English food has the ability to make you feel not only warm when you eat it but also has a cheering effect and though I never do seem to need cheering up I certainly enjoyed the warm feeling of every mouthful hitting the spot, if you see what I mean.

I was so pleased with the outcome that I thought I would share the recipe with you my dear readers you never know you might be not only feeling cold but also a bit down in the dumps but if you make this Rice Pudding you’ll feel so much better and if one of the reasons you are feeling down in the dumps is that you are hard up the great thing about this recipe is that it really doesn’t cost much too cook, especially if you take the dish full of raw ingredients around to a neighbour and use their stove. Mind you it does take 2 hours to cook so make sure that you have a lot of conversation topics prepared.

This Rice Pudding is so simple to make just measure out rice, milk, butter, sugar and mix them all together in the oven dish you are going to cook it in, stir it all together one last time and then follow the very limited instructions on the recipe I have added above.

I got my recipe for Rice Pudding from the ‘Mother of all TV cooks’ the patron saint of daytime TV Saint Delia Smith, she was the first TV cook back in the 1970′s and taught a whole nation how to burn Beef Bourguignon, cock up Coq au vin and be adventurous in the kitchen, and as we all simmered, sautéed and sliced our way through countless new recipes that dear Delia had careful made so simple to follow our cooking abilities grew.

Delia Smith is definitely the reason I like to cook and I often refer to her website deliaonline if I am wondering what to do with a Prawn or Carrot or indeed both!

First I ate beef stew with plenty of carrots in it and of course loads of beef and then I ate the Rice Pudding and then I tried doing the washing up while holding my stomach off the floor and smiling to myself singing a little song about not worrying about being a fat Cat, though of course the nicer kind of fat Cat and not some masked arsehole from a merchant bank, railway authority or the royal family.

About the Author – The Cat who writes blogs!

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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Well it has finally happened, Central Europe, and other odd bits attached to this particular bit of the Continent have frozen solid as the temperatures touch paw freezingly awful parts of the thermometer usually unexplored by us middle earth dwellers and more common in chilly bits of the world like Siberia, Alaska and of course the two all-white bits at the top and bottom of any Atlas.

It’s cold here in Prague, currently it’s minus 17C which is about just over 1 degree in Fahrenheit and frankly though it was colder over night -26C (which is minus 15 degrees F) Prague is on the warm side compared to parts of Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland and the Ukraine which and covered in blankets of frozen snow producing daytime temperatures of -30C the ‘C’ in this case meaning ‘cold.’

But as this picture from Kiev (below) shows, where it was -30C, life goes on as it does around most of Europe.

Indeed as I sit on the windowsill above a radiator which is full on I can see that the roads here are clear, bundles of people in furry coats are bustling here and there and in the distance there is a Tram rattling on its rails while overhead in the ice white sky there are a couple of vapour trails made by aeroplanes using full throttle to take off from the nearby airport.

You could say therefore that the Czech republic like any other civilised modern country is coping well and still – as the ever awful Mrs Thatcher used to say “open for business.” Imagine my surprise then at the headlines of the newspapers from that most modern and go-ahead country of all Great Britain, ‘Just 3 inches of snow halts half of all flights at Heathrow’ and ‘Roads will be like ice rinks for a week, drivers warned.’

What is it with the Brits? The barometer follows the thermometer down and the whole of Britain comes to a halt and that is in spite of having what I read was “records amounts of salt” (used to clear roads in the UK and also to flavour Chips and well everything edible).

Judging by the reports about the roads and the all other forms of transport I imagine the “records amounts of salt” are still safely locked up nice and warm in depots around the country and have been since early December, in fact just like the Queen who begins her Jubilee Year today, she and other members of the royals who have been ensconced in Sandringham a luxury palace in Norfolk on holiday since the middle of December which is rather nice!

Of course you get the feeling that the royals would rather be somewhere tropical but in times of hardship in the UK and nervousness about whether or not someone will give them the latest handout that they want – a new royal yacht – they are keeping their heads down in what is probably one of the best and most exclusive spa resorts in the world, though between you and me I bet the decoration is just plain awful, the royals after all have terrible taste and if you ever troll around a royal palace when open to the public you can see that for yourself.

So instead of spending 60 or so million pounds of a shiny new royal yacht for the monarch maybe the people of Great Britain should spend the money wisely, on some nice shiny gritting trucks and polished snow ploughs and if the royals want to they can drive them when they are not on holiday it might actually give them something to do and let’s face it it will be cheaper to the teach them how to drive a truck than it will be to teach them to drive a helicopter which is what they usually want to have a go on!

And looking to the long term when the royals are taken out of service because of budgetary cuts when the country decides it can no longer afford to keep a kennelful they will have a trade that suits their lifestyles, after all it only snows for a few weeks of the year in the UK and so the job of snow shifter would be perfect for them all wouldn’t it?

About the Author

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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Mind you I remember getting close to using the ‘F’ word in my Cat’s Diary and first masterpiece of Feline Literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts From a Cat’s Diary.’ when I tried to use a card system to express my disapproval with service from Apple Computers giving them four king cards for ‘four king’ awful service!

With the above in mind I secretly admire people who proudly display their total disregard for the ‘F’ word’s detrimental impact and use liberally. In the case of the picture below I believe that John the Chinese cook doesn’t like Chinese food all that much and that’s a shame because although the Chinese do have some absolutely disgusting habits, including menu items they do make some rather sublime din dins, I am thinking here of Szechuan Prawns and Beef Chow Mein to name but a few.

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Unfortunately as yet neither of my masterpieces of Feline Literature have eclipsed sales of prince Andrew the Duke of York’s latest book ‘Dictators, Autocrats and Paedophiles I Know and Respect’ but then I suppose everyone wants to read a book written by the world’s most famous frequent flyer and discover how they could get so many free trips by displaying pure ignorance and a total lack of judgement. Just a thought I wonder if he will go back to Turkey where there is an outstanding arrest warrant for her ferginess the duchess of York?

And so on to my lovely picture today which I saw while researching my latest unputdownable book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue,’ look Newt and Andrew here is somewhere that will welcome you with open arms, just pop down to the Faith Baptist Church and as the sign says “you will fit right in!”

Just recently and for no reason really, except the website address is on the sign, I went onto the website for the Faith Baptist Church in New Brunswick, Canada and I promise you it was everything I hoped it would be from the ‘Donut Club’ to the desperately cheesy pictures of the happy families who “join us on Sunday.”

Sadly although I spent quite a long time on the website – ok three minutes but I promise you that was all I could bear I am only human oops ‘feline – I didn’t see a single family who looked ‘dysfunctional’ in any way whatsoever although one of the teenagers hanging from a tree looked more than a little strange.

Still I am sure that the sugar fuelled members of the Donut Club, which to quote the Faith Baptist Church’s professional copywriter exactly “The Donut Club is our mid-week children’s program for kids kindergarten through grade 5. Every week they enjoy music, games, a Bible lesson and a special visit from Duncan the Donut. Donut Club meets every Tuesday from 6:30-7:45pm,” will probably carry out sugar induced rampages at some point in time and if you wonder why just as yourself how many Donuts can a kid eat in an hour and fifteen minutes? The answer is an awful lot!

So the only really ‘dysfunctional’ thing about the Faith Baptist Church is their billboard, just look closely at the website and you won’t see any dysfunctional people, not even Duncan the Donut, which is a shame because they tend to be my favourites!

About the Author – The Cat who writes blogs!

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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This weekend in England it was the RSPB’s 33rd ‘Big Garden Birdwatch’ (the RSPB is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for all those who might not know which when you think about it is an enormous number of people) a weekend when friends and fanciers of our feathered friends gaze out into their gardens to identify and count the number of birds who have decided to land on their tiny patch of England that hasn’t as yet been repossessed by the banks.

Now I haven’t been in England for a few years but when I was there I didn’t just dedicate one weekend to watching English garden birds it was a full time occupation, I was always on the windowsill glued to the bird table or in the Spring watching our feathered cousins pick at the newly sown lawn.

So what on earth is the ‘Big Garden Birdwatch?’ Well to keep it simple, which is always nice, for 33 years now the RSPB have asked people to snoop on the feathered wildlife in their gardens, obviously as the RSPB is a charity there is no pay or reward and if you want to know the full results of the weekend’s activity you have to buy a report from them.

The Big Garden Birdwatch is believed to be the biggest “citizen science” exercise anywhere in the world and anyone can ‘join in’ all you have to do is to watch an open space, which can be your garden, a park or even a prison exercise yard for one hour and do that once a year and while you are watching the space just count the birds that land, unfortunately pouncing on them is frowned upon at all times by the RSPB and not only during the study. How was I suppose to know that? I’m a Cat after all.

So while you are watching your bit of England waiting for the flap of wings all you have to do is to count the birds that arrive and to avoid double counting you simply record the largest number of each species you see at any one moment.

The clever thing about this survey is that everyone taking part helps to create a countrywide snapshot of England’s ever changing populations of winter birds and over the years the survey has measured and confirmed the changes in populations of England’s birds which as last year’s survey reveals the number of species in England’s gardens stands at an impressive and mouthwatering 73!

So well done to the RSPB who have proved that not everything with a ‘royal’ connection is completely spoilt and useless, and they still think that they should be bought a new royal yacht but then that is another story that I have been trying to resist telling.

One bit of information from the Big Garden Birdwatch that I found interesting if not a little incriminating is that there number of birds in my old garden has increased dramatically since I left for central Europe where it’s reported the numbers of garden birds has begun to decline, nature is an odd thing isn’t it?

Below is a graph that has nothing to do with this blog article whatsoever but I think it makes it look ever so important and included it for that reason.

About the Author – The Cat who writes blogs!

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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The safety instructions for riding a cable car in Gulin, China would amusing if they didn’t show how dreadfully backward and prejudice the richest communists in the world really are!

Of course I can understand that people riding the cable car should be discouraged from taking explosives on board, and smelly things that can “irritate the nose” and if I knew what “lolling People” were, I would probably stop them from boarding too, but is it fair, reasonable or just to prohibit “mental Patients,” or even “dull-witted Patients” to be forced to spend hours trolling up a mountain instead of sailing up in a few minutes? I don’t think so do you?

The prejudice of the Chinese doesn’t just apply to the unfortunate among us who suffer mental health problems apparently, according to Chinese authorities if you are “liable to carsickness” you must be mentally ill – see point 4.1!

Which all goes to prove that not only should we not buy the shoddy goods manufactured in China which are made to the ‘break out of the box’ principle, we shouldn’t go to China on holiday either.

About the Author – The Cat who writes blogs!

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

As for this unfortunate Cat I wouldn’t be able to have a testicle massage in Bangkok as readers of my first book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ will recall. Some nice person mentioned to me as I was writing this paragraph that that was a bit sad, ‘A BIT SAD!’ Huh I would call it a crime agains Cat kind!

Lastly what has ‘SMILE TEEN MASSAGE’ got to do with anything? Answers in the usual format please unless this Cat has completely misunderstood what a ‘smiling teen’ has to do with a ‘testicle massage,’ then I think that your answers should be in private only!

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Mind you if you really don’t want to give up something, modify your behaviour or do whatever it is that a New Year’s resolution would make you do then the once a year thing works just fine, but maybe people who find it difficult working to such short deadlines should start to make resolutions on February 29th I have a feeling that “Leap Year Resolutions” would be best for them.

Obviously the main advantage of “Leap Year Resolutions” is that you have plenty of time to plan just how you are going to keep them and of course if you really enjoy what you are about to give up then you have plenty of time to enjoy it right up until the deadline.

Actually don’t you think that it’s odd that the things we really like doing like eating Chocolate, drinking red wine and so on are the subjects of New Year’s and in the future Leap Year’s Resolutions? Why is it that we should give up the things we like and vow to take up jogging or visit the Gym more often? Beats me! But then that might be a subject for another blog.

All of which bring me round nicely to the title of this blog ‘how many New Year’s Resolutions have you broken so far?’ And indeed offers a new question – how many of the things that you decided to do/give up in your New Year’s Resolutions were things that you didn’t want to stop doing or of course not start in the first place – such as more trips to the Gym etc?

I don’t think that we should not look after ourselves but let’s face it who among us are as mad as Jane Fonda and want to exercise for most of the day and still have to get our publicity shots headily Photoshopped. Not me but then my face is covered in a dense layer of fur which hides any wrinkles I might have, not that I am saying I have any, so I have an advantage over most of my readers here who would be, if they were like little old me, at the electrolysis clinic for hours on end everyday. Being a Cat has so many advantages doesn’t it?

As the cartoon below shows you have to ask yourself a lot of difficult questions about any New Year’s Resolutions which you may be considering and if you are like Mary Poppins and though in a less icky way like me ‘practically perfect in every way’ then why should you be even thinking of making any New Year’s Resolutions in the first place?

I think if you want to wear a hair shirt and make a New Year’s Resolutions to give up something or change something about yourself just because you think others might expect it of you, you should stop thinking like that immediately and do something really useful that will make an impact, send me the money you would save by not doing what ever it is you were doing and I promise to enjoy every cent, even after I have bought a Motor Yacht that is six inches bigger than Steven Spielberg’s.

There I hope that makes you all feel much better because it isn’t such a bad thing to have little or no will power, let’s face it it is what most if not all of the institutions around the world today rely on, us being so easy to manage and guilt ridden to say nothing of hoping our attention spans are the same as Goldfish – here I am mainly thinking about banks and bankers. Happily that lack of will power and short attention span is not an affliction that affects Cats in any way whatsoever it is so great to be a Cat and so much better to be The Cat who writes blogs.

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I found the recipe below for Cat Sushi and thought that all of my wonderful and ultra cuddly Christmasy fans might like to make it while they are on holiday and still full of Turkey, the really great news is that you don’t need a ‘Cat’ as one of the ingredients for Cat Sushi.

You will need a tiny bit of artistic flair and hands unused to handling large hammers, steel pressing machinery and other tough tools so I understand if you decide give this recipe a miss.

Cat Sushi

So if you are serious about creating a masterpiece in Sushi which as a lucky coincidence would have it is also a portrait of me please (I beg you) read the complete instructions before starting it will help both you and me because you will get the recipe right first time and not end up covered in Seaweed and I, thankfully, won’t have to repeat myself or clarify any perceived anomalies.

For one roll of sushi, you will need

A little more than one piece of Nori (Nori is the Japanese name for edible seaweed)

Some sushi rice around 6 tablespoons full

Black Sesame Powder

Canned Tuna (Tomato flavoured) to make the orange colour

Pickled ginger – for the pink colour

Soy sauce – for the brown colour

Cut you Nori in half, one bit is used to wrap around the outside of the sushi roll.

After that cut the other half of the seaweed into four equal pieces (not lengthwise to make four long strips but the other way to make the shape in the picture below).

Next you need to colour the rice. Do this by mixing some rice with whatever you’re using to colour your rice in a bowl. For each of the colours, you’ll only need about 2 large tablespoons of rice.

Now you can begin shaping the Sushi roll

First, make mini rolls using the small pieces of nori which we cut from the second half of the seaweed sheet. As a guide each roll should be 1/8th of the size of the original Seaweed sheet.

Carefully place a small amount of rice on the edge or the Seaweed and roll it up to make a thin roll. You are going to need 3 rolls of white rice and one roll of pink which is for the Cat’s mouth and you will need to make two of the white rolls smaller than the white and the pink ones by using less rice and rolling up tightly of course.

Now because Cat’s noses are smaller, we make need to make one roll a lot thinner do this if you use a little Black Pepper to colour the rice it will look a lot more like a Cat’s nose – a sort of light brown colour.

Now slice one of the white rolls and the pink rolls in half and carefully place the half sheet of nori onto your Sushi mat lengthwise, as we will be rolling ‘sideways.’

Spread some white, orange and black rice onto the nori in the pattern shown in the picture above. Make sure that the width of the black and orange stripes is the same as those of the semicircle rolls you made above and of course the white stripe in the middle should also be the same width.

Place the two white semicircle rolls facing upwards onto the red and black lines. Fill the area between them with white rice and then place another layer of rice above this (obviously I didn’t put the layer of rice on in the picture above, so the nose ended up on the eyes).

Place the dark brown ‘nose’ roll in right in the centre of the layer of rice.

Place both of the pink semicircles on top of the ‘nose’ facing downwards as shown. Then put a layer of rice over and around that so that the middle bit is a bit like a round mountain of rice.

Roll up the sushi using the mat then slice it up with a very sharp knife. If you need to, give the sushi a bit of a ‘massage’ to get it into the right shape.

Cut thin strips of nori and place them on the Sushi to make whiskers.

Using the two small white rolls from before, cut each into the same thickness as the Cat Sushi for the ears. then place two ears on each Cat Sushi and “hey presto” as rabbit interfering Magicians say – you are done and you will either have a tasty mess or with any luck a plateful of Cat Sushi. Do think of me when you are eating the good looking ones won’t you!

A HANDY TIPS

1. – If you are having trouble making clean cuts of your Sushi try this little tip. Moisten your knife with a mixture of water and Vinegar.

2. – Always cut Sushi quickly with one stroke.

3. – Your life will be easier if you wipe any sticky stuff off your blade after every cut.

For the more ambition Sushi makers.

I thought that you might like to see what one of my dear cuddly readers gave me for lunch the other day – “mmh mmh” was all this writer of masterpieces of feline literature could say but then I have heard it is rude to talk with ones mouth full!

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I think I know why I have no idea what the human who made this sign was thinking about because I am a nice Cat and I was not only well brought up but I am also really rather innocent.

About the Author

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Cat kind, his sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or at Amazon.com or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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