Quite Random

Cat-spanking S&M shocker

See also here. It appears cats go crazy for it.

Bugger.

Friday, and another week grinds to a close. I’m mystified by the same problem Adrianne’s having – my trousers have all shrunk. My 501s are hanging in there, but I had a very depressing moment the other day when I put on my North Face trousers, the ones I wore throughout 2005, and when I finally relaxed, the popper popped open and my gut, Homer Simpson-like, reinflated, jiggled, and settled. Shit. Too much booze, too much chocolate, not enough doing energetic stuff. I’m drifting, as Marwood put it, into the arena of the unwell. OK, I haven’t broken my ankle or anything, I just feel turgid.

At home we waste food on a scale I haven’t achieved in several years. Buying food in fits and spurts, poor meal planning, taking things out to defrost before throwing them away a few days later, letting things dry out in the fridge, cooking too much, leaving leftovers, buying takeaways. I hate it. I could control my consumption living on my own, but sharing with someone else hasn’t made it as easy, and perfectly good food keeps ending up in the bin. It’s heartbreaking, I have got into bad habits, and I have to stop it.

Humans are eating the planet. There are currently six and a half billion of us, increasing to nine and a half billion in the next forty to fifty years. Yes. Within your lifetime, if you’re lucky, there will be just under fifty percent more people on the planet than there are now. Food production is already responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than anything else, from food processing and packaging to agricultural production and livestock emissions, and yet food production is contributing to climate change that will decimate agriculture in many parts of the world.

I like not to get too carried away with alarmist predictions for the future, but really, we’re screwed. Soylent Green, anyone?

Foxy the fox

She gets ever bolder (I’m fairly sure it’s a she). The thing is, we’re encouraging her. I’ve even bought Smackos to feed to her now. Yesterday, I was sat in the garden as the sun was going down, and she came up to the seat, sniffed around, and waited patiently. I gave her one Smacko, she went and buried it (she has so far buried Smackos, breadsticks, and cooked meat in the garden – I hope she’s retrieved all of it), then she came back and waited for more, even sniffing my ankles as if I had another Smacko hidden in my socks. She takes food from my hand now, unless she’s being ultra cautious, in which case she sits and looks pathetic until you put the food down for her.

We probably shouldn’t be such soft sods. Foxy is getting bolder, which can’t be a good thing. She sat outside the door last night looking in to the living room, and saw Henry the hamster trundling around in his ball – she was looking like Christmas had come early; a snack that rolls itself across the floor to you in an easy to open container? Too good to be true. I shouldn’t forget she is wild, an opportunist, and while she would happily sleep on the bean bag next to the telly, we’d end up with fleas and the hamster would be in grave danger. That doesn’t stop her walking in the back door and sitting on the carpet like she owns the place if she gets the chance.

Can’t be good – humans aren’t all nice to foxes, she might get too comfortable around us and find that out the hard way.

A funny thing happened on the way home last night

More info

Doctor Juma makes it all better

Just been sent this in an email.

This doctor can do it all.

• Swollen body
• Lost lover
• Insanity
• Vomiting all the time
• Remove misunderstanding with anybody