Tag Archives: Mountaineering

Sad News!

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Today I am saying goodbye to Randolph the Mountaineering Cat who unfortunately yesterday met a mountain that he wasn’t able to climb successfully.

You know I met Randolph the Mountaineering Cat on his travels while I was doing research for my next book ‘The Travelogue,’ unfortunately the chapter with Randolph the Mountaineering Cat in it was ‘bought’ by the country where we met and so it won’t be in my next blockbusting book.

Actually I am finding that a lot of governments, mayors and anyone connect with countries, cities or towns which feature in my soon to be published Travelogue are ‘buying out’ chapters related to their countries, cities or towns so that they don’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being ‘exposed’ in what is the most honest travel book every written by a Cat!

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This purchasing of chapters means that the book is constantly getting smaller and in turn means that I in the interests of value for money have to keep traveling to new countries, of course the extra work is annoying but let’s face it the ‘hush money’ or as some call them ‘bribes’ come in very handy – just ask any african politician or sporting body committee member!

What I can say without breaking the confidentiality agreements I have pawed is that I first bumped into Randolph the Mountaineering Cat on the way to Nepal as he was enduring a stop over at a shabby and rather smelly airport in a rapidly developing country that will one day take America’s place as the leader of the world… sorry I have to stop there for two reasons the first is mentioned above and the second is that I am laughing so much I just can’t type.

After that, our paths seemed to cross as we went from country to country Randolph the Mountaineering Cat was off to climb yet another mountain and I was… well I actually can’t tell you too much about what I was doing or you won’t buy the next book and that would be a little like shooting myself in the Paw with a keyboard! Mmh ‘shooting myself in the paw with a keyboard’ doesn’t sound right does it? But I think you know what I mean.

You know in the short time that we had together Randolph the Mountaineering Cat and I got on rather well and shared a curry together and later the same toilet. It was then while we were both in a lot of pain that something he said stuck in my mind as the dysentery did its worst “chaps and Cats that suffer together form a bond that nothing can break!” I knew exactly what he meant and I also knew that I would possibly sometimes miss-quote Randolph the Mountaineering Cat but I would never forget him or what he said.

Sadly yesterday that bond was broken but not but me. I heard that Randolph the Mountaineering Cat was swinging one pawedly from snowy boulder to snowy boulder in a scree 6,000ft above Base Camp 3 when something went wrong and he slipped.

You know, we got on so well that I had even arranged for him to have ‘exploratory’ talks with my translator John Woodcock in the hope that with Randolph the Mountaineering Cat’s amazing adventures and our very own Mr. Woodcock’s feeble talent together they could produce a bestseller similar to my work a masterpiece of feline literary genius – ‘Getting Out Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ available here Amazon.com if you are one of the few people on planet earth who haven’t bought it yet and of course my www – wickedly wonderful website www.thecatsdiary.com where you can buy my book, read my blog and get so much more including loads of free online games both festive and not so festive.

It’s a shame and a great loss that as with Randolph the Mountaineering Cat that book is lost forever.

So in conclusion I would just like to say that Randolph the Mountaineering Cat was a fine Cat and a good friend and I know that it is not only me who will miss him because the world is a poorer place without him and his adventurous kind!

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Oh take all of what I said about Randolph the Mountaineering Cat back, he has just called me, he’s in town and we’re going out for Prawns on Friday. I asked him about the photograph and he said that it was the first in a series of ‘shots’ taken for a magazine of him clawing his way to the summit of Katmandu.

Apparently the photoshoot was supposed to be ‘dramatic,’ I didn’t have the heart to tell him how ‘dramatic’ the story that was that I was given about the first picture in the series! I don’t know you can never trust the media these days. Still I am looking forward to catching up with Randolph the Mountaineering Cat almost as much as I am looking forward to the Prawns.

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Did She Or Didn’t She?

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Look she is only little, so why do people make such a fuss about poor Oh Eun-Sun? According to the 3ft 3inch sturdily build Korean (there is only one Korea to Koreans) she has managed to climb all of the highest peaks in the world which is quite an achievement for someone who must think that a MacDonald’s counter is at the top of the world when she is dying for a Big Mac but being ignored.

So why oh why does some clever Richard or is the “clever dick” keep saying that poor little stocky Oh Eun-Sun has missed a significant peak and therefore failed to climb all of the world’s highest mountains, when poor plucky petite Oh Eun-Sun is probably at home with her mountaineers socks off warming her frost bitten chilblanes and trying to recover from a diet of Yaks, milk which apparently turns your stomach into a dangling mess after as far as she was concerned running out of very tall mountain peaks to climb.

Personally I think that the clever Richard is jealous and just because poor little Oh Eun-Su might have become confused at the end of her mountain climbing odyssey and turned right instead of turning left to climb Mt Kanchenjunga, on the border of Nepal, India and China, and gone home instead, it is nothing to get too hot under the thermals about.

Lets face it, if all you have been doing since 1997 when Oh Eun-Sun, who of course is not very tall, started climbing the world’s highest peaks you would get rather disorientated and may forget to climb a mountain or two wouldn’t you especially if it is the last one and some one has called you on your rather outdated mobile phone to tell you that the Shin Ramyun is ready?

Actually I have to confess to getting confused when travelling recently. As I have been writing my latest blockbuster, my wonderful “Travelogue” I have accidentally taken a wrong turning or two myself, but usually I have to add, aided by Dave the Cat’s dreadful directions and appalling map reading skills.

You know, I vote that we vote that poor dwarf-like Oh Eun-Sun be crowned Queen of the Mountains or whatever useless title she is after and let’s brush the Mt Kanchenjunga ‘incident’ under the carpet shall we? After all isn’t it an achievement to climb nearly all the highest mountain peaks in the world? I should say so. Between you and me I get out of breath and giddy just climbing the stairs when slipping off for a snooze on ‘their’ bed so I think that the precocious vertically challenged Korean climbing wonder should get the cake or whatever the prize is don’t you for climbing all of the tallest mountains in the world after all who really cares?

PS

I may have got the exact height of the Korean tiny terror of the Alps wrong, there is nothing in the news to suggest that Oh Eun-Sun is as small as I imagine, except of course the word ‘Korean!’ And that is said with love, Koreans and other tiddlies are really rather nice and happily the Cat can look some of them in the eye without them bending which is handy.

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I think the captions says “I need to go to the loo can you turn the camera off for a minute!” But then I might be wrong!

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