unfussy and stylish. Customers invariably leave with a desire to return. We’ve now eaten there on four occasions and every time we’ve vowed to go back. It’s at the top of our list of venues to take visiting friends, keen to sample Shropshire’s hills and pubs.Skittles the cat gets a mention, but not the free broadband access.
The Stiperstones Inn is, quite simply, one of the county’s treasures.
Labels: Cats, Shropshire
Friday, December 21, 2007
Cat of the Week
Members of a Shropshire family are all smiles after their beloved cat, which had been missing since last Christmas, turned up just in time for this year’s festivities.
Labels: Awards, Cats, Shropshire
Friday, December 14, 2007
Cat of the Day
The Leicester Mercury reports:
And there's more:A Markfield moggie has found a purr-fect place to while away her days - in the village's new library.
Chloe, the 12-year-old black and white cat, has been visiting the library for nine years.
However, her trips were disrupted when the old wooden building closed, to enable a £385,000 replacement to be built.
She would sit in the library grounds and watch work taking place from a safe distance.
Six weeks after the new library opened in May last year, she plucked up the courage to slip in through the sliding doors - and now she's been visiting every day since.
In recognition of her daily visits, the library service is presenting Chloe with her own card, so she can borrow The Lion King and browse the library's cat-a-logue.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Shropshire Cat of the Day
Ratlinghope is pronounced "Ratchup". I assume that Pussywillow is pronounced as it is spelt.
Labels: Awards, Cats, Shropshire
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Cat of the Day
Well done Pc Tizer:Police at a north London railway station have got mice running scared - after recruiting a 13-year-old cat.
Tizer was adopted by British Transport Police (BTP) from the Cats Protection charity in September and inducted into the force as an honorary constable.
In his role as the Chief Mouser Pc Tizer walks around King's Cross rail station to keep it rodent-free.
An "essential member" of the team, he has unfettered access to all areas and shares an office with a senior officer.
Labels: Awards, Cats, London, Railways
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Cat of the Day
According to the BBC he:
disappears from his owner's home in Talbot Woods, Bournemouth, every night.
The next morning, the 12-year-old cat can always be found in exactly the same place, on a pavement about one and a half miles (2.4km) away.
His owner, Liz Bullard, takes her son to school before collecting Sgt Podge.
Labels: Cats
Monday, November 05, 2007
Puss is Boots
The Shropshire Star reports:
after seeing his picture in the Shropshire Star, Jennie Harris from Broseley came forward to reclaim him - and reveal his real name as Boots. Miss Harris explained she lives next door to a pub so he must have climbed on board and travelled down the road to Ironbridge.
“He has always been adventurous and has probably used up quite a few of his nine lives,” she said.
Labels: Awards, Cats, Shropshire
Friday, November 02, 2007
Shropshire Pub Cat of the Day
Move over Skittles. Today's winner is Carlsberg who, at least for now, lives at the Swan in Ironbridge.
The photographer obviously wanted a shot of Carlsberg looking at the cans of lager. But, being a cat, he insisted on looking the other way.
Labels: Awards, Cats, Shropshire
Thursday, November 01, 2007
More on Skittles the Stiperstones Inn cat
Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I am able to bring you this photograph of Skittles the Stiperstones Inn cat.
but she's a girl describes her thus:
Afterwards we warmed ourselves by the log fire in the Stiperstones Inn and watched the pub cat, Skittles, go through a series of extraordinary yoga poses in an effort to maximise the surface area being roasted by the fire. There are few things more relaxing than watching a snoozing cat.
Labels: Cats, Shropshire
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Skittles the Stiperstones Inn cat
Walking into the Stiperstones Inn is like stepping back in time. There is a roaring coal fire in the middle of the lounge with a cat, called Skittles, lying lazily in front of it.And later:
We called in on a Friday night and the pub was jam-packed.I would only add that in my experience Skittles is a sensible cat and not at all the sort to trip you up. She merely sat under my table for a while, then wandered off.
We made our way through the lounge — taking care not to trip over Skittles — and were shown into a small dining room.
Labels: Cats, Shropshire
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Sybil the Downing Street cat
All power to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, for bringing back a feline presence to the heart of government.The best news report is in the Independent:
The Darlings have brought Sybil, named after the character played by Prunella Scales in Fawlty Towers, from their Edinburgh home to live in their flat above 10 Downing Street. It is understood that the Darlings will be footing the bill for the Government's newest recruit.And the best pictures are in the Guardian.
Sybil will be given privileged access to the heart of government to help fulfil her task of keeping the building free of vermin.
Gordon Brown's spokesman explained: "It's quite difficult to confine cats. The Prime Minister doesn't have a problem with it. Sarah Brown doesn't have a problem with it."
Until the Blairs arrived in Downing Street, there had been a long tradition of cats prowling the residence.
Labels: Alistair Darling, Cats
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The cat who can predict patient deaths
This news item comes from a paper by Dr David Dosa: "A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat". It is a lot more interesting than most academic journal papers.A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.
Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.
According to the author of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.
Staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.
The story has also been used to more or less satirical effect in the Lib Dem blogosphere by Ed Maxfield and Norfolk Blogger.
Labels: Cats
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Mr Smulian's pussy
Polo is rather proud of the galleries showing his travels around the world. But I am also fond of his notes on catspam.
Labels: Cats
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Cat of the Week
Note too the story about Lembit and Welshpool railway station lower down the page.Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to The Phantom Of The Opera is one of theatreland’s most anticipated events.
But, I can reveal, a bizarre mishap means that it is likely to be longer than expected before it reaches the stage.
Lloyd Webber, 59, was working on the score at his computerised grand piano when his six-month-old kitten Otto clambered into its frame and managed to delete everything he had written so far.
Labels: Awards, Cats, Lembit Opik
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Harborough woman gives birth to cat: Latest
Now the Scotsman has more on the tale.
Labels: Cats
Sunday, November 26, 2006
A cricket-loving cat
Saturday, November 04, 2006
The Commons needs a cat
His evidence?
You have to admit he has a point. Tim does not give a link to the news story he is quoting, but there is a short item on the subject here.The Commons is infested with mice. Fair enough, old, Victorian, building, a thousand or two people wandering around, lots of cafeterias and dining rooms, lots of people using take away trays to eat at their desks and so on: sure, there will be mice around. It's even rumoured that the mice have become immune to poison and the pest control people doubt that they'll be able to eradicate them.
Now, given the accumulated human wisdom that is our inheritance as a civilization, what would be a rational thing to do? Why, for example, does damn near every farm in the country have a few cats sunning themselves on the hay bales (and those that don't usually have a couple of terriers scurrying around the yards)? Yes, well done, we'll control the mice by bringing in a predator or two.
Can we do this in the Commons?
The work appears to have forced the mice out into the open. Requests for a House of Commons cat to do its traditional job of catching vermin have been rejected by the "authorities" on health and safety grounds.
Labels: Cats
