Bruce, Dave & Willy

I've just returned from a week around the south of England which included a whirlwind tour of Cambridge, London, Wiltshire & Bristol.. You'd think after such a cultural fix that I'd be bursting with great anecdotes and tales of yore...

Actually, my week was intriguingly influenced by 3 blokes called Bruce, Dave & Willy. Each, unique in character and all with an alarming party trick of licking their balls in public - nice, that'll always impress the chicks!

You probably won't be surprised to hear that they were cats - and black ones at that. In the normal course of my life, I don't really have a lot of association with cats, but during this week I was surrounded by the little buggers, each one somewhat more bizarre than the previous.

The first wee fella was called Bruce and he lived in Clapham, London, and was, upon due reflection, a fairly tame little wee bloke who just enjoyed a good cuddle and a nice meal (who doesn't).

My next port of call was a pub in Wiltshire where I was greeted, upon arrival, by Dave. Dave had somewhat more of a robust personality and, effectively, ruled the bar. Importantly, he liked sitting on a bar stool right in the middle of the bar that was pretty well exactly where you needed to be, if you wanted to order a drink - not much chance of that then.

That was, of course, when he wasn't walking along the bar. The owners continually tried to stop him and were constantly telling him off, but Dave had it sussed - he just didn't give a shit. He, as a feline, wasn't in such a rush for a cuddle since everyone patted him all day long anyway. So, he had one of those annoying habits of looking and acting as if he wanted to be patted, but would actually stay just out of arms reach as he passed by - walking along the bar.

In my final port of call, Bristol, I stayed with some friends (T&J), there was a psychopath called Willy (or William). I don't know what his game was, but it involved a lot of squarking and feeding. The little bugger was able to let himself in and out at will, via a wee window in the kitchen, which stood at head height (or 5 foot 11 3/4). It wasn't much of a window and the funny thing is, at his present feeding regime, he ain't going to be able to fit out of it for very much longer.

He was only 18 months old and at one point I had politely asked (as you do) "if he'd had his balls removed?" - because the cat was in some serious need of some pretty heavy life adjustments. On an hourly rotation, he would come in the window and then proceed to start squarking, manically, in desperate need of food for the next 1/2 hour, prior to departing on another nocturnal adventure. Seriously, he would do this like 10 times a night and, frankly, it really was getting on everyone's tits - especially T's who had had a complete sense of humour failure with regard to this farkin' cat.

Of course, Willy would spend all day sleeping (when he wasn't in the kitchen squarking for food) since he was knacked from being up all night - squarking for food.

My final suggestion to T was to buy some soft slippers - slippers with a good trajectory & flight aerodynamics!