Thursday 24 November 2005

the FBI are using a pink laser to read my blog

Read much Philip K. Dick? There's a bit in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where Deckard and another android hunter go to another City Hall in san Francisco, one that Deckard's never seen nor heard of, staffed entirely by people he's never encountered, the whole alternate-reality-right-under-the-nose setup, and he's seriously (if momentarily) shaken: if my whole world and reality exists in duplicate somewhere, how do I know the one I'm used to is for real? Is somebody spying on me through the computer and stealing my innermost thoughts?

That's a bit how I felt just now when, ego-googling on behalf of my cat who cannot reach the keyboard, nor operate the evil right-handed mighty mouse Dorian installed, I came upon this: Baz-Cat Eurotrash Kitty Litter.

How long has this been going on? The site actually has a dress up the kittys page. I mean I know I put a CC licence on this blog but this is beyond the pale. Isn't it.



Of course the cat himself is completely oblivious to all of this, as he does not indulge in thinking, ever, he is also impervious to suspicions of being intracranially spied upon by malevolent Scandinavian domestic animal supply corporations. In many ways Basil is unlike other cats, but in this matter of not thinking he is fairly representative I understand. He does know the meaning of the word "catfood", but it is more a case of knowing what usually follows the issuing of that particular noise from my mouth than of understanding the concept of language. He reminds me of the truth of something my mother once pointed out about a predecessor cat, dear little Frankie: that the words of the Van Morrison song "Beside You" from Astral Weeks might have been written about her -

Oh child, to never wonder why
To never, never, never, never wonder why at all
To never, never, never, never wonder why


8 comments:

genevieve said...

Would Baz answer to Deckard? Or will you settle out of court?

Ampersand Duck said...

That dress-up page is quite fun -- if you use the neck-scarves like undies, the cats look like pervy old men in speedoes. (That is such as Australian sentence, isn't it?)

lucy tartan said...

I thought they were speedoes / dick dacks, at first. It's alsways been a source of disturbace to me that certain cartoon animals are thought not to need trousers (winny the pooh, etc)

I don't think Basil would answer to Deckard. He barely answers to his own name, the only word that never fails is the food word. I's rather a nice thing about cats that they don't always recognise their own names - terribly unselfconscious.

Anonymous said...

I've never thought to google Jasper the dog. I'll be back...

Anonymous said...

Now I'm wondering if this is how memes start? Or is it just as a result of being bored out my brain...

Mel said...

The cat in my new house recognises her own name (Meep). The other day I thought I'd play a game with her when she was outside, so I mouthed her name silently through the window and sure enough, she came running inside.

I like Meep a lot. Sometimes she makes a little chirruping noise instead of actually miaowing.

Miriam Jones said...

I can see now why you defended cat blogging at The Valve.

Carry on.

lucy tartan said...

Shall do!
Of course, I didn't have my own stuff in mind when I put in the comment you're thinking of - I meant what I said, that too many good writers have done real and important work about animals for the topic to be arbitrarily excluded from legit acedemic inquiry.