02/03/2014

5 Reasons Why Our Cats Really Own Us

As much as I love my cats, there are some things they do which drive me insane. But despite this, I just keep treating them like royalty. I've started to notice that very often, we cat owners appear to do a lot for our cats despite how they treat us. And despite our pet hates about them, often they still seem to be the boss of us...here's some examples of how:

1. "I can speak cat!"

Well, this is what our cats lead us to believe anyway...when our cat meows at us we reply by imitating them with our own meowing, hoping to strike up a conversation. In the unlikely event that this works, we then proceed to have a full conversation with our cat through a series of meows. This gives us a huge sense of pride and leads us to believe that we have the ability to talk cat. Although we may believe that we are now a cat whisperer, in actual fact our poor cat language probably translates along the lines of "brontosaurus waxes watermelon on an apocalyptic frying pan". Ergo, we've made a fool of ourselves in front of both our cats and any puzzled onlookers.


"You talkin' to me?!"


2. The Chair Dilemma

Picture the scene...you're sitting comfortably on your favourite armchair reading a good book (or, if you're me, playing flappy bird on your phone...) Everything's perfect, except you start to feel a bit thirsty. "Time for a drink" you think to yourself and you use all the energy you can muster at 6.00 in the evening to pull yourself out of your snuggly nest to get a drink of water. After quenching your thirst, you drag your weary limbs back in the direction of the armchair. But what's this?! Oh no, you can't continue your lazy sprawling on the armchair because there, perfectly placed slap-bang in the middle of your favourite seat is your cat, selfishly stretching out over the whole chair. On your cat's face is a withering look which can only be interpreted as "If you think I'm moving, you've got another think coming."

Admit it, if you're a cat owner, you have been in this situation numerous times before. At this point, there are two things you could do: either scoot your cat off the chair and risk being subject to a large amount of growling and/or scratching, but in return get the warm comfort of your chair back. Or leave your cat be and sit elsewhere. 

Is it just me who in this situation will look into their cat's pleading eyes, feel guilty and leave their cat sitting comfortably on the chair like a monarch surveying their kingdom and end up perched precariously on the arm of the chair, vaguely resembling an ostrich going to the loo?!

3. "Pet me, slave"

Why is it that our cats decide that they want to be stroked at the most inconvenient times for us?! Whenever we want to stroke our cat, our cat always seems to be preoccupied with something else, such as cleaning themself or pigging out on food. However, as soon as we're busy with some vital piece of work that, for whatever reason, must be finished immediately, this is when our cat decides that it's petting time. But the worst thing is, we don't refuse the cat's pleas. If they look up at us with those big, desperate eyes, we feel that to refuse them would be inherently wrong and whatever that vitally important piece of work was, it is now nowhere near as important as stroking our cat.






4. Argument
Catalysts
I don't know about you, but I don't tend to argue with my sibling regularly, except for when it comes to the issue of our cats. Because one of my cats tends to spend a lot of time on my sister's bed, she seems to think that that means said cat loves her more. But as I am constantly reminding her, it's about the person and not the bed and as the cat enjoys spending a lot of time with me, I'm sure she loves me more. 

I won't get into details now because that would end messily, but it's safe to say that my cats have been a common topic of family arguments at the dinner table...

5. "Did I ask for an alarm clock?!"

I guess you could say cats are useful as we cat owners never need to buy an alarm clock again, but unfortunately, we can't set our cats to start meowing at a normal earthly hour. Instead, our morning routine revolves around them. When we get up solely depends on the time that their stomach wants to be full. When they turn up at our door meowing plaintively and scratching the door slowly with their paws, how can we resist?! And so, once again our cat has triumphed and we have answered to its beck and call... 


20/02/2014

A Little Blott of Sunshine

Woke up this morning to see rain falling outside my window. Again. That and the disappointing Brits last night left me in a pretty bad mood. The performances on this year's Brits were a disorganised array of good artists mish-mashed with some not so good ones in the strangest combinations imaginable, basically a wall of sound which vaguely resembled a herd of cats being sat on. You might even say it was catastrophic (sorry). I was in need of something to cheer me up.

Well, I was in luck. The necessary pick-me-up came in the form of Blott, a smart stationery shop in Reading. As well as quirky hats, I have a great passion for Japanese rubbers, or puzzle erasers as they are sometimes known. For me walking into Blott was like stepping off a train and finding myself at the gates of rubber heaven. It was full of fun, brightly coloured stationery and...RUBBERS! 

Reaching the centre of the shop, my eyes alighted on the piece de resistance, a table covered in thousands of pristinely organised Japanese rubbers, spanning all colours of the rainbow. Everything from green koalas to fluorescent pink unicorns and bright blue rhinos. 





I set to work scouring the pots for rubbers which would satisfy my ravenous eraser appetite. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is safe to say I was not disappointed. In fact, I ended up buying so much that I earned myself a complimentary rubber and a bright blue light-up yoyo. Does it get any better than that?! I left the shop beaming, with my arms full of rubbers to add to my collection. 

I was so pleased with my purchases that I knew I couldn't keep them to myself; I had to broadcast them to the world. As soon as I returned home, I set up my photo studio (two pieces of blank A4 paper...) and held my very own rubber photo-shoot, or as I like to say, a roto-shoot. So here are some of my roto-shoot favourites...


Marcus the monkey...


Thanks to this hedgehog, I no longer feel quite so blue...or prickly...


Nigel the lime green rhino...


Meet Algernon. I just go ape for this one!


WARNING! Radioactive koala!


Jeremiah the polar bear. How cool is he?!

I'm sure Horrid Henry would happily accept this purple panda into his Purple Hand Gang...or should I say Purple Paw Gang?!

Nello...


...Oops! Looks like Nello's been trunkated!!


Mr Penguin...just chillin'...

A true fairytale ending...

So despite the slightly rough start to the day, I managed to find a little ray of sunshine amongst the dismal English weather. If you're having a rough day too, keep looking for a ray of sunshine - there will be one there somewhere...

P.S. I really should apologise for my atrocious puns in this post...I think I should be punished...









16/02/2014

Flappy Birds Anonymous




Flappy Bird.

To me, those two words mean frustration, anti-socialism and the destruction of the human race. Reading back over that sentence I realised that those words paint a pretty negative picture of flappy bird. So this doesn't really explain why flappy bird is such a huge internet phenomenon, with over 50 million downloads. It doesn't explain why I still haven't done any of my homework this week because I can't stop hearing the plaintive chirping of flappy bird in my head calling me to return to play.

There have been countless youtube videos and vines all over the internet telling people NEVER to play flappy bird. Spending a lot of time on the internet, I innocently stumbled on one of these videos, with no prior knowledge of the pit of doom I was about to fall into. Unfortunately, watching this video only made me curious and I decided to download the game, thinking that it really couldn't be that bad. Well my internet companions, as I'm sure many of you know, I could not be more wrong.  

After playing the game a few times, I couldn't work out what the big fuss was about. The game had bad graphics, annoying sound effects and was virtually impossible. I thought it was a rubbish game and it really didn't seem to hook me. Well, without realising it, I had fallen into flappy bird's trap. Flappy bird had lulled me into a false sense that I wasn't addicted and I never would be. Ha! I thought. I can beat this flappy bird game! I can play it as many times as I want and it will never affect me! I then proceeded to play flappy bird a number of times to prove that it really wouldn't affect me. And here started the downward spiral that is my flappy bird addiction.

This led me to thinking, when does the addiction start? When is it not too late to escape? And so I came up with this. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 10 stages of flappy bird addiction:

1. Download flappy bird late in the evening.
2. Play it a few times. Discover it's rubbish and virtually impossible. Consider deleting.
3. Don't delete it just because everyone else has it and you don't want to feel left out.
4. Play it a few more times before you go to bed.
5. Dream about flappy bird.
6. Wake up with a sudden unexplainable urge to play it.
7. Play it.
8. Play it some more.
9. And more.
10. Begin to eat, sleep and breathe flappy bird. Talk about it and play it nonstop. Start seeing flappy bird in the faces of your friends. Start poking people thinking they are the game. Find a way to connect flappy bird to anything and everything.

You've earned your badge, now wear it loud and proud!

So there you have it. Having read this, I believe that your flappy bird addiction starts as soon as you download the game. No one who downloads the game can escape the grasp of flappy bird's beak. Once you click download, it is too late; it is impossible to flap free from the abyss that is flappy bird.

So I've solved when you become addicted but this still doesn't explain why. It's clearly not the ancient graphics or the annoying sound effects (although I actually find these very comforting now; a clear sign of my addiction) and the game is not exactly an original idea. The other thing about it is how difficult it is. Usually with games this difficult, I give up very early on, but not with flappy bird. With a high score of 41 (yes, in case you hadn't gathered I spend quite a lot of time on it), it's going to be difficult for me to beat my high score, so why do I keep trying? Well probably because I know that it is possible to beat it. Every time I play flappy bird, I get a little rush at the thought that this time I might beat my high score. And this, I think, is what draws people to flappy bird and means it takes over their life; they are always hopeful that they might do better and it is this little glimmer of hope in all of us that make us play flappy bird time and time again.

And on that note, I must go as I have a high score to beat…

My Achilles' heel...