Bluecat

except for the cigar and the top hat... Congratulations to all concerned... he will certainly keep you young at heart, Youngatheart.

by grabbing a crystal ball from the shelf that he was hurtling past as he slid down the rabbit hole and staring intently into its glittering depths.

offered her a sprig of mistletoe and a mince pie. For "TIS THE SEASON TO EAT A LOT", said a jolly old elf in a red cape who appeared from the sandtrap, accompanied by some reindeer humming "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and brandishing Fawzo's Christmas (or Yule/Chanukha/Diwali/Eid al Adha/Kwanzaa/Winterval/secular festival of goodwill) stocking, from which protruded none other than the long lost secret pencil box, gaily wrapped in glossy red paper and with TO FAWZO LOVE FROM US ALL written on the label.

they made a mistake in their calculations, overshot the red planet and ended up on a golf course with

a million autograph hunters, ghouls and nonebrities appeared, all intent on getting into Mr Hendrix's ample...

... but she looks great in a tux ...

Dunno: if this college still had its subscription to the OED online I could find the etymology and first recorded useage - bet it's older than 1911. Like jack rabbit/daw/sprat, billy or nanny goat, jenny wren, willy wagtail (aka jenny at the pump), and of course tom cat, it's an anthropomorphism, innit?

bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea hove suddenly into view. "Come on in, the water's lovely!" yelled one of the mermaids, who was...

the refried beans which were floating on the water and interfering with their snorkels. "Get your hands of my snorkel!" a voice thundered from the deep. Mr Nipplestein (for it was he)

a googleshark and a babeloctopus swam past them in the briny deep. Pausing only to adjust

Anyone remember "March of the Mods"? I don't but Bendigo says it was a bit like the Addams family theme tune. For those of you who don't speak British, a mog is a cat of standard alley variety. March of the Mogs We are the cats, the cats of the house. Trap us this day our daily mouse. We are the mogs: haven’t you heard? Pluck us this day our daily bird. Claws in the upholstery, Furballs in the stew, A bite if you get close to me, Something nasty in your shoe. We are the mogs, the mogs of the house. Trap us this day our daily mouse. We are the cats: haven’t you heard? Pluck us this day our daily bird. Small deaths shrieking in the night Mustn’t blame the cat Feathers tumbled out of flight Ripped intestines on the mat We are the cats, the cats of the house. Trap us this day our daily mouse. We are the mogs: haven’t you heard? Pluck us this day our daily bird. P**y-wussies, aren’t we sweet? We are tiger, you are meat. Preen…. yawn… stretch…. prowl. My name is Feline, hear me yowl. Sarah

"Thusly!" quoth he. "Forsooth and sooth!" he said, for indeed he was a toothless soothsayer and not one who heard him saying sooth could make any sense of what he quoth.

For those of you who are creative and love cats or love creative cats or any further combination of the above... http://www.cats.org.uk/supportus/magazine_storycomp.asp

May the dead find peace and the survivors find healing and comfort. You are all in our thoughts.

Anointing with scented oils is common in the Arabian Gulf, as is "fumigating" with burning incense. At weddings, vast pots of Arabian scented oils are brought round to the guests on trays and they are anointed with them on the neck or hands by a member of the family whose son is getting married (the groom's family, not the bride's. hosts the weddings). If the guest is very honoured, they may also be anointed on their feet, but I personally have never seen it done. If the guest is very junior to the host or hostess they may anoint them on the forehead also. I must say, the first time I saw this anointing I thought of Mary Magdalene and the story of the jar of scented oil... This is what happens at the women's wedding: the men and women's ceremonies are held separately in different buildings so I have no direct knowledge of how the chaps do things. I believe the anointing used to be done by the chaps, but it is very old fashioned and highly ceremonious now. Similarly, if you go to visit an Emirati family, when the time comes for your visit to end they will bring a tray of very ornate glass perfume jars and anoint you with the oil (nowadays they may also have perfume sprays, which doesn't have the same feel at all). They will also bring an incense burner and burn frankincense (which grows in neighbouring Oman) or other incense woods. You are supposed to hold your robes open (or as I have seen done, even squat astride the burner!) to scent your clothes before leaving. It is one of the most important rituals of hospitality and is enshrined in proverbs and hadith (saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed but not part of the Quran). Muslim culture has no theology of sacraments, as far as I know. But certain ritual practices are highly sacramental in fact, and this is one of them. If you want to use this pm me for credit details.

Someone back there mentioned Neil Gaiman. I've read Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett, but long ago and didn't get too much into it. Just read Gaiman's American Gods. It's wonderful. Somewhere between Fantasy and The Great American Novel, with nods in the direction of road movies and police procedurals, and a number of other things. Deeply strange, funny and wonderfully written.

That is a lovely lovely quote. Thank you for that. Once you ask the question "is this real?" (providing "this" is defined as everything), you can never get an answer. All the data we have to go on suggests ... yes that it's real AND ... that it's an incredibly persistent and consistent illusion whereas things we can identify as illusions (dreams, stories, magic tricks, films, theatre) don't appear to persist very long - we wake up, the film ends, the conjuror takes a bow - and/or may not be consistent - dreams shift, coins don't ordinarily pass through solid surfaces, and so on. We don't have a frame to measure "reality" by, whereas the things we recognise as illusions appear to end at the frame (the TV box, the end of the show, waking up). If anyone does have a frame, it's the physicists, and the mystics. It is conceivable also that any consciousness which survives death would also have a frame.

or somebody else's, if it's really dark. Whereupon...

... and a vast rift opens in a firey glow as the earth splits underneath our heroes, who plummet...

B got a book from the college library that we've been fighting over for two days. The minute he puts it down I snatch it up. Yesterday at the swimming pool, we couldn't go in the water at the same time: one of us had to be reading the book. Short stories by Philip K Dick, collected as The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford, foreword by Roger Zelazny. I realise he's well-known - but we are new to him (think I've read a couple in compilations). B doesn't even read SciFi/Fantasy (sez he). Particularly good: the title story, The Infinites, The Small Movement (very sinister), and the one about the chap who believes the caterpillars are plotting against him... (they are).

I agree with Chico that it's difficult, but I was able to cast my vote. My rights end where another person's rights begin. I have the right to poison myself - with smoke, f'instance - but not to poison others. There are absolute rights and non-absolute ones. The right to pleasure (non-absolute) is over-ridden by the right to health. This will involve us all in messy and complicated line-drawing, not least in deciding when and where personhood begins. But - that's life. Justice is not easy, but it's still worth while.

Unfortunately, his descriptions of the artwork and the architecture, at least, are notably inaccurate. Or should I say fictional. Can't comment about the documents, and of course "secret rituals" can hardly be checked... they are secret. But that statement is pretty much the most fictional thing in the book.

I think it will be more fun as a film than as a book: reading his prose style affects me like fingernails on blackboard.... urrgggh. Has anyone else seen the episode of "Father Ted" where they protest a film and make the cinema operator's fortune?