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	<title>The Cat&#039;s Blog &#187; Cat</title>
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	<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com</link>
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		<title>Tiny People Aren&#8217;t Happy People &#8211; At The Moment!</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/09/02/tiny-people-arent-happy-people-at-the-moment/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/09/02/tiny-people-arent-happy-people-at-the-moment/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:01:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Art & Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cat World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Belsay Hall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bram Stoker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Woodcock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[My Translator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Northumberland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Slinkachu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tiny People]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Whitley Bay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Works of Art]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=462</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I read that some tiny works of art vanished from an exhibition in a garden of an English stately home, but this Cat wants to know what did the idiots expect pocket sized art and the public loose with pockets. Staff at the stately home are offering an amnesty to eagle-eyed visitors who appear to <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/09/02/tiny-people-arent-happy-people-at-the-moment/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I read that some tiny works of art vanished from an exhibition in a garden of an English stately home, but this Cat wants to know what did the idiots expect pocket sized art and the public loose with pockets.</p>
<p>Staff at the stately home are offering an amnesty to eagle-eyed visitors who appear to have spotted the tiny people and then removed all of the Lilliput-sized art exhibition from the mansion&#8217;s grounds.</p>
<p>Nine &#8220;tiny people&#8221; made from resin by the London street artist Slinkachu have disappeared from the gardens at Belsay Hall, in Northumberland, where they were part of a &#8220;deliberately curious&#8221; summer show and now they are not tee hee.</p>
<p>If you get a chance do visit Northhumberland on the north east coast of England, it&#8217;s very beautiful up there and reasonably empty even for over crowded England and of course it is famous for being a place where my translator (John Woodcock) lived after being born in Dracula country.</p>
<p>Dracula country being County Durham and in particular Whitley Bay, the home of the legend and where Bram Stoker spent a winter and came up with the whole Dracula idea when looking out over the grey sea and dark grey sky pressing down on it &#8211; I think har ha.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/tiny-people.jpg" alt="Tiny people.jpg" border="0" width="460" height="276" /></div>
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		<title>The 350 Year Old Diary</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/07/23/the-350-year-old-diary/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/07/23/the-350-year-old-diary/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:26:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Black Death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Englishman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fleet Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Great Fire of London]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[London]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[London sewer system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Moving House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[My Book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[My Diary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Presents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Samuel Pepys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Turd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cupp]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[king Charles II]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[350th Anniversary]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=433</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the most famous diaries in the world after mine is by a chap, who to me seems a bit pompous, called Samuel Pepys and this year it is exactly 350 years since it was started. The diary in question is Samuel Pepys&#8217; and was started on January 1st 1660 and carried on for <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/07/23/the-350-year-old-diary/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One of the most famous diaries in the world after mine is by a chap, who to me seems a bit pompous, called Samuel Pepys and this year it is exactly 350 years since it was started.</p>
<p>The diary in question is Samuel Pepys&#8217; and was started on January 1st 1660 and carried on for nine years which is a bit of a long time, but it is as interesting as it is heavy and has some priceless extracts some include watching the Great Fire of London in 1666, living through the Black Death a year or two before and some about his private life.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/samuel-pepys2.jpg" alt="Samuel Pepys2.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="469" /></div>
<p>The private moments in Pepys diary pain a rather unpleasant picture of the workings of London&#8217;s sewer system which was frankly non-existent.</p>
<p>Pepys moved into a new house and tells his readers what happened soon afterwards. </p>
<p>&#8220;Going down into my cellar I put my foot into a great heap of turds [from his neighbour's toilet]&#8230; which doth trouble me.&#8221;</p>
<p>Pepys was not usually a man to call a &#8220;turd&#8221; a &#8216;turd&#8217; because he was patronised heavily by king Charles II being appointed to the Navy office and  rose through the ranks to become a very influencial and powerful member of the upper class, not bad for a tailor&#8217;s son from Fleet Street.</p>
<p>One of the best bits of his diary proves that he is a real Englishman when he describes trying for the first time a drink newly arrived in England &#8211; Tea &#8211; and says that he enjoyed his &#8220;cupp&#8221; very much.</p>
<p>If you haven&#8217;t dipped into Samuel Pepys&#8217; diary I can hardly say that this Cat blames you it&#8217;s so big, but it is nice to think that diaries are so universally appreciated and that my diary will one day be 350 years old as well, I am sure that there will be a party to celebrate &#8211; I wonder what presents I will get? </p>
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		<title>Bare Skin &#8211; The Pitfalls</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/07/19/bare-skin-the-pitfalls/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/07/19/bare-skin-the-pitfalls/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:47:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fur]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Judge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sun Tan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tattoo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tattoos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Awesome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bare Skin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[god]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=425</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You humans are lucky because you aren&#8217;t, in the main, covered in fur. All of which means that you can do some really cool things like get a tan, impress the opposite sex with your bodies, if they are impressive and all sorts of wonderful things, on the other paw you can do some really <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/07/19/bare-skin-the-pitfalls/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You humans are lucky because you aren&#8217;t, in the main, covered in fur. All of which means that you can do some really cool things like get a tan, impress the opposite sex with your bodies, if they are impressive and all sorts of wonderful things, on the other paw you can do some really awful things with your skin like sweat all over, pierce it in some really painful places and worst of all get Tattoos.</p>
<p>But there is something so much worst than a Tattoo on a human male or female and that is a misspelt one. Imagine having to live with a Tattoo that instead of claiming you are awesome suggests that you are &#8220;awsome&#8221; and worse the type face you chose to become &#8220;awsome&#8221; was very old and so when someone read your back quickly they might believe you are suggesting you are &#8220;amsome&#8221; whatever that might be?</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/tatoo-2.jpg" alt="Tatoo 2.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="262" /></div>
<p>You would think that getting a Tattoo would be something that you would plan very, very carefully and if the Tattoo involved words then you would write them out and check the spelling very, very carefully after all if you are going to go through the pain, trouble and expense of having ink injected into your skin then you will want to make sure that people don&#8217;t judge you by your Tattoo surely. </p>
<p>Then again if you are not so diligent you may just hope that only God judges you, like the person in the next picture, and then you will have to hope that God&#8217;s spelling is as dreadful as yours and your Tattoo artist&#8217;s as he will have to poor thing.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/tatoo-1.jpg" alt="Tatoo 1.jpg" border="0" width="299" height="303" /></div>
<p>You humans never cease to amaze this Cat and I would like to thank you all on behalf of all of the Cat&#8217;s in the world for giving us such a lot to laugh at so very often &#8211; you are all awesome.</p>
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		<title>When Charity Goes Absolutely Bonkers!</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/24/when-charity-goes-absolutely-bonkers/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/24/when-charity-goes-absolutely-bonkers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:37:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cat Treat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Charity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian Aid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clever Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feline Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greenpeace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[www.thecatsdiary.com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty International]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cat treats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oxfam]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=402</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Recently a 77 year old widow who lives in Norfolk a rural, tranquil backwater of England decided that she couldn&#8217;t live without a Cat, a very sensible view in my opinion, and so Mrs. Margaret Baker contacted a charity called Feline Care to see if she could adopt a Cat. Mrs. Baker then went along <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/24/when-charity-goes-absolutely-bonkers/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Recently a 77 year old widow who lives in Norfolk a rural, tranquil backwater of England decided that she couldn&#8217;t live without a Cat, a very sensible view in my opinion, and so Mrs. Margaret Baker contacted a charity called Feline Care to see if she could adopt a Cat.</p>
<p>Mrs. Baker then went along to the charity&#8217;s Cat sanctuary and fell in love with a Bengal Cat called Lilly, it was about then that the charity&#8217;s cold hearted madness began.</p>
<p>First the charity said that they would have to &#8216;vet&#8217; Mrs. Baker, which I suppose is reasonable. Of course Mrs. Baker agreed because she dearly wanted Lilly as a companion, because her husband Ted had recently died, but frankly the word &#8216;vetting&#8217; sends a chill up my spine because I remember being &#8216;vetted&#8217; and I still think to this day that I lost something in the &#8216;vetting&#8217; process. I just hope that Mrs. Baker&#8217;s &#8216;vetting&#8217; was a newer different type of &#8216;vetting.</p>
<p>After &#8216;vetting&#8217; Mrs. Baker the charity called her with the rather bad news that in their opinion she lived in the wrong postcode area (post codes are like zip codes) and so she couldn&#8217;t have a cat. <a href="http://www.felinecare.org.uk" target="_blank">Feline Care</a> apparently turned down Mrs. Baker&#8217;s application because her home of 38 years on Abbey Estate in Thetford, Norfolk (pictured below), was deemed by them to be in too rough an area for a Cat, they didn&#8217;t mention whether it was dangerous for pensioners in their &#8216;esteemed&#8217; opinion.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/abbey-estate.jpg" alt="Abbey Estate.jpg" border="0" width="250" height="187" /></div>
<p>Mrs Baker was rightly absolutely speechless and said:</p>
<p>&#8220;I was numb then I put the phone down and just burst into tears.&#8221;</p>
<p>In their defence <a href="http://www.felinecare.org.uk" target="_blank">Feline Care</a> said that they had heard of reports of Dogs attacking Cats in the area but didn&#8217;t seem to have the supporting documentation to hand. Since this terrible disappointment Mrs. Baker has adopted a British Grey Cat called Smokey, who is a rather good looking Cat in this Cat&#8217;s opinion, because life didn&#8217;t seem to have much of a point anymore.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/catpensioner.jpg" alt="Cat&amp;Pensioner.jpg" border="0" width="247" height="259" /></div>
<p>Mrs. Baker said: &#8220;When I went out I realised that when I came back home I hated it. There was nothing to come back to. You could say that my husband Ted and I were joined at the hip and we did everything together.&#8221;</p>
<p>Smokey sounds as though he will be the perfect partner for Mrs. Baker because he is obviously a house Cat and therefore won&#8217;t be worried about Dogs who chase Cats and not knowing where the closest tree is.</p>
<p>With the last words on the subject Mrs. Baker said:</p>
<p>&#8220;Now I&#8217;ve got Smokey I don&#8217;t mind coming home any more.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>The Cat&#8217;s thoughts!</strong></p>
<p>So did <a href="http://www.felinecare.org.uk" target="_blank">Feline Care</a> get it right? Well as you can see from the picture above of the Abbey Estate it doesn&#8217;t look much like anywhere else in rundown, redundant Britain and sadly the Abbey Estate and its inhabitants have probably seem the &#8216;best&#8217; times that they will have because of the economic mess Britain is in.</p>
<p>Is the estate only fit for humans and Dogs and not Cats as you can see in the picture the speed limit if it is enforced would be helpful, there are trees and some grass and on balance it looks ok and although choosey, this Cat believes that he could live there as obviously so does Smokey who already seems at home on Mrs. Baker&#8217;s armchair, though I have a feeling that Smokey really wishes Mrs. Baker would move so he could stretch out in the chair.</p>
<p>Smokey does has that &#8216;stoaty&#8217; look that Cat&#8217;s have when they want something and the chair is a no brainer, better still he is rejecting the Cat treat Mrs. Baker is offering him, on the spoon in her right hand, a clear indication that he gets a good few Cat treats.</p>
<p>Yes this Cat believes that Smokey is truly at home on the Abbey Estate in the wonderful care of Mrs. Baker and is better off for it, let&#8217;s face the hard reality as a stray Cat he has a 70% chance that he would not survive on any street anywhere for more than a week or so and the figures are worse in places the undeveloped world like India and don&#8217;t forget he could become a dinner course in China.</p>
<p>Of course this Cat understands that charities such as <a href="http://www.felinecare.org.uk" target="_blank">Feline Care</a> have to protect the Cats that they rehouse and indeed have an obligation to the good people who support them financially, but a lot of Cats are what is known in Catty circles as &#8216;home Cats&#8217; they tend to not want to go out and are really happy to be indoors on a convenient lap or stretched out above a radiator in the Winter.</p>
<p>Surely <a href="http://www.felinecare.org.uk" target="_blank">Feline Care</a> have Cats like these to offer pensioners who themselves a bit like home birds? Well that is what this clever Cat thinks although of course this Cat is definitely an outdoor Cat of the world as you all know from my wonderful book available at places such as <a title="My book at Amazon.com" href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Out-Excerpts-Cats-Diary/dp/1441445609" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a> and my wickedly wonderful website or www <a href="http://www.thecatsdiary.com" target="_blank">www.thecatsdiary.com</a></p>
<p>In my considered opinion you should really think hard and long about giving money to any charities because firstly not much of your hard earned cash actually goes to doing what they say they are going to be doing, especially the big global charities like <a href="http://www.oxfam.org" target="_blank">Oxfam</a>, <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international" target="_blank">Greenpeace</a>, <a href="http://www.christianaid.org" target="_blank">Christian Aid</a>, <a href="http://www.amnesty.org" target="_blank">Amnesty International</a> or indeed the much smaller though no less bossy and opinionated charities like <a href="http://www.felinecare.org.uk" target="_blank">Feline Care</a>.</p>
<p>To be brutally honest charities actually do very little good with the money that you entrust to them because they have large prestigious offices to maintain in so many different countries, CEO&#8217;s on extremely generous salary and benefit packages, vast numbers of staff and worse they are increasingly connected to governments and not adverse in lecturing you and I, the common or garden people and Cats, on what we should be doing with our lives and that isn&#8217;t right is it?</p>
<p>But by far and away worst of all charities not only have a significant contributions from the public they are constantly given enormous amounts of money by governments, <a href="http://www.un.org" target="_blank">UN</a> and other funds to spend but still they ask for more and more.</p>
<p>Whatever you do when the charities show the next humbling picture of poverty, neglect or heart wrenching torment don&#8217;t forget the last crises in Africa was manufactured by them just to get the general public to drop money in their tins. Maybe it is time charities became a lot more accountable in every way!</p>
<p>Still after all is said and done and the hot air has settled this Cat hopes that Mrs. Baker and Smokey are happy together, there are too many lonely people in the world to say nothing of the number of Cats without a home! </p>
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		<title>Millie Makes Me Proud To Be A Cat</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/08/millie-makes-me-proud-to-be-a-cat/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/08/millie-makes-me-proud-to-be-a-cat/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:49:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=392</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Recent reports that a Cat called Millie who was allegedly &#8216;stuck&#8217; in a tree, after being chased up it by another Cat, have come to this Cat&#8217;s attention and of course I would like to not only report Millie&#8217;s heroism but also confer her true story to the masses of readers who catch my blog <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/08/millie-makes-me-proud-to-be-a-cat/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Recent reports that a Cat called Millie who was allegedly &#8216;stuck&#8217; in a tree, after being chased up it by another Cat, have come to this Cat&#8217;s attention and of course I would like to not only report Millie&#8217;s heroism but also confer her true story to the masses of readers who catch my blog now and again in the hope that the story of this brave and justifiable annoyed Cat will give an insight into the mind of a Cat.</p>
<p>An insight that appears to be sadly lacking in most humans this Cat has to say, especially to those in the rescue services and the ambulance chasing media who rush to this sort of &#8216;event&#8217; and in doing so; firstly create the &#8216;event&#8217; to fill their tawdry newspapers and tv bulletins and secondly cause considerable embarrassment to an innocent Cat who is carefully minding his or her own business from very high up.</p>
<p>I have to say that I have found a Cat after my own heart! In fact more than that I think I have found a Cat who has been reading my blog and of course my wonderful masterpiece of Feline literature &#8220;Getting Out Excerpts from a Cat&#8217;s Diary&#8221; available at all good bookshops and at a place called <a title="My book at Amazon.com" href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Out-Excerpts-Cats-Diary/dp/1441445609" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a> which, as I say a little too often, you may have heard of because <a title="My book at Amazon.com" href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Out-Excerpts-Cats-Diary/dp/1441445609" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a> are nearly as famous as yours very truly. </p>
<p>In my wonderful book and indeed on my award winning and peerless blog I explain the annoyance that a Cat suffers when humans think it is stuck up a tree when in fact it is perfectly happy to simply take in the view. Sorry I had to laugh then I used the words human and think in the same sentence &#8211; I knew I could do it one day if I tried really hard</p>
<p>Still enough of the blatant and hard nosed advertising and plugging of my wonderful book, although vast summer sales are very important if I am to stay on top of the bestseller lists for a long time (unsubtle hint hint).</p>
<p>I think that it is true to say that Millie the Cat is obviously an avid reader of fine literature &#8211; no Dan Brown books on her shelves I bet. Millie obviously had been reading my wonderful blog and book and thought that she would give tree climbing a bit of a go and gosh did Millie have a go! Not only managing, with a little help from a cast list of various and assorted humans who I will deal with as they appear but also by rewarding her eventual &#8216;rescuers&#8217; with a lot of swear word evoking deep scratches. </p>
<p>I use the word &#8216;rescuers&#8217; in inverted commas because as usual with any &#8220;Cat Stuck Up A Tree&#8221; story there is no hard evidence that the Cat in question who is up the aforementioned tree actually requires any &#8216;rescuing&#8217; or indeed any form of outside &#8216;assistance,&#8217; in any shape or form.</p>
<p>It seems as though Millie, a rather good looking Cat who looks a lot like me with Silver, Tabby and White fur and in her case the addition of some Tortoiseshell colouring on her back, was taking in the view of the neighbourhood from 40 feet, or 12 metres if you are of the metric persuasion, above ground in a conveniently tall tree and had been keeping this vigil for a few days, around five to be precise when her &#8216;owner,&#8217; and of course I use that word loosely, decided that she was in fact stuck up the tree she was in.</p>
<p>Humans should stop for a moment before they start to panic and jump to conclusions such as &#8220;that Cat is stuck up the tree because she or he hasn&#8217;t been down it for five days!&#8221; </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Well I would have thought &#8216;that&#8217; was obvious derr! Millie like most Cats who climb trees to take in the view and to feel the branches making their whiskers twitch to say nothing of feeling the wind ruffle their fur, usually climb down for food and a comfort break or two at night when it is nice and quiet and the humans in the neighbourhood are mostly asleep or rather drunk and unsteadily wandering the streets too lost to notice or care about a Cat having a err, comfort break in the front garden. </p>
<p>I am pretty sure that Millie was doing exactly that on the day when her human decided to panic and set in motion a procession of calamitous errors of judgements, actions and more and why did he wait for five days? Why not two or three, or seven why five days, it is bizarre!</p>
<p>The first thing Millie&#8217;s human did was to disturb the Fire Brigade. Why do they do that humans? Firemen have probably the most important job in the world, they save people from very dangerous things like err fire and shouldn&#8217;t be called to retrieve a Cat from a tree, especially when a Cat doesn&#8217;t want to be retrieved in the first place.</p>
<p>In this case it would seem that the Fire Brigade were not too happy about the emergency call and worse still they were unable to put their ladders up against Millie&#8217;s wonderfully tall tree because the ground wasn&#8217;t safe, which just goes to show that Millie had chosen her tree very wisely for her period of private contemplation and obviously didn&#8217;t want to be disturbed.</p>
<p>The Firemen decided to try something &#8216;different&#8217; and rather uncharacteristically for Firemen turned their hose on her apparently to &#8216;encourage&#8217; her to come down from the tree and presumably to shut her panicking &#8216;owner&#8217; up.</p>
<p>So a soggy Millie did what any sensible drenched Cat would do in the circumstances and climbed higher up the tree to get out of the range of the hose, clever Cat! I wonder how many humans would think of that one.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the &#8216;rescuers&#8217; (and by now several hundred by-standers, gwapers and of course a number of media representatives) the hose trick had not saved Millie, unfortunately for Millie, her &#8216;owner&#8217; and advisers had several more hair-brained rescue schemes in reserve and through the day carried them out not even stopping for sandwiches at lunchtime. </p>
<p>Next on the scene for an interview, with the media and an in-depth face to face with the BBC News cameras and then a rescue attempt were the &#8216;RSPCA.&#8217;</p>
<p>RSPCA is short for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, of course any organisation with the word &#8216;royal&#8217; in the title is going to be a bit useless and although the RSPCA spokesperson gave a very good interview to camera they couldn&#8217;t really do much because the ground around the tree was flooded courtesy of a number of disgruntled Firemen and to most watching seemed to give in a little early.</p>
<p>Just as all hope of a &#8216;rescue&#8217; picture exclusive was beginning to fade Millie&#8217;s owner and the assembled crowd of well wishers, idlers and hangers-on had yet another cracking idea. They would order up some scaffolding. Not presumably for a public execution because this was Barnsley in Yorkshire and not downtown Tehran and as a consequence of the geography thankfully public executions had been outlawed a long while ago.</p>
<p>The scaffold arrived on the back of a truck with two scaffolders, who after they had managed to clear a space in the enormous crowd, very quickly used all of the poles they had brought to surround the tree and Millie. Unfortunately the scaffolding wasn&#8217;t tall enough for the brave scaffolders to hear Millie spitting at then clearly when they were at the top, in short the scaffolding tower surrounding the tree was too short.</p>
<p>It was probably now as the crowd started to lose interest and shout things like &#8220;shake the tree!&#8221; &#8220;Throw your shoe at the Cat!&#8221; that the scaffolders decided to take matters and of course their lives into their own hands and instead of going back for more scaffolding they decided to climb the to the uppermost parts of the trees.</p>
<p>These parts of trees are also known as the flimsiest. They are in fact so insubstantial that if a tree was subject to the laws of the land related to say construction they would have to have a sign clearly displayed saying &#8220;These branches will not support the weight of a human not even a child.&#8221; Or something like that! But they didn&#8217;t and it is probably pointless to ask if the scaffolders would have heeded such a sign anyway, scaffolders being who they are!</p>
<p>It would seem that the tree climbing went rather well and slowly but surely the scaffolders managed to get onto the same level as their quarry although it is clear to see from the picture below that their &#8216;quarry&#8217; was not exactly overjoyed to have the company of two burly scaffolders in her bit of the tree, and worse she had now started to run out of tree.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/1st.png" alt="1st.png" border="0" width="440" height="227" /></div>
<p>To her credit Millie had managed to scratch and bite both scaffolders severely in no time at all, it has to be said here that the scaffolders really only had themselves to blame as they weren&#8217;t wearing any protective clothing.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/2nd.png" alt="2nd.png" border="0" width="437" height="231" /></div>
<p>Millie bravely put up a considerable fight against very unequal odds all the way down the tree as she struggled to stay up it and the scaffolders struggled to bring her down it.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/3rd.png" alt="3rd.png" border="0" width="443" height="229" /></div>
<p>By the time Millie was reunited with her human (in the blue shirt covered in err urine &#8211; well she was still scared in her defence) she had happily drawn a lot of blood and though boggled eyed from the struggle cooly ignored the cameras, interviewers and the crowds whoops of joy that she was back on terra firma.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/4th.png" alt="4th.png" border="0" width="400" height="227" /></div>
<p>Of course this story is not new it is the age old story of a Cat stuck up a tree and as it is being eventually rescued it mauls the rescuers and if you humans don&#8217;t want to hear it repeated time and again you have to do something yourselves.</p>
<p>Next time you see a Cat minding its own business up a tree, no matter how high it happens to be up that tree, before you call out the Fire Brigade, the Army, the Police, Scaffolders, Helicopter Rescue and any other Fred, Ned or Ted please ask yourself this simple question first.</p>
<p>Does that Cat need rescuing or is it simply enjoying the view?</p>
<p>And then before you cause a media event involving the Fire Brigade and any number of other rescue services just ask yourself this simple question! </p>
<p>If Cats actually do get stuck up trees and can&#8217;t get down why is it that we don&#8217;t see a lot of Cats that suffered the ultimate price for their, as human&#8217;s would put it &#8216;stupidity?&#8217;</p>
<p>The answer is rather simple and one day I expect it to occur to a human &#8211; very few, if any, Cats get stuck in trees and if they do then they are only temporarily stuck!</p>
<p>Of course there is always &#8216;one&#8217; in the crowd, there will always be the &#8216;odd&#8217; Cat, and I would emphasise the word &#8216;odd&#8217; here, who gets stuck in a tree and can&#8217;t get down but they are the exception to the rule and even they are not stuck as a rule if you see what I mean.</p>
<p>What humans should be on the look out for is Cats who get stuck in places that have doors, where some idiot human tidily closes the door after a curious Cat has slunk in to investigate a new and probably dark place.</p>
<p>I have to say here that some of my best friends, yes including the half brained Ginger have been stuck on occasions but they tend to be stuck between floors in blocks of flats or in Ginger&#8217;s case in the down section of a drainpipe, no I don&#8217;t know why the clown crawled into a drainpipe backwards either! Although he says it was so he would be the right way round and therefore able to peep out of the drainpipe, which you have to admit has a strange kind of logic doesn&#8217;t it?</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/ginger-in-a-drainpipe.jpg" alt="Ginger in a Drainpipe.jpg" border="0" width="82" height="128" /></div>
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		<title>The Resilience Of Donkeys</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/07/the-resilience-of-donkeys/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/07/the-resilience-of-donkeys/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:02:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=390</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So here is a little story I came across that happily has nothing to do with palestine, pollution, politics or the pesky royals, although I have to say that the Donkey in the story looks a lot like most of the female members of the house of Windsor, especially fat Fergie&#8217;s brood, and the really <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/06/07/the-resilience-of-donkeys/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So here is a little story I came across that happily has nothing to do with palestine, pollution, politics or the pesky royals, although I have to say that the Donkey in the story looks a lot like most of the female members of the house of Windsor, especially fat Fergie&#8217;s brood, and the really &#8216;harrowingly beautiful&#8217; princess Anne and below is a picture of the Donkey likeness in question.</p>
<p>Please remember when you look at the pictures that the Donkey is the animal in distress in the Well and the princess is the animal in de dress.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/donkey-in-well.jpg" alt="donkey-in-well.jpg" border="0" width="515" height="362" /></div>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/princess-royal-official-port.jpg" alt="PRINCESS ROYAL OFFICIAL PORT.JPG" border="0" width="405" height="382" /></div>
<p>So why was the princess in the dress? Well that is simple this was a royal official picture, sorry &#8220;portrait&#8221; taken about 90 years ago and still used today.</p>
<p>More interestingly the Donkey was in the Well because the poor animal fell in! Sadly that wasn&#8217;t the end of the Donkey&#8217;s trials and tribulations because the farmer decided that the Donkey and the Well were both surplus to his long term agricultural requirements (and in that the Donkey had a lot in common with the &#8216;fair&#8217; princess and the rest of the royals), so he decided to fill in the Well and in doing so bury the Donkey alive.</p>
<p>Obviously that could be considered a little harsh but let&#8217;s face it farmers are, in the main, bastards and so this sort of behaviour is quite in character.</p>
<p>Well, the Donkey in the Well proved to be a credit to his stubborn and resilient race and as the farmer shovelled more and more earth into the Well (and of course over the Donkey) the Donkey just shook the earth off his back, sending the shovelfuls to the floor of the Well, then he stood on top of the earth that had fallen. And he kept doing that until he was able to climb out of the Well, kick the farmer and live a totally unfruitful life being too old to work and happily became a significant burden on the farmer, who couldn&#8217;t get rid of the Donkey because his time in the Well made him famous and modern society says that you mustn&#8217;t kill minor celebrities even on your own farm.</p>
<p>There is of course a moral for all of us here and that is to simply shake off everything that is thrown at us and then trample it under foot.</p>
<p>So The Cat says good on you Mr. Donkey! Sadly I don&#8217;t know his or indeed her name but if he or she were this Cat&#8217;s Donkey I would call him &#8216;Rex&#8217; which I believe is a fine name and shouldn&#8217;t simply be confined for use on Dogs and Kings and should be used more often, especially on Donkeys. </p>
<p>Tomorrow I hope to bring you a great story about a Cat called Milly who is without a doubt a Cat after my own heart, till then dear reader Purrs and Noses.</p>
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		<title>I Might Have Just Been A Tiny Bit Wrong!</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/05/19/i-might-have-just-been-a-tiny-bit-wrong/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/05/19/i-might-have-just-been-a-tiny-bit-wrong/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 07:14:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Czech Republic]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=384</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Please sit down and be prepared for a shock. It seems that I may have been just a tiny bit wrong about the flooding in the Czech republic yesterday and that is because the Czech republic is flooded, but not my bit of it, up here in the Eagles nest as it were. So just <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/05/19/i-might-have-just-been-a-tiny-bit-wrong/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Please sit down and be prepared for a shock. It seems that I may have been just a tiny bit wrong about the flooding in the Czech republic yesterday and that is because the Czech republic is flooded, but not my bit of it, up here in the Eagles nest as it were.</p>
<p>So just to prove that no Cat is perfect here is a picture of the &#8216;devastation,&#8217; I use the emphasis because I have yet to see any devastation personally and can&#8217;t find any photographs of the &#8216;event.&#8217;</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/terezin2.jpg" alt="terezin2.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="324" /></div>
<p>I did hear that there is a town up near the border with the old west that is cut off and they were evacuating people but really doesn&#8217;t anyone remember 2002 when the Metro in Prague was full of water and some areas were 20 feet under it, I have no sympathy with anyone who didn&#8217;t take that as a warning and move to higher ground like the place I live in there would really have to be a flood of Noah proportions to get water to lap at my threshold.</p>
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		<title>Cat Got Your Tongue?</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/05/18/cat-got-your-tongue/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/05/18/cat-got-your-tongue/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 May 2010 08:09:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Has the Cat got your tongue?&#8221; Is like all of those humans expressions about Cats it casts Cats in the role of villain and quite frankly not at all nice. Why is it that Cats have such a bad reputation when it comes to old sayings or expressions? It is something I have puzzled about <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/05/18/cat-got-your-tongue/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Has the Cat got your tongue?&#8221; Is like all of those humans expressions about Cats it casts Cats in the role of villain and quite frankly not at all nice.</p>
<p>Why is it that Cats have such a bad reputation when it comes to old sayings or expressions? It is something I have puzzled about when sitting very comfortably and warmly on various human laps and knees recently as apparently the flood water in Central Europe gets deeper and Poland, Hungary and the Czech republic start to drown, but back to that later.</p>
<p>Honestly I have no idea why Cats have such a bad reputation and would be interested to hear from any reader why they think it is the case! Apart, of course, from the reader who asked me why I hadn&#8217;t written a blog for a few days and they, in turn, hadn&#8217;t had anything funny to read.</p>
<p>Well I replied to them that they really ought to read my book of course book which anyone can easily get here at <a title="My book at Amazon.com" href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Out-Excerpts-Cats-Diary/dp/1441445609" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a> as if you all need reminding tee hee, and I also let them into a bit of a secret and that is that everyone will soon be able to read my wonderful book on a Sony eReader because those nice people at Sony and this wonderful Cat are going to start &#8216;bundling&#8217; my amazing ebook with their cute eReader so that you can all buy them as a set if you see what I mean &#8211; do contact me for details.</p>
<p>Still the note from my fan did make me think about the phrase &#8220;Has the Cat got your tongue?&#8221; though, and I thought that I would share those thoughts with you below.</p>
<p>1.	What would a Cat do with your tongue or indeed anyone else&#8217;s tongue &#8211; make a tongue necklace? I hardly<br />
	think so!<br />
2.	Where would we keep all of the tongues we collect? We don&#8217;t have pockets you know, or if we do I have 	never found mine!<br />
3.	Old sayings are as mental as the people who use them.<br />
3.	Couldn&#8217;t really think of a third point.<br />
3.	I think I am a little confused with the numbering system here and anyway I am getting bored with this<br />
	list.<br />
4.	Dropped off for a while until I was woken up by someone standing up and me falling on my feet (of 	course).<br />
5.	Why do humans stand up unexpectedly when a warm Cat is comfortably asleep on their lap?<br />
6.	I may have lost my train of thought and veered off the subject I was thinking about!<br />
7.	What was the subject?<br />
8.	What am I doing here.<br />
9.	Does existentialism have any relevance to the modern feline.<br />
10	My head hurts!</p>
<p>It is so unlikely that a Cat and this cat in particular would want to steal a human tongue that I had to commission an artist to show a Cat stealing a tongue.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/cat-stealing-tongue.png" alt="Cat Stealing Tongue.png" border="0" width="500" height="375" /></div>
<p>Artist&#8217;s impression of Cat lulling human to sleep before stealing tongue.</p>
<p>One last thing before I go off to find a lap and have a well deserved sleep. The weather here has been pretty terrible recently &#8216;but&#8217; and it is a very big but just as the idea that Cat&#8217;s collect tongues is a myth so is the &#8216;fact&#8217; reported by the BBC News that the Czech republic, Poland and Hungary are flooded &#8211; they aren&#8217;t I promise you, so please stop if you were reaching for the inflatable life raft catalogue and wondering if they deliver to Prague. Prague and the surrounding countryside is as dry as a bone, or it was a couple of days ago when I flew over it on my way back from Moscow &#8211; the Russian bless them are buying my book now.</p>
<p>Not only that currently I am looking out over Prague from the largest film studios in Europe on a hill above Prague where I can see for miles or kilometres as they say here and I can&#8217;t see a drop of water that isn&#8217;t in the place it should be ie., the Vltava river which flows, usually in an orderly fashion, through Prague and then down to Slovakia where it is given a new name and eventually ends up in the sea somewhere.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/floods.png" alt="Floods.png" border="0" width="512" height="336" /></div>
<p>Artist&#8217;s impression of BBC news imaginary flood water.</p>
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		<title>I Am A Polite Cat &#8211; I Promise</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/03/26/i-am-a-polite-cat-i-promise/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/03/26/i-am-a-polite-cat-i-promise/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:02:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cat]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=337</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I got a fan email the other day and after I replied wondered why I was labelled as &#8220;rude!&#8221; The fan email I received was amazingly brief and I thought I would acknowledge that fact. Here let me show you what the correspondent said and what my reply was and let you my wonderful fans <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/03/26/i-am-a-polite-cat-i-promise/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I got a fan email the other day and after I replied wondered why I was labelled as &#8220;rude!&#8221;</p>
<p>The fan email I received was amazingly brief and I thought I would acknowledge that fact. Here let me show you what the correspondent said and what my reply was and let you my wonderful fans decide if I am not as polite a Cat as I though I was and therefore if I am not entirely rude that I am on the borders of being rude.</p>
<p><strong>The fan wrote &#8211; &#8220;Just wanted to say hi!&#8221;</p>
<p>I answered &#8211; &#8220;Well thank you very much, I look forward to your next sentence with bated breath har ha.&#8221;</strong></p>
<p>Now I don&#8217;t think that was rude do you, but then one Cat&#8217;s humour is another Cat&#8217;s rudeness I suppose.</p>
<p>The picture? Well I thought we should have something different today, they say a &#8220;change is as good as a rest&#8221; don&#8217;t they! Not only that this will really annoy Dave the Cat who thought that all of the copies of this picture had been destroyed hee hee!</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/dave-the-cat.jpg" alt="Dave the Cat.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="300" /></div>
<p>So this is a picture of my friend Dave the Cat, doing his impression (or so he says) of The Cat in the Hat &#8211; impressed? I wasn&#8217;t!</p>
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		<title>No Bodies In The Bin Today</title>
		<link>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/03/25/no-bodies-in-the-bin-today/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/03/25/no-bodies-in-the-bin-today/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:22:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The Cat</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/?p=335</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Happily there weren&#8217;t any bodies in the bins today (see yesterday&#8217;s post for more gruesome details) just lots of sun shining out over Prague. Looking out of the window today you could actually see silvery traces of spider&#8217;s webs trailing down to the Spruce trees (the original Christmas trees). Spruce trees are interesting because before <a href='http://blog.thecatsdiary.com/2010/03/25/no-bodies-in-the-bin-today/'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happily there weren&#8217;t any bodies in the bins today (see yesterday&#8217;s post for more gruesome details) just lots of sun shining out over Prague. Looking out of the window today you could actually see silvery traces of spider&#8217;s webs trailing down to the Spruce trees (the original Christmas trees).</p>
<p>Spruce trees are interesting because before hops was used to add flavour to beer they used to use the young shoots of the Spruce tree and it gives a very aromatic flavour apparently &#8211; there don&#8217;t say you don&#8217;t learn anything while reading this Cat&#8217;s blog, not that beer is of particular interest to this or other Cats I have to say which just goes to show hoe &#8216;giving&#8217; I am just like Bono &#8211; the climate clown.</p>
<p>Speaking of Bono and climate clowns, I have to say sadly that when I looked out of the window today I did see a bluish grey haze which I imagine is pollution, not a good sign.</p>
<p>But in the defence of the cloud of pollution it was a sort of lyrical hazy blue pollution cloud and not the same as the one that sweats over London, is a sort of sulphurous yellow and is intent on giving children asthma and cutting up to nine years off the life span of the residents.</p>
<p>Did you see that the UK is going to be fined for the over pollution of their bit of planet, the problem is Bus and Taxi exhaust &#8211; well they got rid of the cars in London. </p>
<p>Don&#8217;t you agree that it is a shame that no one fines India and China as well because they can teach the world a thing or two about pollution, if nothing else.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://thecatatthecatsdiarydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/ganges-pollution.jpg" alt="Ganges pollution.jpg" border="0" width="370" height="259" /></div>
<p>Above is a picture of the pollution (on a good day &#8211; there are no floating dead cows/humans) at India&#8217;s most sacred river, the Ganges, goodness knows what the not so sacred rivers look like or are full of!</p>
<p>Well this didn&#8217;t turn out to be a very funny blog which is a shame I like to make my readers smile a little even if they don&#8217;t laugh out loud, which by the way is never a good thing to do in public especially if you are alone because people around you will think that you are a little mad.</p>
<p>Tomorrow I plan to add a blog that will make you laugh and so I will not look out of the window before I write it I promise and hopefully then I won&#8217;t be tempted to get on to the subject of pollution.</p>
<p>So tomorrow I think we should talk about fish, yes what fun, we haven&#8217;t talked about fish for a long time have we?</p>
<p>By the way does anyone know what U2&#8242;s &#8216;Bono the Climate Clown&#8217;s&#8217; real name is? I bet it is Jeff but spelt Geoff don&#8217;t you? Do let me know if you know what his real name is and indeed if you like U2, not that I care of course I just like to hear from my readers. </p>
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