Charlie Sheen, Cavies & Cannabis

I'm famous, a celebrity. Google Billy the Pig and both my website and my blog appear on the first page and there are 13.5 million results for Billy the Pig. I'm not telling you this to brag, we cavies don't have to do that. Everyone already knows how special we are. I just want a little understanding. You see, like many celebrities I am a little highly strung and from time to time I might do something that mere humans find a little strange. I like to eat my own bush chocolate for a start. Even Charlie Sheen doesn't do that, but then again who knows what he gets up to in the privacy of his own toilet ? I've yet to appear in a sex video although my male staff is always threatening to film me mounting Badger and sell it to Channel Nine.

He also accuses me of being a drama queen just because I get a little tired and emotional sometimes. For example last night I was sitting on my female staff's lap having my hair brushed and my feet massaged - yes I was having my feet massaged. What's wrong with that? My male staff was giving Badger a bit of a cuddle, then he decided to hold Badger a couple of inches from my face. Then wouldn't you know it, he tried to bite my nose - Badger that is, not my male staff - thank God! He's probably got rabies. Anyway I was so shocked that I ran up to my female staff's shoulder, where I sat cackling and squealing like a girl. Just for that I get accused of being a drama queen - can you believe it? What sympathy did I get? None, zilch, bugger all. My staff just laughed at me. I just sat on my female staff's shoulder with as much dignity as I could muster and gave Badger my best death stare. It's not up to Julie Bishop's standard of course but it's not half bad. It was wasted though, Badger doesn't have the imagination to be scared.

As you know I like to keep up with the news, and just the other day I was scraping away at my straw in search of a bean that I thought I must have mis-laid (Turns out I'd already eaten it.) when I came across an extraordinary item in the newspaper that lines the bottom of my cage. A policeman in a helicopter with a heat sensitive camera in Bradford, UK spotted a hotspot on a garage roof . The suspicious policeman (I suppose it goes with the territory.) radioed in to say that he suspected that the house might be being used for growing cannabis. So anyway, the coppers knocked politely on the door of the house (As they do.) and voiced their suspicions to the occupant who happened to be standing in front of a large poster of Bob Marley and a great pile of weed.

"Honest officer" said the occupant "I'm not growing cannabis in my garage." He was then questioned about the hotspot on the roof. Turns out it was a heating system to keep his guinea pigs warm. What a nice man. I only hope he shared some of the weed he was probably growing in the basement with his piggies once the coppers had gone.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

My staff have been more distracted and dopey than usual lately. I think it's because they're contemplating installing solar power and the substantial expense involved in such a project. It doesn't bother Badger and I one way or another. We cavies do not use a lot of power. Actually we have the potential to generate quite a lot of it. If our staff would invest in a couple of those little wheels and hook it up to some sort of dynamo, we could belt along and produce enough power to run the fridge in order to keep our beans cool. My staff could also produce a lot of sustainable energy themselves simply by attaching wind turbines to their bottom passages, true it would make sitting down a little awkward but there'd be enough power to run a medium sized hospital.

My male staff's main concern (Apart from letting the pet moths in his wallet escape.) is that the outlay for the solar panels takes far to long to recoup by means of the savings made by having no power bill. Five to eight years he reckons. That, sadly, is  lifetime for a guinea pig. He reckons that if the climate change models are correct and northern Australia's climate becomes cooler and wetter, his precious solar panels' efficiency will degrade over time because there will be more cloud cover. Those same climate change models say that southern Australia will become drier and hotter and so more suitable for solar power production. So we could all move a few hundred kilometres south. The trouble with that is that southern Australia will then have a water shortage due to decreasing rainfall and that would mean that my staff would have to pay through the nose for their water. I can imagine my male staff's wallet moths getting itchy feet already.

Badger may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he can see that climate change is a reality. In fact you'd have to be blind, deaf, stupid or Tony Abbott not to see that the world's weather is going a bit nuts. Even if you don't agree that human activity is contributing you can't deny that something unsettling is happening. Glaciers are shrinking, deserts are expanding and the amount of hot air emanating from parliament house multiplies year after year. In my male staff's capacity as an African travel expert he keeps banging on about how the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro have retreated in recent years. Anyway, if only you humans could get your act together you'd see benefits in reducing pollution whether or not it makes a difference to the climate.

Australians - the human ones at least, are per capita the world's greatest polluters. Yep, that's right, worse than the Yanks, worse than the Europeans and worse than the Chinese and yet we are one of the slowest nations on earth to begin to put climate change remedies in place. Ye Gods! Can you imagine the whinging from certain sections of Australian society when the entire population of the Pacific Ocean turns up on our shores in leaky boats because their islands have disappeared due to rising sea levels caused by melting polar ice caps. I can see Tony Abbott in his budgie smugglers knee deep in water like some modern day King Canute waving his arms and yelling "Turn back the boats." at the top of his voice. Trouble is of course that they will have nowhere to turn back to - and guess who's fault that will be.

Now that I've got that off my furry little chest I can relax and talk about something  far more important than the end of the world as we know it. I have started doing a hyena impression, or so my staff say, and they should know. When I'm placed on a towel recently vacated by Badger I start to giggle. I can't help it. He leaves behind such a funny smell. I giggle and sniff and try to bury my nostrils in the towel. It's great fun, you should try it one day. This observation by my staff led me to recapping the many different species I have been likened to or mistaken for. So far - mongoose, dog, beaver, ferret, lion, skunk, fruit bat and now hyena. Not bad for cavy in only his second year. I could be a "one cavy zoo", charge an entrance fee and help pay for my staff's stupid solar panels.

Lying Rodent

Whew! It's been a hot week. Badger and I have been sitting on our ice blocks, sucking beans, sipping water and generally feeling somewhat limp in the heat. Our staff have been bad tempered and snappy, taking shower after shower - not that it helps, they're still smelly. Only Paolo and Biggles the budgies don't seem to mind. In fact they actually seem to enjoy this sort of weather. They cheep at the top of their voices and splash around in their drinking water. Very uncouth - even for Australians. We Peruvians would never do such a thing. I always try to keep my drinking water clean and am horrified that I sometimes find a piece of bush chocolate floating in it. I have no idea how it gets there, but I suspect Badger might be lobbing it through the bars of his cage for fun when he gets a bit bored. Anyway I only have to squeal like a girl and my staff come running to give me some fresh water, so it's not really a problem.

Yes I know it was one of my New Year's resolutions not to squeal like a girl, but I thought what the hell, everyone else seems to be breaking promises and lying through their teeth so why should I be left behind. I also promised my male staff that I wouldn't ejaculate on his hand again, but that only lasted about a week. I had just mounted Badger and he berated me and then pulled me off, (If you'll pardon that rather unfortunate phrase.) then Bingo! He had a handful and I was being roundly berated again. He's only jealous because I've got more followers on Twitter the he has.

Anyway, just to show that I'm in good company when it comes to telling pork pies, here are a few of my favourites.

Our Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard said "There will be no Carbon Tax under any government I lead." Now of course it is one of the main pillars of government policy.

My male staff said he will give up coffee and cheesecake. Fat chance, that's like a normal person saying that they will give up breathing.

The Liberal Party opposition leader Tony Abbott promised that his party would be more competent fiscal managers than the Labor government, and then he appointed Barnaby Joyce as shadow finance minister.

My female staff vowed to become a light eater. To be fair she has done this. As soon as it's light she starts eating.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating said that planned tax cuts were "L....A....W  law". What he didn't say was that L......A......W in this case stands for Lying Arse Whole. (Spelling was never his strong suit.)

Queensland LNP opposition lead John Paul Langbroek promised to stand and fight for his position when it was challenged by Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman. His resignation speech came the very next day.

To coin a phrase from another distinguished Australian Prime Minister John Howard, these were obviously not "core promises", but then even he was called a "lying rodent" by a member of his own Liberal Party - Senator George Brandis. This is going just too far and is an insult to all rodents, particularly one rodent in particular who is not a million miles from the pointy end of this keyboard.  Promises made regarding erroneous ejaculations and girlie squeals aside I have never ever told a lie.    

Bastards!

From my vantage point on my male staffs lap as he scanned the news on the BBC website I was shocked to find that just when you think the America's attitude to guns can't get any more ludicrous they surprise you.  Utah has proudly become the first state to have an official state firearm. It's the Browning 1911.  You'd think by now that Americans would have learned not to glorify guns, but no.  Do they realise or even care how stupid this makes them look to the rest of the world?  Let me ask you a straight question - mammal to mammal. Is there no end to this ludocracy? (Yes I know ludocracy isn't a real human word, but I like it.) Or can America become still more ludicrous and adopt the following.

Obesity - The official disease of California.
Alligator bites -  The official injury of Florida
Incompetent Presidents - The official export of Texas
White robes and pointy hoods - The official outfit of Mississippi
Sarah Palin - The official nincompoop of Alaska

When are you colonials going to realise that carrying a gun simply means that you're more likely to get shot. In the same way that carrying a knife is likely to get you stabbed.  For heavens sake GROW UP or I'll get Mrs Thatcher to take your toys away!

Meanwhile back in the real world - or Australia at least, the ANZAC spirit has once again come to the fore. Hundreds of brave folk in Victoria are resisting the annual invasion of one of Australia's deadliest creatures - the duck.  Like German Junkers 88 bombers during London's blitz they fly viciously overhead and brutally land in wetlands to breed, eat and quack.  Bastards!! Thank heavens for the group of courageous souls armed only with shotguns who protect us from the invaders' deadly beaks and webbed feet.

"Enough with the sarcasm already Billy." I hear you cry. Yes it's the Victorian duck hunting season again and already, along with thousands of ducks a protester has been shot by a fourteen year old kid whose gun is probably bigger than he is and whose lead pellets are almost certainly bigger than his father's brain. They say that duck hunting is a sport. Like hell it is! Isn't a sport meant to be a contest between two evenly matched contestants? The only advantage the duck has over the hunter is it's superior intellect. You might as well call clubbing seals a sport - or harpooning whales. My great fear now is that some dopey Queensland politician will introduce a guinea pig hunting season and Badger and I will be forced to hide under our staff's bed amongst piles of our own bush chocolate while some dork in waders and a deer-stalker hat fires his twelve bore shotgun willy-nilly into our cage. Can you buy body armour on Ebay?

The Killer Ibis

I felt a little guilty following my last post - "The Joy of Socks."  Maybe I should have given it an "R" rating as it made mention of ladies unmentionables. However, you would have noticed that I only used words that can be found in the Oxford English dictionary.  Being a cavy of refinement I know no others. As yet nobody has lodged a complaint but I hereby wish to sincerely apologise if the subject matter caused anyone to be offended.  That last sentence is politician speak for "I don't regret a word I said. What I do regret is that there are people out there who are stupid enough or narrow minded enough to take offence - tough titties." I think I'd make rather a good politician actually. I make a lot of meaningless noise and spend half the day with my snout in the trough.  Trouble is Australians aren't stupid enough to elect a guinea pig to parliament, though they did elect Steve Fielding which is far worse.

I have decided that I am showing Pea and Chook far too much respect.  How do they repay that respect?  By holding a poll on Facebook and Twitter as to whether or not I should have my testostricles removed. Regular readers will know that this has been an on-going issue for some time, but now I think they've gone too far. Hence from now on Pea and Chook will be known collectively as "My staff."  Individually they will be my "male staff" and my "female staff."  In any case this is far more appropriate since they clean up my bush chocolate, mop up my bush lemonade, hand feed me on request, change my bedding and come running when I squeal like a girl.  Hah! Who's the dumb animal?

Still on the subject of dumbness.  I was sitting in my cage sucking on a bean this evening while watching the Channel Ten News.  Actually I was mostly watching the commercials that the news interrupts from time to time. There was a disturbing item concerning a poor Singaporean solicitor who, while innocently enjoying his lunch at Brisbane's South Bank was the victim of a vicious and unprovoked attack by one of Australia's most deadly killers - an ibis.  This brutal assasin apparently landed on his picnic table in an attempt to pinch a bit of his ham sandwich.  Such was the violence of the Ibis' attack that the traumatised solicitor was forced to hit the bird five times before jumping on it's head and neck in order to subdue the murderous feathered fiend.  Thank heavens that the bird was so badly injured it had to be destroyed. At least now it can't make further attempts on people's lives.  In any case in Singapore, death is probably the penalty for the attempted theft of a ham sandwich. You can face life in prison simply for taking a durian into your hotel room.

Now, does that strike you as being a little cowardly? The solicitor claimed in court to be afraid of birds, but surely if you're afraid of a bird you just walk, or run a few metres away. You don't waste time beating the poor thing half to death and then jump on it's head.  Surprise, suprise the solicitor didn't even have a conviction recorded. The magistrate just ordered him to seek anger management.  Was this a case of the legal fraternity sticking together?  Surely they don't do that sort of thing do they?  When will magistrates learn that cruelty doesn't stop with killing and injuring animals - it nearly always escalates. One day its an ibis, next year it's his kids, or his wife.

Oooohh! I am becoming a serious piggy aren't I?
   

The Joy of Socks

One day last week I was sitting on top of my little red shelter gazing into Badger's cage hoping to catch a glimpse of his sexy little black backside as he shoots out of his little blue shelter to grab a piece of carrot, when Chook chucked several lumps of wood into my cage.  "There you are Billy" she fawned. "Here's some nice new toys for you."

"Bullshit!" I said, not out loud obviously as I don't like to seem ungrateful.  These alleged toys were chunks of wood, painted and shaped to look like various types of fruit.  There was an orange, an apple, a banana, a pear and a strawberry.  She showed me the packet.  The "fruit" was supposed to smell like the real thing and be irresistible to guinea pigs.  Apparently I'm supposed to chew them so that my teeth don't get too big and I don't end up looking like some sort of hairy miniature hippo. Well guess what.  They smelled and tasted of wood.  What does she think I am? A bloody beaver?  If I've told Pea and Chook once, I've told them a thousand times.  If you want to get something to keep me entertained get me a Game Boy. This beaver fodder had set her back ten bucks and all it does is get in the way when I'm trying to get to my food.  The only thing they smell of now is bush chocolate.

The momentous events related above have somewhat overshadowed the events in Libya where a civil war is raging.  Why is it called a civil war? There's nothing civil about it.  It's all extremely impolite if you ask me.  The Libyan people are revolting and Gaddafi is going out of his way to be even more revolting.  He's almost as ugly as Wayne Rooney.  The whole situation is turning to bush chocolate and confusion reigns in the west over what should be done about it. Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd wants a no fly fly zone, but Prime Minister Julia Gillard thinks cockroaches should be more of a priority, but then she's from Victoria and has never much liked New South Wales.  Tony Abbott says he'll oppose it whatever it is.  He's the leader of the opposition, so that's his job.

Meanwhile Piggi-Leaks can reveal a private conversation that took place in the bedroom of George and Laura Bush. This comes via an un-named source. (Major Hugh Jarswobbil of the 13th Marine Corps - a brave but somewhat naive man.)

Laura:       Say George, what do you think of Libya?
George:    I think they're just swell Laura.
Laura:      Whaddya mean "they" George?  It's a country.
George:   Is it?  I thought it was what you find between a woman's legs.
Laura:     That's Labia.  Maybe you're thinking of a clitoris.
George:  Aclitoris?  Wasn't he that Roman guy in Gladiator?
Laura:    Never mind. What are you reading?
George:  "The Joy of Socks." It has a hundred and one different ways to rearrange your sock drawer.
Laura:   Sounds exciting!
George: Oh, it is Laura. It really is.
Laura:   Goodnight George I'm going to sleep.

At this point in the tape there are a few moments of silence. 
Then from George "Uhhh Uh Uh Uh.............Mission accomplished.  Wow that really is a good book."

Nine Nipples

My regular readers will recall that some simple research by yours truly threw up the remarkable fact that Jacquelin - Chook's other name - means "The Supplanter."  My less regular readers would be well advised to eat several spinach leaves a day.  Works for me.  Anyway, where was I?  Ah yes.  I promised you I'd do some research to find out who exactly Chook had supplanted in Pea's heart.  Well, I interrogated Pea and it seems it was a "bitch" called Hannah.  Now this rather harsh term shocked me somewhat as Pea is not usually prone to making such derogatory remarks about the opposite sex. (Apart from when they're phaffing about looking for their purse at the supermarket checkout.)  Indeed, he seems quite fond of them on the whole.  He certainly appears to tolerate Chook well enough.

Hannah, it seems, had big, soulful brown eyes, a gentle, loving nature and nine nipples.  My God! I thought.  And you dumped her for Chook?  You're more of a fruitcake than I thought pal!  But then he went on to say that she was a boxer, had a cold wet nose, bad breath, drooled a lot and used to shed hair everywhere.  Not sounding so attractive now is she? Then when he said she had to have her anal glands drained on a regular basis I could see how the relationship was doomed to failure once Chook appeared on the scene.  Shame though, I'd like to have met Hannah.  She sounds a lot of fun as long as you didn't have to share a bed with her.

The Brisbane Courier Mail is one of my favourite newspapers.  I find it thoroughly absorbent. In fact just this morning I was about to have a widdle when I noticed a familiar face staring up at me from my cage lining.  Former leader of One Nation Pauline Hanson! If having her staring at you when you're trying to wee doesn't put you off, nothing will.  Rumour has it that she migrated to the United Kingdom because there were too many foreigners in Australia.  It is also rumoured that she was about have her passport stamped at Heathrow Airport when she noticed that the gentleman behind the desk was somewhat more tanned than the average Englishman.  Not only that, but he was wearing a turban and a name badge that announced him to be Mr Singh.  She allegedly snatched her passport back, turned on her heel and reboarded the Qantas plane she'd arrived on twenty minutes previously, where she sat, refusing to leave even while the cleaners vacuumed around her feet.

Now she's back in Australia and contesting the New South Wales state election, hoping to win a seat in the upper house.  The Liberal party, currently in opposition, but probably not for long have said that if she gains a seat in parliament they will have nothing to do with her and her racially divisive politics. It hasn't stopped them endorsing another former senior member of One Nation - Chris Spence as their candidate for the seat of The Entrance though, so there's still hope for Pauline yet.  If she plays her cards right and the Liberals win government in New South Wales she might just be nominated for an OBE for services to racial intolerance.

Who's fault is all this?  The good old Labor party, especially the delightfully incompetent former Premier Maurice Dilemma or whatever his name was.  Pea reckons it can't be down to the current Premier, Kristina Keneally - she's far too sexy.  Anyway, I hear you ask.  What's all this got to do with a guinea pig?  Well, nothing really, except I have never enjoyed a wee so much in my life.

Osama bin Laden's Bottom Passage

What a strange attitude humans have towards technology.  You're quite prepared to have to turn off your computer by clicking the start button and yet you complain bitterly if the scrambled eggs served to you for breakfast whilst travelling at six hundred miles an hour at thirty nine thousand feet in an aluminium tube are not quite hot enough.  You complain that sitting in front of your computer all day is ruining your eyes, but you go home an sit in front of the telly for a further four or five hours.  You whinge like crazy if there's a power cut for an hour and then you happily go camping for a week without power.  You lament the cost of re-connecting power lines when they're knocked down by a cyclone but you steadfastly refuse to put the cables underground where they would never be damaged again. 

You have the technology to fly a tomahawk missile right up Osama bin Laden's bottom passage without touching the sides, if only you could find him, and yet you can't make a GPS for a car that doesn't send the driver the wrong way down a one way street with a copper waiting at the other end.  More than 40 years ago you put men on the moon and yet you still can't make a cell phone that doesn't fry the user's brain.  Actually I think it's impossible that human ingenuity hasn't solved that minor problem.  It is a deliberate fault.  I have a theory that since the earth is probably about fifty percent over-populated, world leaders got together with their co-conspirators - the captains of industry in order to develop a means of reducing the population, thereby averting looming wars over food, water and oil which might harm the bottom line.

Obviously they had to come up with something that the great unwashed hoards would think that they couldn't do without: something that would, over time, cause a tennis ball sized tumour to grow inside people's heads.  Tah dah!  Behold the cell phone.  What normal person could possibly do without a phone that incorporates a camera and several dopey games?  Goodness me.  Even Pea has got one.  He has no idea how to use it mind you.  It has a very irritating frog croak ring-tone that he doesn't know how to change.

Ask yourself.  When was the last time you saw George Dubya Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Barry O'Barmer or any other world leader you care to name actually using a cell phone  themselves?  They're not as stupid as you humans think they are.  Well, okay maybe George Dubya is. So, there you have it - a conspiracy theory from a guinea pig. I bet you didn't expect that this week.  But why not?  It's more feasible than the theory that the CIA had something to do with 9/11.     

Just a Very Naughty Boy

I hate it when Pea returns from a visit to the supermarket.  There's something about waiting for a bunch of fat people to finish their dumb conversation while blocking the aisle, preventing him from reaching his tin of no-name baked beans that puts him in a foul mood.  Then he says he has to wait for hours (I've told him a trillion times not to exaggerate.) while some dopey woman with a carton a milk acts surprised that she actually has to pay for it and spends eons looking for her purse in a cavernous handbag, and then once she's found the purse, spends further eons picking through mounds of coins for the correct change.  "Why," he asks, "can't they at least have their purse ready?"  Men don't do it, he reckons.  Look at any checkout queue in any shop anywhere in the world and you'll see men clutching their wallets and women flicking through the stupid magazines they sell near the till apparently with absolutely no idea that they will be asked to stump up some cash when they reach the front of the queue.

And so he rants on, shambling about the house, slamming doors.  If he had a cat he probably kick it.  Fortunately he can't get his foot into my cage without getting it irretrievably stuck and then he'd have the embarrassment of turning up at accident and emergency with his foot wedged into a guinea pig cage.  Explain that away fat boy! Once he's calmed down, he's back to his old self.  Dragging me or Badger from our cage and giving us a stroke seems to help, and we don't mind as long as we get a bean or a piece of carrot for our inconvenience. We'll even pretend we're enjoying it, purring and squeaking and snuggling down.  We've got the silly old sod right where we want him.  Then whenever we feel like we've had enough stroking and want to be returned to our cage for a bit of peace and quiet we just piddle on his lap - simple.

Unfortunately Badger is learning a few tricks of the trade.  These days whenever I try to mount him (As one always should a good friend.) he either bites my bits if I try to mount his head or kicks me in the teeth if I attempt to jump on his back - both jolly unsporting and un-Australian.  That's a phrase I've been hearing a lot lately on the telly.  It's always "this is very un-Australian" and "that is very un-Australian."  In fact I'm hearing it so much that whatever these people are doing must actually be very Australian indeed since nearly every Australian seems to be doing whatever is is that is supposed to be un-Australian.  Do you know what I mean?  If so, please drop me a line and explain it to me.

Meanwhile half a world away in good ol' gun-toting USA, a twelve year old boy has turned himself in having shot his parents dead and critically wounded his two siblings.  This particular cavy never ceases be be amazed at the stupidity of American gun laws.  It's said that it's as quick and easy to buy a gun in some states as it is to buy a Big Mac.  Either one is likely to get you killed one way or another.  But why would a twelve year old kid do that?  Was he worried they'd find his porno mags under his bed or something?  It's about time the United States of America grew up and stopped playing with guns.  Personally I'm with John Cleese.  He said that America has proved time and time again that it's not fit to govern itself and that Great Britain should tear up the Declaration of Independence and re-colonise the joint.  Maggie Thatcher would have.  I can just imagine her saying to Mr O'Barmer "You're not the President.  You're just a very naughty boy."