A naff Pageant?

 Cat's World  No Responses »
Apr 292013
 

The English like to think that they have some of the best history in the world and that alone should be enough to entice loads of tourists to spend far too much money visiting what is essentially a rather tatty run down country full of some of the poorest people in Europe.

One of the ‘treasures’ of England is the Royal family which comprise some of the wealthiest people in Europe who occasionally are persuades to perform for the tourists and their supporters. These performances take the form of ‘events’ and are spread through the year so that attending doesn’t interfere with the Royal family’s holiday arrangements.

Transport for London likes a good Pageant

On odd occasions there is a big costly event arranged to mark an anniversary, these expensive ‘events’ are paid for by the overburdened taxpayer, the most recent was the queen’s diamond jubilee, in days gone by when the royal family meant something to the majority of the English population these events had some point now even the authorities are less than enthusiastic because of the problems caused to traffic flow and a Pageant becomes a “Padgent” whatever that is! Funny how transport for London managed to spell “NO STOPPING” correctly!

About the Author

The Cat Portrait2

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.”

I would like to tell you all about something new and rather nice that you can get from the Apple iBooks store at last, yes it’s my wonderful first book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ so what are you waiting for you lovely Apple users?

French to English, English to Gibberish

 Cat World  No Responses »
Jan 292013
 

Translation is a difficult art and it is very easy to make all sorts of stupid mistakes even if you are the best translator in the world and an expert in both of the languages that you might be having a go at.

As you will know if you read my blogs I rather like the other type of translations, the one that demonstrates that a little knowledge is incredibly dangerous, the type of translation that doesn’t have any noticeable stupid mistakes in it, because the entire translation from start to finish is a stupid mistake.

Here for all of my lovely cuddly readers is a real classic which appears to have been translated from French to English and then from English to pure Gibberish, well done I say!

French to English English to Gibberish


Don’t forget dear cuddly readers one and all that my translator’s heavily illustrated book has just been made available at the iBookstore or iTunes – what was it with Steve Jobs and all of the ‘i’s'?

To get whizzed straight to the store whatever it’s called just click on the picture of the cover of that wonderful book below.

Trams of Prague ePub Cover 2 1 13 225x225 75


About the Author

The Cat Portrait2

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.”

I would like to tell you all about something new and rather nice that you can get from the Apple iBooks store, no not ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book you have been able to get that for ages, no something else rather wonderful. You can get John Woodcock’s brilliantly illustrated book the first in the series called ‘The Trams of Prague’

This heavily illustrated books created especially for iPads, Pods and Phones called Tram No 6 is the Naughtiest of Trams and it looks amazing.

If you would like to get this exceptional book the easy way, just click on this link:
Trams of Prague – Tram No6 is the Naughtiest of Trams

Please explain this sign

 Cat World  No Responses »
Sep 072012
 

Picture this, an English summer, a busybody or two organise a Fête, they book the vicar to open it when the local born TV celebrity backs out. Then someone steals the Tom bola prizes, but the Brits all pull together and a reasonable time is had by all on the day.

When the organising committee are working so hard sadly some things can get overlooked and somethings taken literally, like say for instance the wording in some signs.

Please explain

Oh dear granny!


About the Author

The Cat Portrait2

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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It’s hot are you thirsty? Read she sign. Bet you aren’t now!

 Cat World  No Responses »
May 282012
 

Pocari Sweat or as they say in Japan ポカリスエット Pokari Suetto is a great name for a soft drink isn’t it? I am surprised that the good folk at Red Bull didn’t snap that one up aren’t you then we could have the Pocari Sweat racing teams competing in all sorts of ‘fast’ events where a lot of err… sweating is done.

Thirsty Read The Sign Bet You Aren t Now Japan

Seriously though, would you, even if you were hot and um… sweaty drink a bottle of the stuff even if it was straight from the fridge?

I am sure like me you are asking yourselves, my dear cuddly readers why the Japanese like the idea of drinking ‘sweat’ well (sadly) there’s a perfectly reasonable answer – and that is that the Japanese, bless them, in the main don’t actually mentally translate names that appear in English on product labels and so they aren’t bothered by what that name might mean in English, that’s a pity because that reasonable explanation takes some of the fun out of the idea of millions of hot Japanese people reaching for a can or bottle of ‘sweat’ to cool themselves down doesn’t it!

Oh I nearly forgot apparently, according to the manufacturers, the word ‘Pocari’ doesn’t have a meaning it is, wait for it, according to the clever marketeers – a light, bright sound.

Well I don’t know about you but when the Cat says Pocari it doesn’t really sound light or bright to me and if it did the attachment of the word ‘sweat’ to the name ruins any shine the word may have.

Pocari sweat 500ml


About the Author

The Cat Portrait2

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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What Have Sheep Got Against Trees?

 Cat World  No Responses »
Feb 172012
 

The English countryside is a wonderful scenic place crammed full of open skies that kiss the horizon, fields, hedgerows, wildlife, odd villages with odder villagers inhabiting them (I may have mentioned the ale-swillers Fred, Ned and Ted before so I won’t now) all of which makes the English countryside somewhere that you either adore or loathe.

Here is a perfect example of why people from the towns have a problem with people from the countryside – they are often a little odd, as this sign demonstrates perfectly.

What Have Sheep Got Against Trees

If you loathe the English countryside you are probably a townie and there is nothing wrong with being one of those unless it would seem you are personally involved in planning the route of the second High Speed train which I understand is called HS2, because you old chap must really hate the countryside and should never have been giving the power to destroy such large chunks of it.

Which brings me to this sign one created especially for the head of planning for the HS2 and of course Davis Cameron the Prime Minister of the towns of England it must be difficult for them to understand that people don’t like their little idea in the countryside!

Bad HS2

So why is the sign above hard for townies, and the other fools mentioned, to understand well it’s simple really! They probably want to get from one dirty, smelly overcrowded dump to another as fast as possible, oh I’m sorry I mean from Birmingham to London or indeed the other way around and in doing so they need to carve up a very large and rather wide chunk of what I think we will call “the next two pictures.”

The first picture below, is of a bit of reasonably unspoilt English countryside that hasn’t been touched since the royal family and after them parliament thought of something called the ‘inclosures act’ or ‘enclosures act’ would be a bit of a wheeze and keep the hoi polloi of their land.

After

The second picture is of the same countryside (well nearly) after it has been turned into a high speed railway line no wonder the country folk in England believe that the townies don’t like them and their countryside!

After2

One last little bit of stirring oops sorry I mean information that David Cameron and the rest of the tarmac brigade might like to bear in mind is the definition of ‘Hoi polloi’ today it might mean the rabble, the dregs etc., but in accent Greece where the word comes from it means ‘the many’ or rather deliciously the ‘majority’ now that surely is something that any politician worth his salt might like to bear in mind – even maybe David Cameron!

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Camouflage – A Hidden Art

 Cat World  No Responses »
Dec 082011
 

I was talking to Hugh Grant the other day and we both agreed that being a celebrity can be hard, if it isn’t the Murdoch run newspapers trying to tap your phone, open you mail and go through your empties it’s the wonderful general public, bless them all, who can get a little carried away and storm your book signings just wanting to stroke you, and I have to say that happens to me a lot although I was surprised to hear that it happened to Huge (my pet name for Hugh).

Sometimes this Cat who writes blogs thinks that as a celebrity in constant demand by an adoring public you just have to get away, go into hiding or use camouflage, Hugh was of the same opinion but tends to think that you can hide from the public in a car parked round the back of a busy well lit street, still it takes all sorts to make the world dizzy doesn’t it?

Between you and me I have been using camouflage for a while now to avoid the glare of the public and the peeping Toms of the press and believe that camouflage is a very wonderful thing.

Just today I was leafing through a copy of my newspaper and spotted a whole section of pictures dedicated to animals and insects who are really rather good at camouflaging themselves.

I have to say that article was an altogether more interesting than another which reported that Madonna, (with an emphasis on the ‘Mad’ she is obviously going through some sort of mid-life experience), said that the duchess of Cambridge (if you don’t know who she is here’s a tip, she’s the anorexic looking newest royal, who depending upon the newspaper you read is expecting one or several babies, if that is true where is the bulge then – in a surrogate?) is “lovely girl with great sense of style.” Sorry Madonna I think it’s time to hang up your sling backs darling cos baby doll you have lost it!

Instead of offering you a picture of the tired but blousy Madonna or the Mousey but skinny duchess of Cambridge I thought I would let my wonderful readers have a gawp at some amazing camouflage pictures I was so impressed with. Not all of them are animals or insects as you will see and for one sadly no amount of camouflage will help her appearance.

So without further ado or character assassination I give you my little tribute to camouflage and the beasts that use it.

To start with how about the Leaf-tailed Gecko, aka the Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko who blends in wonderfully with a rustle of old brown dried leaves this one lives in the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in Madagascar?

Leaf Tailed Gecko

Or what about a Bat-faced Toad who has taken a tip form the Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko above and is hiding amongst a crust of dead leaves in the Amacayacu National Park in Colombia?

Leaf Toad

Then there is the oddly named White Crab Spider sitting on a flower near you, if you happen to live in the south of England or Wales.

White Crab Spider

Humans can create excellent camouflage if they have the patience and artistic ability, but sadly unlike the animals above when they move the illusion is shattered. Let’s hope that this lady stays still because I think she has forgotten to get dressed this morning!

Nude

Lastly, and that is where every one of all of the dozens of English queens, dukes, duchesses, princesses and princes of benefit dependency – the English royal family – would come if they weren’t so privileged, we have the amazing camouflage of the duchess of somewhere that was invented especially to accommodate her.

As you can see she blends in rather well with the soldiers, some might say that she looks the most ‘rugged’ of them all!

Do you like me wonder what she is pointing at around that soldier’s crutch? She seems to be very interested in ‘something’ down ‘there’ don’t you think?

If you want to see more of these overrated royal individuals they can be found posing in army, navy and air force uniforms on state occasions (which makes you wonder if the English state isn’t a military one?).

Oddly enough the royals are almost always dressed up in very high ranking positions in their chosen armed force I wonder just how they earned this exulted ranks? Beats me!

If you want to get a good look at the English royal family the best place to spot them is on holiday somewhere very warm while the British newspapers sing their praises and extoll their virtues at home telling the English people just how hard the royals are working!

Duchess

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Thanksgiving Bombshell – Happy Thanksgiving To All My Readers

 Cat World, Human World, Thanksgiving  4 Responses »
Nov 242011
 

I’m a very inquisitive Cat and so usually I like to find out a lot of interesting information about places, events and so on and so forth and then turn them into little jokes, you just have to read either ‘Getting Out Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ or ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ to know that; which is why I think I have failed the entire American Nation today and that makes me at the very least very downcast.

It seems a shame that there just isn’t much to say about Thanksgiving that is particularly interesting, weird or funny if, that is, you want to talk about odd traditions and practices and I do.

Yes I’ll admit there are some strange Thanksgiving Day notions such as the one that says you have to knock a few times on wood before putting the Turkey into the oven so that it will be tender and succulent, to say nothing of the fact that it’s best to first check the Turkey’s pulse! But that isn’t really an odd tradition like the ones that lurk around old Europe as Pres. George Bush once called us lot over here.

You know the sort of odd tradition I’m talking about like the one in Scotland where you must carry a bit of coal in your pocket as you go from dozens of strangers houses on New Year’s Eve and drink vast quantities of other people’s Scotch Whiskey, that’s called either ‘Firstfooting or ‘First Footing.’

I’m afraid I have no idea which is right ‘Firstfooting or ‘First Footing’ because both words are always said with a Scottish accent which as we all know is very close to incomprehensible nonsense at the best of times and totally alien on New Year’s Eve due to the vast amounts of Scotch Whiskey consumed by the speaker which has an effect not only on the amount of slur added to a Scots persons speech but also the number of ‘o’s’ added to words that not only contain ‘o’s’ normally but ones that have never been spelt with an ‘o’ before! To say nothing of the fact that if you look up ‘Firstfooting or ‘First Footing’on the internet all of the results are in American from the awful Wikipedia to the Websters Dictionary they use ‘First-Footing’ with a hyphen between the words and that in the main apart from where it has been used for centuries in the surnames by a few mad aristocratic English families and more recently by a lot of ethnic unmarried couples, is an American invention.

The only thing that is clear about ‘Firstfooting or ‘First Footing,’ as the picture below shows, is that you don’t have to be Scottish, look ridiculous and talk nonsense to join in the fun or indeed even wear a kilt!

Prince c in kilt

In fact it seems that the Scots didn’t invent the practice of ‘Firstfooting or ‘First Footing’ it gets its name from a Manx Gaelic word ‘Quaaltagh’ so it would seem that the Scots ‘borrowed’ the tradition from the Isle of Man.

‘Firstfooting or ‘First Footing’ is also practiced by the Serb nation who celebrate Polažajnik on New year’s Eve where they go to other people’s houses and get drunk. Even during the worst persecutions of their neighbours in the 1980′s the Serbs didn’t stop the custom.

The Greeks use a word similar to the Serb ‘Polažajnik’ when they go from house to house getting drunk on New Year’s Eve it is ‘Podariko’ for any of you who are vaguely interested and aren’t wondering what on Earth this all has to do with Thanksgiving like I have to say the writer!

So back to Thanksgiving! Happily (for me) I did discover one potential bombshell about Thanksgiving though and that is that if Thanksgiving has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26th 1863 it may not be a day of celebration for the whole country!

Abe Lincoln

I hear you ask what does that mad Cat mean?

Well if President (of the Union States only) Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving in the middle of the Civil War only the North would have observed it, I can’t imagine President Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Southern Nation embracing a Northern President’s ideas can you?

Not only that in 1861 President Jefferson Davis issued this proclamation about Thanksgiving Day which said it should be “a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer,” now that doesn’t sound like the sort of day that most Americans are going to have today does it? Although I expect it would make Turkeys all over the United States very happy indeed.

Jeff Davis

The reason why the Confederate States of America celebrated Thanksgiving Day for the first time in 1861 was not really Pilgrim related either. It was to celebrate a series of victories by Confederate forces in the east and west of the CSA and that’s probably not something that dear old Abe had in mind when he ‘invented’ Thanksgiving in 1863 is it.

Isn’t history wonderful?

So to lighten the mood and possibly to prevent a war between the south and north of America breaking out once again here are some Thanksgiving jokes.

Why did the Pilgrims eat Turkey at Thanksgiving?

Because they couldn’t fit a Moose in the oven!

What’s the best way to stuff a Turkey?

Get it to eat lots of pizza and ice cream!

If the Pilgrims were alive today what would they be most famous for?

Their age of course!

If you do want to hear loads of exciting, unusual and generally hilariously dotty traditions, practices and other mad things that humans get up to, let alone this Cat, then you could do no worse than read either, or better still both, of my wonderful works of feline literary genius which happily you can find either as paperback or ebooks here!

Paperback edition of Getting Out at Amazon.com

Kindle edition of Getting Out at Amazon.com

Paperback edition of The Cat’s Travelogue at Amazon.com

Kindle edition of The Cat’s Travelogue at Amazon.com

Lastly the really good news about Thanksgiving Day is that it was made in America (based on an English idea) and not made in China (copied from every nation’s original thought) and that means that it will last forever and not have been broken before it was taken out of the box, like all expensive rubbish that the hamfisted Chinese knock up over there!

I HOPE THAT YOU ALL HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND PURRS TO ALL MY CUDDLY READERS

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Toilet Confusion in Laos

 Cat World, Travelogue  No Responses »
Nov 212011
 

The English language is a wonderful thing, it being the language of international business, used by airline pilots and ship’s captains of every nation and used in so many different ways.

The English language is also reasonably easy to use once you have learned a few rather odd idiosyncrasies such as the difference between ‘there’ and ‘their’ and just because the plural of Mouse is Mice don’t automatically expect House to do the same! All of which means that the English language like all good tools is easy to use.

However having said that the English language does seem to be a rather difficult brute to use if one wants to use it in translation, do check the example below a simple translation of Lao, the language of the country with almost the same name Laos, but then maybe learning English in a country that was once known as the kingdom of Lan Xang (or Million Elephants) is a problem, they certainly seem to have made it so!

Preventing Toilets In Laos From Doing What

If any dear cuddly reader can tell the poor confused cat what on earth preventing a toilet is then they may well win a copy of my latest unputdownable book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue.’

Travelogue by John Woodcock

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’ and ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or 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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A Small Bottom Joke For My Americans Friends & Readers

 Human World  No Responses »
Oct 182011
 

Here is a small bottom joke for my Americans friends and readers who will be shocked, horrified and disgusted to know that in the UK the same word for ‘your’ fanny means the front botty of English ladies.

Small Bottom Joke For My Americans Friends

This message is brought to you by the incredibly intelligent and good looking Cat who could go on to tell you that the word botty in Czech (which is spelt with one ‘t’) means ‘shoes’ – all of which proves that the human world is a very odd place no matter what language you’re speaking!

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Damn Seagulls

 Cat World  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

The Summer is coming to an end, but here we in Europe and I understand the UK are having what is known in some circles as an ‘Indian Summer’ I don’t know why it is called that or indeed if a hot dry spell in the Autumn is called an ‘Indian Summer’ in India for that matter.

I expect the Indians have a different name for a brief sunny period at the end of their Summer mainly because I have a feeling that the English overlords in the time of the Raj would have used the phrase and these days it would seem that anything English in India is a little frowned upon – apart from the use of the English language of course, the Indians, bless them, think that they speak marvellous English – oh dear if only they knew the truth!

I’ll give you a real life example when Andy from Bedford comes on the phone in the early evening when you are tying to stop the Dog eating the children’s supper and encouraging the youngest to actually do what the Dog wants to do, while answering the door to another batch of Jehovah’s Witnesses and keeping the Cat off the kitchen work surfaces, Andy from ‘Bedford’ calls from his New Delhi call centre pretending to be only 40 miles up the road.

Now this pretence is not only doomed to failure because of his pronunciation of the English language it is made worse by the sound quality of the ‘Skype’ like phone system he is calling on and of course the mayhem going on all around the family home, and made even worse by the fact that Andy from Bedford wants to “confirm that you are Miecester. Woodcock,” even though you have a woman’s voice (because you are Mr. Woodcock’s far better half and he is late again with his supper heading towards the Dog’s bowl with ever passing quarter of an hour).

Andy from Bedford ignores any attempt to shut him up including sarcasm and eventually swearing and keeps asking you “to confirm your phone number,” which you would never in a million years give out to some odd sounding heavily accented stranger on the phone.

Reading from his script Andy from Bedford blithely continues “I just want to take a coupole minutes of your very valuable time to discuss.”

You eventually tell Andy from Bedford to FO, slam the phone down and then get ready for his retribution, twenty calls spread over the next hour.

Opps I seem to have veered right off the point of this little blog which is this; Summer is coming to an end but it is still nice and warm, in England we call that an Indian Summer but I expect the Indians don’t because they wouldn’t like to be reminded of the English except to sell them broadband, financial planning or insurance on the phone.

Now that I am back on track I can finish by saying I thought the sign below reminded me of a trip to Clearwater Beach in Florida where the Seagulls are so aggressive that they not only steal your food they shower it back at you when they have digested it. Sorry about the wait for the punchline.

Damn Seagulls

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