Years of insouciance, or la vie en rose: animal rights, racism and sex kitten nostalgia

"Never with a vacuum cleaner", the subject of this post once said in response to an appliance magnate's request to dance on a yacht in St. Tropez. Needless to say, plenty of white late middle aged vacuum cleaner salesfolk in evidence at the exhibition opening, though the animals seem to have stayed away in solidarity with the immigrants. The human assures me he only braved the sea of pink because there was free champagne on offer, and promises -- promises -- that his lengthy stare at the sight below was one of pure bewilderment. I'll let you be the judge.

Of unexpected châteaux and the objects to be found on their doorsteps

When he wasn't excalming to all and sundry about how the country really was divided into three parts, the human's last Gallic expedition seemed to revolve largely around the search for a suitable château.

This time around, he seems to have found one -- conveniently linked to public transport, no less -- in the most unexpected of places. The châtelaine is expected.
The setting is most pleasant, the interior is most spacious and the furnishings most commodious. Administrative and financial bureaucrats of various stripes seem unexectedly eager to please. The bibliotheca quadriturricula subterraneana is closed for holidays, but there is a well-catalogued library of several thousand volumes on the premises. The natives who maintain it are more than friendly -- books are not the only object occasionally to be found on the doorstep when returning from an excursion by bisorbiculus liberalis:

I'm not complaining!

The Hosts! The Hosts!

My last batch of science-fictional friends had barely finished their cafeteria antics when news arrived of this most excellent show by the inimitable Wade. Good fun was had by all, and it's a fitting sendoff from a neighborhood that both the human and I -- in agreement for once -- are very sad to leave.

Robots in Ukranian peasant costume, you might say -- or a one-night stand between Daleks and Kulaks!

A house for a hound!

With thanks to the crew from Steve's World, and to the many openings afforded by the back shed!

Barking inspectors

Move over Charlie Chaplin, it's the hounds' turn:

Zucchini flowers in West-Nor'-West Redfern!

We're moving up in the world, we are!

Any recipe suggestions?

Flora and Fauna

Things are settling down in the new château, hurrah! The location is convenient, the bedroom has a bookcase, the kitchen is positively luxurious and the bathroom is nearly fixed. The other occupants are emimently friendly -- warm and cuddly for the most part, and even the owl is a softie once you get to know her. There's even quite a decent garden, and I seem to have the treehouse all to myself for the time being.
Watch this space for political developments. I'll have this microstate on the road in no time now I have an address: proposals for diplomatic relations, joint declarations of war, suitable châtelaines for the human and further cooking experiments to be directed here.

On the glorious path towards recognition of statehood (II)

The deciding factor? A kitchen eminently suitable for further pastry adventures!

Hugolian Hugoland

After capitulating to Philip the Good back in 1453 or so, the good burghers of Ghent have finally redeemed their honour by declaring independence.

Henceforth all would-be Gentaars must take language and cultural integration courses, and there are plans afoot to make the large immigrant community from West Flanders wear headscarves.

Kudos to the civic-minded folk at the Nieuw-Gentse Alliantie (New Ghent Alliance), for leading their new state down the path of secession from a country that seems to have embraced a policy of non-government.

They have their methods, it must be said:


It's time to face facts, humans - the good burghers have made me bold! Let me henceforth proclaim the mighty, sovereign and human-free state of HUGOLAND...

You may, in fact, be of some use to me, O humans. I'll be needing emissaries to Hutt River Province, not to mention Transdnistria. And I'll have to physically live somewhere.

Does anyone know whether microstates are compatible with strata title???

XXXX en Provence

The murky and occasionally mammary home-made stout of previous entries has finally been christened, thankfully avoiding the grievous wastage of alcohol that would have occurred had we tried to smash the bottle against a drinker's head in the traditional manner.

The name XXXX en Provence is in part my answer to the appalling puns seen in so many local business names: Aix et Terra selling overpriced regional specialties, Aixtreme tattoo and piercing (so hardcore, in fact, that they omitted the circumflex...), Aixprit bicycles, and so on. Easily a match for Sydney's collection of terrible Thai restaurant puns.

It's also a reference, of course, to XXXX (four-ex), the iconic and truly awful lager from Queensland, Australia, rumoured to have originated from the locals' inability to spell the word "beer". (Complaints from Queenslanders are welcome and will be dealt with on the comments page below.)

I like all the designs really, though am leaning towards the one on the left if only for its gesture to the sign of the double cross in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

I won't be able to bring any of the batch back to Australia, but may try to make a new lot once there, so further label suggestions are most welcome.

On lending a cup of sugar

I was busily bottling my home-brewed beer the other night , very proud that I had managed to locate or improvise the various bits of equipment and a sufficient supply of empty bottles. The only mishap occurred half-way through: due to the resident humans' nasty habit of drinking hot chocolate in bed late at night, there was hardly any sugar left. You need to put a bit of sugar in each bottle before screwing the lid down, as this is what gives the beer its bubbles.

Anyway, this dilemna provided the ideal opportunity to test out a well-worn cliché on the goodness or otherwise of one's neighbours. And sure enough it worked: put on slippers, down one flight of stairs chez Fred with a mug with a broken handle, and I was graciously offered the choice of brown or white, lump, or caster. The latter in each category having been decided upon I thanked Fred, promised to invite him for a tasting, and completed my task.

The mouthfuls of beer I got from sucking on the siphon hose were interesting: a strong dark ale, probably in the region of 7-8%, not too many hops but quite a kick from the infusion of herbes de provence that my pet human insisted in adding in order to live out his Anglo-Saxon cliché about region in which we find ourselves--claiming, of course, that his desire to call the beer "Peter Mayle ale" is ironic!

My only regret relates to the choice of neighbours: I had no doubts about Fred in the first place, and it occurred to me afterwards that it would have been more fun to ask the neighbours across the landing. They seem very nice even if (because??) the humans have nicknamed them the Flanders family. Though there have been dark mutterings that it is they who may have invited a group of Christians to visit the building last week, whom I had to eject by mustering all my hippopotamical ferocity.

I suspect that asking to borrow a cup of sugar in order to bottle my homebrew could well have helped further my studies into the strange ways of humans--much like the experiment I couldn't bring myself to perform, namely asking the local winos to hang on to their empty bottles for me in return for a refilled one.

Such are my neighbours.