John Gray: Feline Philosophy

Herodotus writes that when an Egyptian house was on fire, the inhabitants were more concerned about their cats than their property. When a member of a visiting Roman delegation accidentally killed a cat in 59BC, the man was lynched despite intervention from the king. And the Egyptian sage Ankhsheshonq warned, “Do not laugh at a cat”.

 

Big bad wolf

“It cheers us up”

Pigeons

Once I bought a house  with a roof terrace from where I would be able to observe the sea, and ships passing by.

Pirate, king of birds

What next?

Baa Baa Wordsworth

 

 

 

….turning, saw, as one sees in a dream,

It was a Sheep had broke the moorland peace

With his sad cry, a creature who did seem

The blackest thing that ever wore a fleece

 

I walked towards him on the stony track

And, pausing for a while between two crags

I asked him,’Have you wool upon your back?’

Thus he bespake, ‘Enough to fill three bags.’

 

Most courteously, in measured tones he told

Who would receive each bag and where they dwelt;

And oft, now years has passed and I am old,

I recollect with joy that inky pelt.

 

 

To read more of this nursery rhyme as it might have been written by William Wordsworth, or Hickory Dickory Dock in the style of T S Eliot, seek out Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis by Wendy Cope ( ff Classics)

For elephant lovers

Pig power

Sweet and sour cane-toad