I have a new community for cats, since I have discovered there are a few more of us with LJ accounts. It is called felines_online. By all means go and have a look!

I understand that there are certain cats in the world who imagine that being fussy over food is a good way to establish dominance over one's human. The argument is that, by steadfastly refusing to eat certain foods, one can guarantee not only an improved diet but also extra attention and solicitousness from the human.

Now I am open-minded enough to concede that this approach is occasionally necessary in certain situations. For instance, the kitten next door is given cheap tinned food which both looks and smells positively revolting, and I have actually advised him not to eat it so that his humans will get him something which is at least edible in future. In this house, though, there is no need for such a drastic measure. My human understands our needs as well as a human could reasonably be expected to do; we have pelleted food during the week, which, though dry, is extremely tasty, and normally we also get a little treat at the weekend in the form of something squidgy in trays. She is already very careful about what she provides for us in this respect, being as concerned about the ingredients as she would be for her own food (with the exception, of course, that she does not eat meat).

I have to say I don't see the argument for the dominance side of things at all. Humans, in my experience, are far nicer to be with if they are not stressed, and a cat who continually refuses food is more likely to stress the human than produce any positive effects. Besides, as I have explained to Klinsmann more than once, any cat who insists on holding out for moth-flavoured food needs a reality check. Humans mean well, but they are not intelligent enough to consider what we actually prefer to eat. This is why they make us, with great care, food containing beef, lamb and other such exotic meats that humans like. I have no problem with this myself, as I enjoy both these meats, but if the manufacturers took a few moments to think about it, it might just occur to them that they have never actually seen a domestic feline bring down a cow.

Everything was pretty much normal in this house until Klinsmann heard the argument about refusing food in order to gain dominance, so now, of course, he is trying it on. I keep telling him he's trying it on the wrong human. She knows quite well that, although he genuinely doesn't like beef (which is no bad thing at all, as she tends to buy beef-containing meals for me so that he won't pester me for them), he is happy to wolf down anything with chicken in it. When he recently started turning down the chicken too, all she said was, "Fine. If you don't want it, Minsky and Heidi will eat it." Naturally, we did.

He doesn't learn, though. He insists that eventually she is going to crack and acknowledge him to be the Big Boss Cat, and then I will have to do what he says. Well, I know perfectly well she's too bright to be taken in by that kind of nonsense, but he can keep it up as long as he likes as far as I'm concerned. If he won't eat the chicken, all the more for those of us who will.

If you're full, Heidi, bat that tray over here, would you?

I do not like vets. (Really, does anyone?) Unlike the ginger cats, I do understand the purpose of them. I'm aware that they do things to cure you if you are ill, things that one's own human is neither qualified nor equipped to perform. For this I am grateful, but that doesn't mean I have to like them.

I had to go on Tuesday, and in fact I would have gone on Monday if it had been possible. I injured my shoulder. The wound was not very big, but since I have the classic oriental build I have absolutely no padding in that area at all, and it hurt like stink as a result. My human even carried me downstairs at one point because I was having so much difficulty, and I'm very glad she did, as I don't think I could have got the door to the loo open with only one effective front paw.

Well, anyway, I went, or I should say we went, because of course my human came too and so did the stray human. The stray human is needed to drive the car, since my human can't drive because of her wrist problem. (This, incidentally, is also the reason why she picks me up in a manner I simply wouldn't tolerate from anyone else. One has to make allowances.) I do not like cars at the best of times, having had one or two brushes with them that were a shade too close for comfort, though I do understand that the alternative would have been having my human wheel me over some alarmingly rough pavements. On the whole the car was probably the better option, but I must admit that I was unusually stressed because of the pain.

I didn't take to this particular vet at all, and I was not coming out of the carrier for her. She had to haul me out, and I take a certain pride in the fact that, despite not being able to hang on properly with my right foreleg, she still had to ask the other two humans to steady the carrier before she could pull me out of it. The point, I feel, was made. But, to be fair to her, she found the wound (which my human, for all her concern, had not been able to locate), and she gave me two injections which very quickly made me start to feel better. By the time I got home I was already feeling more comfortable walking around, and now you would not guess that anything had been wrong with me. It still twinges very slightly now and again, but I can run and jump just as well as I always did.

So I am very grateful to the vet really, and to the stray human for getting me there, and to my human who was determined that I should go. I just hope I don't have to do it again any time in the foreseeable future!

My human did something unusual today. She walked up to me with a book.

"Minsky," she said, "I think you'll like this."

Well, it's nice not to be underestimated by a human for once. "What is it, exactly?" I asked cautiously. The picture of the cat on the front cover somehow didn't look quite... right.

"It's a detective story. All the main characters are cats."

I twitched my ears in surprise. "Really? You mean it was actually written by a cat?"

At least she had the grace to look embarrassed. "Er, no, as a matter of fact it was a human. His name's Akif Pirinçci."

"Strange name," I observed, rather sourly. I felt very let down.

"Well, he's Turkish, obviously," replied my human. I didn't quite like the way she said "obviously". Yes, I know she's something of a linguist, but... well, never mind.

I arched my back and flicked my tail irritably. "Huh. Well, I'm not going to read it. You humans always make a complete mess of writing about cats. You either sentimentalise us or..."

She smiled wryly. "Believe me, Minsky, not even you will consider this sentimentalised. It's so dark I'd be having trouble with it if it were not so well written. It's pretty nearly Stephen King with cats."

In spite of myself, I was interested. My human has flipped through a few pages of Stephen King and considers him too gruesome to read on the strength of this. Nonetheless, it wouldn't have looked good to back down immediately, so I just went and curled up on the office chair for a strategic nap.

It didn't need to be a long nap. My human always disappears upstairs to use the computer pretty quickly; I dare say she was e-mailing her new boyfriend or something. (I'm reserving judgement on that subject for the moment, incidentally, as I have not yet met him.) Soon I could tell from the clatter of keys that she was happily settled. I sneaked the book out of her bag and had a good look. It's called "Felidae", which is, if nothing else, a good start.

Well... I'm impressed. Very impressed. The human knows a lot more than most of his species. Granted, he doesn't get absolutely everything right, but I think he does remarkably well for a human. It certainly is most exceptionally noir, and I don't think I should like Heidi to read it as she is a rather sensitive creature in certain respects, but for a matter-of-fact cat of the world it is a most excellent read.

In fact, it's got me thinking. If a human can write this sort of thing and sell it to other humans, just think of the market for a book about cats written by an actual cat.

Detective stories have clearly been done, and I don't think I could face trying to write romance. Dear readers, let me do a spot of market research on you. If I were to write some feline science fiction, would you wish to read it?

My human is very proud of my ability to forecast the weather. She tells everyone about it, I understand. There is a chap at the tram stop she always talks to, and she always tells him whether or not I say it's going to rain. Then she arrives at the office, and when someone says they don't like the look of the sky, she says confidently, "Ah, Minsky says it won't rain, at any rate not till I get home."

Now the other day, I am very sorry to relate that she told everyone I had got it wrong. I stayed indoors that day, but there was not a drop of rain. I dare say it is too much to hope that the chap at the tram stop or anyone from my human's office will be reading this, but I should like to explain what really happened.

You will no doubt be aware that it has been extremely hot here lately. Normally I have to say I quite enjoy the heat, but on that particular day I knew it was going to be too hot even for me. The living room is the coolest spot in the house, especially if my human remembers to close the curtains before she leaves in the morning, which she generally does in this weather and did on this occasion. Therefore, from my point of view, the logical thing to do was to stay in there and snooze on my human's office chair, a spot I particularly like. Rain, indeed! If only she'd taken the trouble to check the configuration of my tail, she could never have made such a foolish mistake. But then, of course, she is only human, and I must remember that when I get impatient with her.

Still, the heat does have certain advantages. It's really rather gratifying when Klinsmann is too hot and tired to annoy anyone...

Much ink has been spilled, and no doubt in this technological age many electrons have been shunted, over the abstract problem of evil. Theologians will tell you that if there is no evil, then there is no possibility for free will. Evolutionary scientists of an atheistic bent will tell you that what we call evil is merely the inevitable result of adaptive processes, which doesn't make it any less evil, mind, and we had better turn our highly evolved brains to the question of doing something about it. Personally I find the most satisfactory answers tend to come from those who don't see any incompatibility between science and faith, but that is just my point of view and I don't want to get into a debate about it here. I am much more concerned about an immediate, practical problem, on which no books, theses or journal articles have yet been written.

This problem is exactly what to do about Klinsmann.

Those of you who read my human's journal will be aware that the little oik got into an impasse with another cat on Friday morning. He wouldn't dare start a fight, but on the other hand neither would he run away, since his sister and I were watching. As a result, he simply sat there miaowing his silly ginger head off, which woke our human at an unearthly hour. That is just bad catiquette. Humans have peculiar sleeping patterns, but nonetheless these patterns should be respected except in the case of real emergency. Otherwise, the human gets tired during the day and may trip over you or forget to top up your food when they should.

My human records me as having been merely watching the proceedings with detached amusement. While this is true as far as it goes, it is certainly not the whole truth. She clearly failed to realise that I was on the horns of an ethical dilemma.

The fact is, I am well known for keeping the peace on my territory. Fights simply don't happen, and this is generally considered to be a good thing. Neither of these two would have dared to go as far as coming to blows in my presence, because they knew that the fight would have been swiftly broken up and they would both have got a clip round the ear and a stern lecture. My dilemma consisted in this: knowing this fact, should I or should I not have intervened anyway?

In favour of intervening, it was clearly an aggressive situation, the kind of thing that might well have become a fight in my absence, at least if Klinsmann had been prevented from running away. Also, waking up humans is bad form. But, on the other hand, they weren't actually hurting each other and there was no danger that they would really do so. Besides, if I'd butted in, then it could have given Klinsmann the idea that he could go around threatening people all he liked without any danger of retaliation, except from me, of course... and, tempted as I sometimes am, I won't seriously hurt him.

Heidi says if she had been me, she would have knocked their silly heads together and duffed them both up. I sometimes think it is a good thing that Heidi is only small. In a way, though, I rather envy her; she doesn't have moral qualms. She just pitches in with whatever feels right at the time.

Alas, it's not easy to be an ethical ruler...

It has been unusually warm just lately, and this has caused differing effects among our happy little household. I have to say that I don't mind the heat myself, but then I don't mind anything very much other than strong winds, which are very disorientating because they mess up all the scents. Klinsmann, on the other hand, seems to find it almost as uncomfortable as our human does. He has very fine, dense, silky fur. One of the really nice things about hot weather is that Klinsmann flakes out on his side on some convenient cool surface and is too exhausted to make a blessed nuisance of himself. This is gratifying, but I must admit I don't like to see my human suffer.

Heidi is different. It can scarcely get too hot for Heidi, a cat who likes to sit on radiators in the winter. She is normally an indoor cat most of the time, as she has an aversion to draughts, but over the last week she has been out almost as much as I have. I wish we had a stream close enough for Heidi to be prepared to go near it, as I should like to teach her how to fish. I think she would greatly enjoy it. Unfortunately, since she can only rarely be persuaded to venture further from the house than the bottom of the garden, even under my protection, this does not seem to be a plan with any future.

I find it interesting that humans seem to vary as much as cats in their reactions. Not all of them suffer in the heat like my human does. Some of them rejoice immensely, remove as much clothing as they can without making perfect fools of themselves, and go out to enjoy the sunshine in much the same way as I do. The only difference is that they don't have a thick protective coat of fur, so they get sunburn if they are not very careful. This, on the whole, tends to stop them rejoicing.

According to my human, there is also Aki the Japanese human, who is clearly Heidi's cross-species counterpart. Even in the searing heat of Wednesday and Thursday, she was walking around in three layers of clothing, to the amazement and mild horror of my human. I am fascinated, as I have never actually met a Japanese human, though I have seen pictures and most of them do not seem to be wrapped up like humans who live in the Arctic. I really must go and smell my human's office building some time, as there are evidently some very strange and interesting humans there who may be worth investigating.

However, as usual, it didn't last long. We are now back to the Traditional English Summer, in other words mild, damp, and rather short on the happy hunting hours of darkness. There are plenty of good things about it, nonetheless. For a start, there is an abundance of moths. I rather scorn these myself, as they are too easy prey for someone who can bring down a midge, but Klinsmann likes nothing better than a fat crunchy moth and can be happily occupied for hours stalking them against a lighted window. It keeps him, just for once, quiet and out of mischief.

Now if only I could work out how to turn the light on downstairs when my human is not using it, I should have whole evenings of peace and quiet...

Ah, what wonderful summer weather! We are all spending as much time as possible out of doors and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. In fact, the only member of this household who is not happy about it is our human. She gets hot easily, which is rather curious considering the fact that she doesn't have any fur worth mentioning. Wearing fewer clothes is not a sensible option for her, as the sun tends to burn her skin. I can't help feeling that evolution was rather rough on humans in certain respects.

However, I must admit that we cats don't quite have all the privileges. Summer used to be a very mixed blessing as far as we were concerned, for we are not the only creatures who enjoy a bit of warmth. Sadly, so do fleas. These ghastly little parasites used to ruin every summer for us, despite our human's determined and sympathetic attempts to eradicate them. In the bad old days, it was rare for the irritation to ease off before the end of September.

I've got to give credit to my human. She tried everything she could possibly afford. The first thing she tried was a spray, which was rather annoying but a great deal less so than the fleas. Unfortunately my late, much lamented, but frankly dim brother didn't see it that way. One application of the spray had him frozen to the spot in the middle of the living room, too traumatised to move. My human spent an entire evening fussing and cuddling him until his stress levels returned to normal, and vowed never to do such a thing to him again. Then she tried a powder, but that turned out to be both messy and ineffective. Eventually, despite some misgivings about their efficacy, she bought flea collars for all of us. These reduced the problem but didn't cure it, so she bought a rather expensive electronic flea comb. I personally thought this was great, because it undoubtedly killed the fleas and was a good excuse for a fuss. Klinsmann was unsure at first, but he got used to it. This time it was Heidi who undid all the good work by being scared of the thing. *rolls eyes* She just wouldn't be told.

Well, back in December, she spotted a new kind of flea collar on sale. It was called VetCare, and it promised to break the life cycle of the fleas by stopping their eggs from hatching, rather than killing the adults. When she explained this to me I was a little doubtful, especially since she said we would have to wear identity collars as well, as the new VetCare collars are only available in black and there is nowhere to put a tag and a bell. One collar is quite enough for any cat, in my opinion.

But... they work. They work like nothing else I have ever seen. So far this year my human has caught a single, solitary flea, which she of course drowned immediately. She thinks it came from Heidi. It certainly didn't come from me, because I have had not one bite.

Summertime... and the living is easy... for once!

Cats, on the whole, don't drink alcohol. All right, you may occasionally read a story about some pub-dwelling feline who enjoys a saucer of Guinness now and again, but the whole point of that is that it's unusual. It wouldn't make the papers if the average cat liked a tipple. Now I must admit that there was a time when I myself was rather curious about vodka, but I never actually got the chance to try it, and I have come to the conclusion that this was probably just as well.

Not that I have any problem with humans drinking the stuff in moderation. My own human is quite partial to a glass of red wine or a shot of spirits now and again, and has been known to enthuse at some length over some cherry liqueur from Poland with a jaw-cracking name. [Note from Minsky's human: Wisniowka. Minsky can't pronounce that without saying something really obscene in Cat. The Poles can't help it if it sounds like a hiss...] But she never has more than one glass of anything at a time, and often goes for weeks without touching alcohol, so she doesn't get drunk. This is fine by me, because it's the drunkenness aspect that I do have a problem with.

Last night I was out strolling around my territory when a lot of noise started up. Being of a curious disposition, I put my head through a hole in the nearest hedge in the direction the sound was coming from, and I saw that it was a very drunk human. The drunk human was standing outside another human's house shouting obscenities. I was not entirely clear who was being referred to, but the shouter was exhorting the shoutee to effing bring someone else out and he (the shouter) would effing fight him. I have to admit that I was rather hoping the shoutee would go and fetch the person with whom the shouter had a dispute. Given the state he was in, I think if he had tried to fight him, effing or otherwise, he would have fallen over, and that could have been mildly amusing to the rapidly-gathering crowd of onlookers, including, of course, myself. Oh, yes, and apparently it was also highly significant that the shouter effing worked in effing Sheffield. I could have pointed out to him that so do very many other humans, including mine, and it does not generally impel them to get drunk and make embarrassing scenes in the street. Of course, he may have been driven effing mad by his effing job, but he did not specifically make this clear.

Well, of course, you can imagine the consequences. Several more nervous cats in my territory were absolutely terrified by all the noise, and I had to go round counselling them all for half the night. Honestly, you would think humans could be a little bit more considerate. I even *cough* had to reassure a dog. Ahem. I wouldn't normally do that, but I really don't like to see anyone quite so upset.

Now, one of two of the more perceptive of you may be wondering why I am so anti-drunkenness when I live with a penguin who hasn't been sober for at least seven years. Well, all I can say is that Wilfred is different. I actually have a very strong suspicion that Wilfred needs to be drunk in order to function properly, and that sobriety would be as dangerous for him as drunkenness is for humans. I have to admit, however, that I can't actually prove this, as Wilfred never gets sober.

I wonder what he would do if he did?

My human once said that she didn't particularly like Kipling. I asked her how she knew this, on the grounds that to my knowledge she had never actually Kippled; she then explained that he was a poet, and read me some of his works. At first I couldn't see what her problem was, since after all the man clearly had a splendid way with words, and this usually goes down well with my human. Then I realised that her reasons were more political than poetical. Like most humans these days, she is uncomfortable with imperialism. Well, I'm not going to get into that debate, since I am, after all, a cat with a perfectly good empire. Suffice it to say that there's at least one line by Kipling that nobody in this house can reasonably argue with, though Klinsmann, of course, does his best.

The line in question is "The female of the species is more deadly than the male". Although this Kipling never had the privilege of meeting my niece, he evidently encountered enough of her ancestresses to formulate that general rule. Don't be fooled by Heidi's outstanding beauty and concomitant (quite pardonable) vanity, nor by the fact that if she likes you she will be all purrs and snuggles. She's got the most effective vicious streak in our little clan. I will kill at times, but more to keep my reflexes honed than for pleasure, and I've been known to undertake (if you'll pardon the pun) the occasional mercy-killing of some poor creature that was going to die anyway. Klinsmann is full of bluster, but I've never known him take down anything larger than a moth. But Heidi... well, when she goes into hunting mode, respect is due. And that's me talking.

The thing is, she enjoys it. With me, it's simply a professional skill, which is why I don't play with my catches - one swipe, and they're history. Heidi, on the other hand, gets that gleam in her eye and turns into a small mad ginger Valkyrie. I remember the time she went round to the stray human's house to catch mice for him. She couldn't catch any because they were all hiding, but she did find out where they were getting in and out. I've never seen her look so disappointed. I suppose from your point of view, it would be on a par with being taken to the gates of the chocolate factory, getting a whiff of the scent, and then having to go home again. I understand she is going to roobarb's for the same purpose, so I very much hope she has better luck this time.

Reflecting on Kipling's line again, it occurred to me to wonder if it also applied to female humans. Originally I suspected not, as ours is a very gentle character on the whole... but last week has forced me to reconsider that somewhat. It seems she is being messed about by the council, as a result of which she went on the warpath. I have to say, I was quite impressed.

And she says that's nothing to what her mother can do...

My human is a little out of countenance at the moment because the hot water is behaving erratically. It's not that I'm unsympathetic - I do like to see my human happy - but I must confess to a certain feeling of smugness. I don't have to worry about hot water. I have a perfectly good tongue with which I can keep almost every part of me as clean as I like, except the top of my head, and Heidi usually does that in exchange for a similar service. Humans, not being blessed with any fur worth mentioning, have to go to all the trouble of washing clothes; now that was a silly piece of evolution if you like. It makes so much more sense to grow your own fur instead.

Now, of course, as the stray human will no doubt point out, there is always the opposable thumb. It is undeniable that the opposable thumb confers many advantages to any species that has been fortunate enough to evolve one, but there are also drawbacks. Opposable thumbs and front paws designed for walking don't mix, so an opposable thumb inevitably necessitates an upright posture. I have been told - by humans, naturally - that an upright posture is a Good Thing, because it gives one more height from which to be able to pick out predators, potential prey, or anything else of interest. This is quite true, but then again, so does swarming up the nearest tree... which gives the added advantage of cover.

No, I don't think the upright posture is all it's cracked up to be. My human has just told me that a friend of hers has been informed by her doctor that the discs in her back are disintegrating. I'm very sorry about this and would gladly go round and purr at her if she lived nearby, but the fact remains that humans very commonly suffer from back trouble, whereas it's almost unheard of among those of us who go on all fours. Furthermore, if you're human and female, there are certain... ah... technical problems involving gravity. No problem for cats or even cows, since gravity is on their side. No cat ever needed to wear a bra, a fact for which Heidi says she is profoundly grateful.

The way I see it, any intelligent species has two choices. They can go and evolve an opposable thumb, and take all the risks associated with the inevitable upright posture. Or they can sit tight, wait for another intelligent species to evolve one, and enter into a relationship of mutual benefit with that species. In other words, you open the tin of squidgy food for me, and I will give you my most sympathetic purr (and act as a living hot-water bottle, should you so desire) when you have a bad back.

Anyway... a human came to fix the boiler on Wednesday morning, but he obviously didn't do it properly because the hot water is still intermittent, so another human is coming round on Tuesday. I hold myself partly to blame for this, as I obviously didn't supervise the first one properly. Remind me to sit over the next one and make quite sure he does a proper job!

It all started when my niece overheard some humans talking about Helen of Troy. I suppose they had been watching that film that was being advertised all over the place not so long ago. Heidi was most intrigued at the idea that someone could have a face that launched a thousand ships, and at first thought she must have been particularly hideous. I had to explain that the ships were not, in fact, trying to get away from her, and Helen of Troy was in fact spectacularly beautiful.

Well, as she herself will be the first to tell you, Heidi is also spectacularly beautiful, and naturally she immediately wanted to know how many ships her face would launch. The next thing she said was the killer. "You could design a controlled experiment to measure it, Uncle Minsky," she suggested.

Delighted as I am that Heidi at least takes an interest in science, I should be even more pleased if she would just think things through. Sheffield is a long way from the sea - in fact, it is about as far away from the sea as it is possible to get in England, which is one of the things my human likes about it. Besides, even if it were physically possible for us to get to a harbour, I am quite sure she hasn't considered what it would be like. I have never been to a harbour myself, but I have read enough to know that there are likely to be a lot of men operating heavy and probably noisy machinery. Heidi is the sort of cat who runs away from the vacuum cleaner, and it's not even a very big vacuum cleaner at that. It has to be small and light enough for our human to be able to carry up the stairs, since she has a problem with her front paws... er... hands. Anyway, I really can't imagine Heidi sitting around in a harbour long enough for her undeniably beautiful face to launch one ship, so it would hardly be a very useful experiment.

I explained all this to Heidi, and she then suggested scaling down. When I asked her exactly what she meant by this, she told me that we could go and find a pond and see how many toy boats her face would launch, then I could do a mathematical transformation to work it out in terms of full-sized ships. Well, I'm sure you can all see two problems with this immediately. The first is that toy boats are launched by children, and Heidi, with very good reason, is extremely wary of them, especially in numbers. (The gangs of brats in our neighbourhood have quietened down a lot lately, but it is still not at all safe for a cat in this area to be anywhere near a bunch of bored children.) The second, which is probably even more serious, is that I don't see how it is possible to calibrate. It's all very well saying a mathematical transformation could be done, but in order to do it one has to know the relevant parameters and the correlation between the input and the output. Heidi seems to be assuming it's linear, but we don't know that. One would have to take several subjects, each with a known level of beauty, find out how many ships each of them launched, and then repeat the experiment with the toy boats in order to calibrate. That's probably more trouble (and less accurate) than taking Heidi to the harbour in the first place.

In conclusion, I think it's a non-starter, but it has got me wondering about something. One never hears about Johnny Depp or Viggo Mortensen launching ships, and indeed I am a very handsome cat myself and to my knowledge I have never launched anything in my life, apart from the odd tirade against Klinsmann.

So I'm curious. Assuming that feminine beauty is measured in millihelens (a millihelen, obviously, being defined as a unit of beauty sufficient to launch one ship), what is the corresponding unit for masculine beauty? Does anyone out there know?

One thing life has taught me is that Klinsmann is, sadly, not unique. There are human Klinsmanns, as well as feline ones. Some human Klinsmanns commit arrestable offences and end up behind bars, but many - especially the more intelligent ones - never go quite that far, while still contriving to make the lives of as many other humans as possible a misery. There are many names for these humans, most of them unprintable, but I will refer to them as "bullies", which is as good a description as any.

While my human was at work the other day, she was doing some research for her boss on health care costs in Germany, and apparently Google misbehaved itself and threw up a result which was completely irrelevant to what she was doing, as it occasionally does. (Incidentally, if anyone doubts this, she suggests you try Googling for "occupational health nursing" plus "glossary, vocabulary, [or] lexicon" within the UK. This produces more irrelevant results than relevant ones.) The spurious result was this anti-bullying site, and though it was nothing to do with what she was doing, she realised at once that it would have its uses elsewhere.

According to the estimate given on this site, up to 50% of you may be suffering from bullying at this moment - a statistic which makes my tail droop, fond as I am of you all. This bullying may be in the workplace, from family members (one of the worst kinds), or from neighbours; this last struck a chord with me, as we used to have the Neighbour from Hell whose sheer malice could send my normally calm and well-adjusted human into something approaching blind terror. (She moved - only just round the corner, but it fortunately turned out to be far enough.) Still, the good news is that if you are in this position, the site has a lot of information on how you can stop it. It also has a lot of information on the causes of bullying, at least in humans. I have had a good look and there is nothing that specifically covers cats; though I strongly suspect Klinsmann may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I have as yet no proof. Perhaps I ought to study him for a while, and write up a paper for one of our feline psychological journals.

Now, of course, with cats it is a great deal simpler. On this patch, I am the authority to whom all other cats (and indeed dogs, though they don't like to admit it) can appeal. There is no higher court. I am sole monarch, or possibly a fur-clad Judge Dredd, and one of the reasons I got this position is that I am strongly in favour of keeping the peace. You will almost never hear a cat-fight on my territory, and if you do, it's because I am stuck in the house and can't get out there to stop it (but rest assured that I will recognise the voices and have Little Words when I next see the offenders). It's a perfectly reasonable two-way agreement: I will allow other cats to wander freely on my territory and ensure that they are safe while they do, and in return, I expect to be acknowledged as head honcho. It works for pretty much everyone except Klinsmann, and if I catch him bullying other cats, I just thump him.

I don't advocate that for humans, mainly for pragmatic reasons. I don't think it would work. Humans are capable of arguing themselves into a complex ethical knot over this kind of thing, and I'm quite sure that if they tried the cat approach it would end up generating a great deal more heat than light. Still, I do respectfully suggest that there is one thing the human race could learn from my approach:

Bullying is not tolerated in this patch. No ifs, no buts. And that includes you, evil little nephew!

I am eight years old today.

*purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

The weather round here has been what my human describes as "unsettled" for the last couple of weeks or so. As far as I can tell, this is a human way of saying that it's up and down like Klinsmann on a staircase.

Humans are remarkably bad at predicting the weather, though I'll give them full credit for their ingenuity in trying to make up for this. They have all kinds of sophisticated devices for measuring temperature, pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and a hundred other parameters. Of course they still can't predict the weather accurately, especially when it's changing as fast as it has been recently, but they can hardly be blamed for that. They don't have such good noses as we do, and they don't have whiskers at all.

At times like this, my human relies on me to let her know what to wear, particularly on her feet, as she seems to have a very strong objection to getting these wet. She thinks I can forecast the weather better than the ginger cats, and I don't bother putting her right. As a matter of fact we are all about equally good at forecasting the weather; it does, after all, come naturally to most cats. The area in which I excel isn't actually meteorology. It's timing. The crucial thing from both my point of view and that of my human is not that I should predict whether or not it will rain today, but whether or not it will rain while my human is not around to let me in. If it rains while she's here to open the door, I really couldn't care less. I don't have any objection to getting wet, as long as I can come in when I want and enjoy a good towelling down. It is a great deal less fun when that is not an option.

Mind you, I've got to say, humans do say some silly things sometimes. Last weekend my human went off to see her sister and some friends in Rochdale, and, having no idea what to wear, she said to me, "It's a pity you can't do long-distance weather forecasting, Minsky."

Long-distance weather forecasting? Why on earth would I need to know whether or not it's raining in Rochdale? I forecast whether I'm going to get wet, not someone on the other side of the Pennines.

There really must be a cat around somewhere who would like to adopt my human's sister...

This is just a very brief announcement. My human has finally got round to creating her own LJ, and you will find it at miss_next. Like her main journal, it will be friends only. Those of you who are on her friends list at Blurty will not need to add her here, at least for the time being, as she intends merely to cross-post from there. The reason is that, with the best will in the world, she doesn't have time to keep up properly with a friends list on two separate sites, and she still knows too many people who aren't thinking of leaving Blurty. However, she says she will always reply to comments on her journal here, and she will keep up with her friends list when she can, which will probably mainly be at weekends.

She has already added most of you; if you haven't been added and would like to be, please leave a comment here and I shall pass it on to her. Also, if you know anyone else who isn't interested in keeping up with this journal but knows my human, do feel free to inform them of this development.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I am off to find out what Klinsmann is doing and make him stop it at once. I hope to update properly at the weekend.

I have decided I am going to be a saint, and I am extremely grateful to nhinx for the suggestion. The reason for this is perfectly simple. If I attempt to be a saint, then no matter how obstructive Klinsmann tries to be, all he will end up doing is helping, and thus he will be neatly hoist with the petard of his own unspeakable nature. After all, by comparison with Klinsmann, very few people would not appear to be paragons of sanctity.

It is also useful that saintly behaviour has never really been defined from a feline point of view, which gives me the freedom to adapt human models to suit the morality of a different species. As it happens, chastity is not an issue in my case, but even if it were, promiscuity in itself is perfectly legitimate behaviour for cats. It's the kind of sexual behaviour Klinsmann used to indulge in that is immoral from a feline point of view; my human, speaking to a friend about it, put it rather well when she said, "Most tomcats go out and look for a lady cat, but in Klinsmann's case it didn't have to be a lady, and it didn't have to be a cat." Quite so. There are certain lurid but persistent rumours involving a tram, which Klinsmann has never actually denied. Well, it will hardly be difficult for me to avoid that kind of behaviour.

Of course, being a saint is more about doing the things one should do than avoiding the things one shouldn't do. That will be easy enough. I don't find it at all difficult to be nice to my human, and I'm very nearly always nice to Heidi (perhaps I ought to work on the "very nearly" bit; I must admit that when I snap at her, it's usually because I've had enough of her brother and I am unjustly tarring her with the same brush simply because she's ginger). Klinsmann says that if I am going to be a saint I should be nice to him too, but I pointed out that there was nothing unsaintly about giving him a good hiding as long as I did it in the interests of society in general and not simply out of frustration or a desire for retaliation.

Come to think of it, since Klinsmann is such a menace to society, it would be all the more saintly if I gave him a good hiding more often. Indeed, one of the best things I can do to demonstrate my love for my neighbour is to stop that ghastly little ginger oik from annoying said neighbour, don't you think?

I think I'm going to enjoy being a saint. *purrrrrrr*

As you probably all know, humans used to worship us in ancient Egypt. I caused a bit of a stir in our house this morning by observing that this was really not such a good thing as it sounds.

Heidi, naturally, was extremely indignant, especially as she happened to be sitting in her favourite "statue of Bast" pose at the time I made my casual remark. I told her to calm herself and think about it logically. Worship implies that one is expected to answer prayers, and the sort of things that humans pray about are generally the sort of things over which they have no control, such as the weather. This took a bit of arguing, because both the ginger cats are convinced that our human can control the weather and therefore hold her personally responsible if it pours, but I pointed out that she was surprised when it snowed the other week (and similarly, but to a lesser extent, when there was a frost this morning). If she could control the weather, she'd hardly be surprised.

Now, it is all very flattering to be worshipped, but the unfortunate facts remain. Cats simply cannot control the weather. If we could, everything would be very simple: it would be sunny and warm when we were out, and it would rain when we were inside. We would also arrange snow once a year, on Christmas Day, because that is when humans seem to prefer it. (I imagine antipodean cats would have to come to some alternative agreement.) Arranging the weather to suit one's own preferences also cuts out, at a single stroke, the difficulty of balancing incompatible prayers. If the lady in the house opposite asks for a beautiful day so that she can dry her washing, while her small son is desperately praying for a thunderstorm so that he does not have to endure the peculiar and barbarous annual ritual known as school sports, it stands to reason that you can't keep them both happy. So you would simply decide whether you wanted to be in or out that afternoon... although I must admit that in those particular circumstances, I think I might find a good reason to stay indoors. *purr*

Another serious difficulty with cat worship is the existence of Klinsmann. Let's face it, what human in their right mind would worship a creature like that? To be absolutely honest, the existence of Klinsmann causes a thorny problem in any theology you care to mention, not just cat worship, but that's another matter. Klinsmann says he thinks it would be a very fine thing to be worshipped, but frankly I think he's going to learn to whistle before he manages to attract his own cult. He is, after all, in direct competition with Cthulhu for that particular market share, and Cthulhu has been around a lot longer.

You could have arguments about this till your whiskers dropped off, but at the end of the day it is all very simple. Which would you prefer, having to listen to prayers all day or a good scratch behind the ears?

Even Heidi didn't find it difficult to answer that one!

Those of you who have been following this journal for a while will understand that Klinsmann, my nephew, has no redeeming features whatsoever. He is not only a bully, but a coward. He will chase anything injudicious enough to run away from him, but if it stands its ground, then no matter how small it is, Klinsmann will run.

Usually.

The other morning I was in the next garden, quietly working out the current return on my investments, when Klinsmann suddenly started making a terrible din on our patio. I went up and peered through the fence to see what was going on, and saw Heidi sitting on the patio having a friendly conversation with that little black and white cat from over the wall. She doesn't normally wander so far from home, but she seems to get on well with my niece, and, let's face it, who wouldn't?

I could tell exactly what was going on in Klinsmann's ridiculous little ginger head. The black and white cat wasn't running, which would normally mean that Klinsmann would run. However, he knew perfectly well that if he did run, Heidi would tell me all about it (not that this would have been necessary, as I should have made a point of inconveniently appearing from behind the fence in time for him to notice me as he fled, but then neither of them was aware of that at the time). It really doesn't look good to run away from someone who is having a chat with one's sister. Thus, impaled upon the horns of a dilemma, Klinsmann miaowed desperately until our human appeared.

I was tempted to carry on watching, but I was hungry, and breakfast won out over entertainment. Still, once I'd eaten I did go to the window. By this time Klinsmann, still undecided, had been reduced to making small talk with the other cat. After this, he could hardly run away, especially with me watching. Eventually, once the other cat left of her own accord, he came in, both looking and feeling rather stupid.

Now, all this embarrassment could have been completely avoided if he'd just been friendly to start with. That black and white cat is pleasant, polite and absolutely no threat. Unfortunately Klinsmann is too stupid to realise - until it's too late - that being nice is an option. He thinks life is all about chasing or being chased.

You know, I actually very nearly feel sorry for him.

My human ran off recently, for a whole week. I'm really not keen on her doing that, because heaven only knows what she might do without a responsible cat to look after her; still, she has run off a number of times and she always finds her way home in the end, so I don't worry about her too much. Heidi does worry; Klinsmann would sooner lose at least eight of his lives than admit to it, but he gets a little pensive himself, especially after she's been gone for a few days.

What I really don't like is that I always seem to be expected to look after the stray human when my human runs off. Now, don't get me wrong, he's not in any way a bad human. He is well-meaning, and he is bright enough to understand simple instructions regarding the filling of food and water bowls. However, he does seem to live in a world of his own, and he is not very open to affection. You can't jump into his lap and tell him what a good human he is, something which always soothes and reassures them (humans are terribly jumpy creatures on the whole, and need a great deal of purring to settle them down). He's also not a good communicator. My own human is very bright and can understand most things I say to her (it does help that I have learned one word of human language, namely "harangue", which I say repeatedly when I am trying to get her attention from the other side of a closed door). The stray human simply hasn't a clue. I theorised that he could be partially deaf, since he seems to be able to hear human speech but is quite unresponsive to almost any kind of miaow, so I have made several attempts to communicate with him visually using my ears and tail. I have refined this language to the point where I can use it to deliver a lecture in applied psychodynamics, but he does not appear to understand. I'm afraid he is probably just too stupid to learn.

Well, my human came home last weekend, and by way of atonement for her absence she has been giving us various little treats ever since. To my amusement, there is one kind of treat that Klinsmann doesn't like and refuses to eat; serve him right for being so fussy. I personally consider them delicious.

We have also had some snow here. Heidi couldn't believe it was snowing after the very mild weather we had at the beginning of the week, and insisted on going out to investigate for herself. She came in two minutes later looking very disconsolate. I did try to tell her that snow is cold, whether it happens in January, April or for that matter June, but would she listen? Honestly, kittens these days... [Note from Minsky's human: Heidi is only eighteen months Minsky's junior - kitten indeed!]

And now, if you'll all excuse me, our human bought us some special milk today that won't upset our stomachs. I had a little drink earlier, and now I think I'm going to have another one, followed by a good nap. Despite the occasional inconveniences, life is sweet!