Beethoven's Ninth Racket

Just this morning I'd scraped away enough of my bedding to see the newspaper that lines the bottom of my cage, and who should I see staring up at me but Robert Mugabe, with that nasty, mean little Hitler moustache of his. I was about to deposit a satisfying pile of bush chocolate on his face when something else caught my eye. It was a item concerning a sixty-three year old Californian man who had tried to operate on his own hernia with a butter knife. A butter knife!! Apparently he'd already cut his stomach open with this viciously sharp blade and was poking about inside his guts when his wife found him.
 "Oh hello dear. What are you up to?"
"My elbows in my own guts."
Anyway she phoned 911 and then while they waited for the paramedics he removed the knife. The story didn't say whether or not she sewed him up with one of her crochet hooks, but I like to think that she did. The newspaper went on to say that the man was placed "in a psychiatric hold". Not sure what that is - probably a headlock.

Then I got to thinking My God! Is the American public health system so bad that people are reduced to performing their own surgery with a butter knife? Why don't the Republicans want a decent public health system? Are they scared that if people live long enough they'll eventually vote Democrat. I can't get my piggy head around it. Sure it's expensive, but then so are wars and the Republicans don't seem to be too averse to those. In any case, a good, well funded health system pays for itself long term. You just have to take the long term view instead of just looking towards the next election. Ah well, that's politicians for you. They all need their fingers biting and their laps peeing on.

Mr Mugabe never did get his face covered in bush chocolate, (Which he certainly deserves more than most.) because I was then distracted by a godawful noise coming from the other room. For a moment I though my male staff was taking a leaf from our Californian friend's book and was castrating himself with a butter knife. But no; a moment later he strolled casually back showing no signs of an injury. He peered into my cage and said,  "Are you enjoying the music Billy?" By way of reply I grumbled at him and shot into my little red shelter and put my paws over my ears. He told me that the racket was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Hell's bells! Whoever this Beethoven bloke was you'd think after the first eight he might have realised that he was making a bloody racket. I hate this thing that humans call music. It's just noise to me. Maybe I'm tone deaf or something. Badger quite likes it. He sits in his little blue shelter tapping his foot and pretending to play a violin as if he's some sort of rodent version of Andre Rieu. His black and white fur even makes him look as though he wearing a tuxedo. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, If music be the food of love - I'm going on a diet.

   

A Fistful of Bush Chocolate

Just like Martin Luther King, my male staff had a dream. Except his wasn't about racial equality. It was far more profound than that. It featured Badger and yours truly. For some reason he'd taken us both on a bus. This in itself is peculiar as my male staff never sets foot on a bus in case he catches something unspeakable from the proletariat. It was a crowded bus and he was forced to stand at the front next to the driver. He was holding Badger, but he put me on the dashboard so that I could get a really good view of where we were going. You'd think the driver of the bus would have been a little distracted by having a big hairy creature running up and down the dashboard in front of him, but he seemed unfazed. Remember, this is Queensland, so he was probably struggling to see through the cannabis haze anyway.

After a while the bus stops and the door opens with a pneumatic hiss. This scares the living bush chocolate out of me because I think it might be some sort of vicious hissing bat, and I hightail it for the open door much to my male staff's dismay. Off I go down the road ducking and weaving under and between cars and trucks, trying to put as much space between me and my male staff as possible. By the time I ducked down an alley he'd handed Badger to some poor lady at the bus stop and told her to wait there while he retrieved me.

On and on the dream went. My male staff getting more and more desperate, running as fast as his little fifty three year old legs would carry him, but I was always just out of reach. Isn't that always the way with dreams. Then I ducked into a labyrinthine apartment block and after an hour or two running around the endless corridors where my male staff would just catch a brief, tantalising glimpse of me - like in that creepy Donald Sutherland movie of a few years ago - "Don't Look Now" in which Sutherland's character keeps seeing his deceased daughter's red mackintosh clad figure frustratingly briefly and always just out of reach. The most famous thing about that movie was the sex scene between Donald and Julie Christie, which was said by many to be real. I hasten to add that there was no steamy sex scene between me and my male staff in this dream.

All the time he was calling out to me. "Stop Billy! Come back!" Like a guinea pig is going to listen to that sort of thing. It always makes me have piggy giggle when you see that on British cop shows. There's a fat middle-aged copper armed with a small stick yelling after the young, fit teenage crook, "STOP..... POLICE!" As if the crook's going to think....Gosh! I'd better stop. There's a fat, balding middle-aged guy with a small stick chasing me. I'd better not vault over this wall and get clean away for ever. I'll just wait here in this dead end alleyway so that he can arrest me.

Anyway, finally I zip into an open door and find myself in someone's apartment, where I hide under the bed while my male staff turns the place inside out looking for me. Under the bed would be the most obvious place to look for a guinea pig - you'd think, and in truth I was exhausted by this time and hoping that he'd find me and that he'd have a nice lettuce leaf or a tomato to give me. But no. He starts turning out all the cupboards, including ones that are six feet above the floor, honestly! What does he think I am? A bloody spider?

Then he woke up, so he never did catch me. His biggest error however, was telling my female staff about the dream. She stood there glaring at him, tapping her foot in annoyance. When he'd finished, she said. "Well that was bloody stupid wasn't it? Why the hell did you take them on the bus in the first place? Honestly! I can't leave you alone for five minutes." She then hauled me out of my cage and stroking me gently, said "Oh poor Billy. What did the nasty man do to you? Did he frighten you?" I could see that my male staff needed to have a lie down, but it was his own fault. He should have known better than to mention the dream anyway. A couple of years ago my female staff dreamt that he was having an affair with a redhead. Boy did he cop it in the neck for that. It made no difference that he pointed out that it was "her bloody dream". He was still a no good philanderer. What I'm wondering though, is what happened to the poor woman who had Badger thrust into her arms. Is she still there, waiting at the bus stop for my male staff to return. By now her hands will be full of bush chocolate.       

Bananas & Hard Boiled Eggs

It was Kermit the Frog who said "It's not easy being green", and he should know. He's spent half his life with one of Jim Henson's hands up his bottom passage, which explains why his eyes are so bulgy. He also gets a hard time from his porcine pal Miss Piggy, who is just a little too handy with her fists for my liking. I can't help thinking that many other folk in the "Green movement" make life hard for themselves by appearing on television dressed like people who have spent several nights up a tree or chained to a bulldozer. Often they have indeed done just that, but it's hard to tell the difference because mostly they seem to dress like that anyway. Others dress as though they have been dragged backwards across a ploughed field and through a hedge by several burly policemen. Still others appear to have spent at least forty-eight hours in a cell without a wash. They probably have, but again, it's hard to tell because they all look the same.

Now, nobody is more in favour of saving what little is left of our environment than this particular little piggy. I'm all for preserving every single gay and lesbian, differently abled, Indiginous whale that there is. Everybody knows that Australia and most of the rest of the world is currently run purely to benefit big business, but there has to be a better way of going about changing things than dressing up in funny outfits, dying one's hair pink or green, tattooing some appendages and piercing others. Australia at least, is still a deeply conservative nation and if you want to be taken seriously you have to dress like a deeply conservative person. Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown has realised this and wears a suit and in doing so has had far more influence on the political direction of the country than a million "scruffy oiks" chained to bulldozers could ever have. He's articulate, even if you don't agree with what he's articulating, and you can at least understand even his madder statements because his lips and tongue aren't handicapped by chunks of stainless steel.

As it is, at least half of Australia's farming community is convinced that the whole climate change thing is a marxist, pinko, leftist plot to extract more tax. Meanwhile that same 50% are quite happy to claim drought and flood assistance from the government whenever there's one of the increasingly common severe weather events. Wouldn't you think that the very people whose living is most vulnerable to climate change would be happy that at least some politicians are taking the problem seriously, instead of whinging about the "bloody greenies." all the time. But then, as I said, the "bloody greenies" are partially to blame for their own marginalisation.

Now, on a more serious note. Overnight, Australians received some disturbing news. An Aussie by the name of Cadel Evens has won the Tour de France cycle race. This is very bad news according to my male staff, who predicts a substantial increase in the Australian MAMIL (Middle Aged Men In Lycra) population as a result. He reckons they'll be porky executive types with red faces and pounding hearts clogging up the roads on their hugely expensive bikes in an attempt to emulate Cadel's success and to impress their personal secretaries. Worse still, the MAMIL invasion is likely to take over the coffee shops. My male staff says that before long there'll be great piles of bikes worth thousands of dollars outside of every cafe, and one of those silly aerodynamic helmets on every table. Meanwhile herds of MAMILS will be waddling about about in their clumpy cycling shoes,their hi-vis Lycra outfits stretched almost to breaking point over their beer-guts.

I saw some MAMILS myself just the other day when I went to the vet. They'd obviously just come out of a shop because it seems they'd all bought the same thing for their lunch - a small banana and a couple of hard boiled eggs which they had secreted in the front of their Lycra shorts for safe keeping. It would be safe too. Certainly I'm not going to stick my paw down there to steal it. Many MAMILS also seem to have incontinence issues. The ones I saw were obviously wearing some sort of pad on their nether regions. Maybe that's why all had bananas and hard boiled eggs for lunch.    

See Australia and Die - Horribly

Because I am such a fine, long (I prefer tall.) specimen of cavy-hood, and because I don't come equipped with reversing mirrors, and thus can't see what's going on behind me I occasionally back into my water bowl. At other times I'll take a short cut through the afore-mentioned water bowl to get to a particularly succulent looking morsel which my staff have just place in my food dish. Of course the result of this is wet bum fur - and lets face it, none of us like that do we? It's not so bad in summer, in fact it can be pleasantly cooling, plus it gives my staff something to think about when they pick me up. But in winter, it's not so good. You try walking around all day with a cold, wet arse. Anyway I dry my rear end by wiggling it in my straw bedding, this action often clears a little space so that I can see the newspaper lining underneath. This happened just yesterday and I found a news article concerning a massive drop in overseas tourist numbers visiting Australia. This was attributed to the current high value of the Australian dollar, making it a rather expensive destination and to the floods and storms of last summer which as usual the media has blown out out of all proportion. To hear some of the nonsense they come out with you'd think that Noah was the only bloke left afloat in the entire country.

I, in my piggy wisdom have another theory. Australians love to tell foreigners how dangerous Australia is and I think this fear campaign is starting to bite and deter visitors. You can't eavesdrop on any conversation between an Aussie and someone from overseas without hearing the Aussie gloat about how it's almost impossible to come to Australia without being bitten, stung or eaten. All Aussies do this. Even the ones that have never left the chewing gum dotted streets of Melbourne - in fact they're the worst.

Firstly there are the redback spiders which use the sneaky, underhand tactic of hiding under toilet seats to bite your nether regions resulting in a painful anti-venom jab and a few days in a nice public hospital. I bet George Dubya even checked under his toilet seat when he stayed at the Sydney Four Seasons Hotel a few years ago. Next is the Sydney funnel web spider who's bite is so deadly that you don't even have time to say "OW! What was that?" before you crumple to the floor and start thrashing around in your agonising death throes.

Then there are the snakes. If the foreigner listens to his Aussie friend he will learn about the enormous pythons big enough to swallow a small car and taipans so fast and aggressive that they'll chase you into a high rise building, beat you to the twenty third floor and bite you as you get out of the lift, meaning that you have less than twenty seconds to get to a hospital before the bitten appendage shrivels and drops off. Australia also has crocodiles the size of the USS Nimitz. Not only are these reptiles gigantic, but are so intelligent that they'll snatch your newspaper from your hand as your sit on a bench near the water, complete the cryptic crossword and the sudoku before dragging you into the water and wedging you under a rock for a few days to soften up a bit. Even those nice cuddly koalas will kill you, especially if one falls out of it's tree and lands on your head.

Of course you can't retreat to the ocean for safety because not only will you find crocodiles there too, but a whole host of other critters just waiting to put you in your cold, dark grave. There are sharks of course. Monsters that make that rubber thing in Jaws look like a sprat. Then there's the irukandji jelly fish that are too small to see but will kill you just as easily as a bite from white pointer. Stingrays are nasty too - just ask Steve Irwin........Oh. Of course you can't can you? Now that I've succeeded in scaring the living bush chocolate out of myself I think I'll move to England where the worst you can expect is to tread on a hedgehog, which can, I'm told by my male staff, be mildly uncomfortable, particularly for the hedgehog.

 

Donald Trump's Flying Squirrel

Regular readers may remember that I am not fond of bats. They scare the hell out of me. It's unnatural for  squirrels to fly, although I guess that's how that one on Donald Trump's head got there. Flying fox bats often visit our palm trees and grevilleas in the garden and they squeak and flap so much that I have to run up inside the jumper of whichever member of staff I happen to be sitting on at the time and cover my ears with my paws. If I'm in my house I simply squeal like a girl until someone picks me up and comforts me. Bats don't seem to bother Badger, but then nothing much does. He just stares them down, he's such a cold eyed hard piggy. Try to imagine Tom Cruise in a really bad mood because someone has just squirted water at him, except he's got a big fat, black, shiny, furry bottom - that's Badger.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with all this. Me too.............Ah yes, bats. Now although I loathe bats I understand that they have a right to live and that they are very important in pollinating fruit trees and fruit is very close to my own piggy heart (and stomach). I especially love apples and pears. Not so keen on bananas though after my male staff described what happens to them in some bars and clubs in Bangkok, where ladies will sometimes...........never mind.........I just don't like bananas okay.

Here in sunny Queensland, Orstraya the TV news tells me that we are in the midst of an outbreak of hendra virus, so named because it was first identified in the Brisbane suburb of Hendra. Be eternally thankful that it wasn't found in Wales in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantsiliogogogoch. Anyway, wherever it was first found it is a particularly nasty virus which is spread by flying fox bat poo. Horses which graze under trees in which the bats roost succumb to this horrible virus and die within days, sometimes hours. It also spreads from the stricken horse to vets who do not wear protective clothing when treating the animal. Often it kills them too.

We in Orstraya are blessed with our fair share of fruitcakes, two of whom comprise one hundred percent of my staff. Many others are elected to parliament. One such fruitcake goes by the name of Bob Katter. He's the Federal member for Kennedy. He was a member of the National Party, but even they weren't loopy enough for him so he left and became independently loopy. For anyone not familiar with him, he's a sort of cross between JR Ewing and Sarah Palin, in that he wears a big stupid hat and has a mouth many times bigger than his brain. He wants all flying fox bat colonies chased away from populated areas - moved on. What he doesn't say is how he is going to control where the bats go. Chase a colony from one populated area Bob, and they'll more than likely go to another. And like many of us, when bats are scared they tend to poo a lot more. They're only in populated areas in the first place because developers and farmers clearing land have destroyed their natural habit - the poor little buggers have nowhere else to go. If you don't want your horses to die, get off your fat arses and fence off the trees that the bats are roosting in. There, once again "Wonder Pig" has solved your problem for you.

Bob looks like one of those Aussies you often see at airports - the really insecure type with the loud, lazy, nasal voice and the akubra hat superglued to their head so that everyone on their plane and everyone at their destination knows that they're from Australia. The German equivalent would be to wear lederhosen and to do one of those thigh slapping dances in the check-in queue.  Here's a couple of questions for you. Why do these akubra toting tossers think anyone cares where they come from? And, who the hell votes for Bob Katter? It's not my staff, they don't live in his electorate, so there must be a lot of other fruitcakes in Kennedy. Despite his nuttiness, or more likely because of it, Bob's gorgeous face gets a lot of time on the TV. It's not just a veneer of lunacy that he displays on the telly either. A few years ago he came into my staff's travel agency and was loopy in real life too, so they tell me, and they're well qualified to recognise loopiness when they see it. 

George Dubya & Deputy Dawg

Every night at seven 'o' clock Badger and I are wrenched from our cosy houses, sat on our staff's laps and forced to watch the evening news while being stroked so vigorously we're both developing bald patches on our backs. Badger finds the news programme very distasteful and glares at whichever talking head is on with open hostility. Many of the news items appal him. He can't believe how inhuman humans can be to each other. Personally I find it fascinating. For example last night there was a feature on how the American Republican party are giving poor Mr O'Barmer a hard time over the USA's debt limit.

As I understand it, and remember I'm just a guinea pig, if congress doesn't agree to raise the nation's debt limit very soon, the USA could default on it's trillions of dollars of debt. At which point the sky will fall, so will the stock market and with it, my staff's superannuation. The Republicans (I know my American friends will correct me if I'm wrong.) are demanding huge government spending cuts before they'll sign off on extending the debt limit - which is already as big and shiny as Badger's bum. Apparently if there's no compromise the government will effectively shut down. Public servants won't be paid, and even the poor buggers on social security won't get a cent. Not that Republicans have ever given any thought to them anyway.

Now hold on just one doggone cottonpickin' minute dagnabbit ya varmint. You'll have to excuse me, I was a great fan of Deputy Dawg when I was a guinea piglet and since then I've found it hard to believe that not all Americans talk like he did. For those of you too young to remember Deputy Dawg, that's your problem. You should have chosen older parents. Anyway, chronologically Deputy Dawg came somewhere between Felix the Cat and Wacky Races. I believe he and Top Cat were contemporaries. He was certainly around before Scooby-do anyway. I've lost my train of thought now. You really shouldn't get me side-tracked like that.

Ah yes. Don't you humans think it's a bit rich for the Republicans to be holding the nation to ransom. Weren't they the ones who voted enormous, unaffordable tax cuts for the rich? Weren't they also the ones who got the States into a totally unjustifiable, illegal and destabilising multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq and a slightly more justifiable but still un-winnable multi-trillion dollar war in Afghanistan? Has Mr O'Barmer pointed this out to them? Has he not mentioned that if George Dubya hadn't been such a dork America wouldn't be in such a mess. Would he like me to. Feel free to pass on this message. I'm sure many of you who read this blog in America have the ear of the president. If so, he wants it back as he can't hear what the bloody Republicans are blathering on about.  Ha ha, sorry about that. Just my little piggy joke.

Seriously though, you guys across the pond need to get your act together and fix this problem. I'll be holding you responsible if you default on your debts, the markets crash and my staff's superannuation becomes as worthless as a piece of Badger's bush chocolate, meaning that they can't afford to buy my lettuce. You want to be seen as responsible world leaders? Well damn well act like it. Now, is it time for the evening news yet?      

Let's Speak Piglish

Last night's television was so dull that I almost fell asleep in my drinking water and drowned. It was only one of those awful Joyce Mayne ads that woke me up, yelling "DON'T YOU MISS OUT!" at full volume. It's the first time I've been glad to hear one of their adverts. As it is it took the rest of the evening to get my whiskers dry. The cause of this boredom? Endless discussions on the details of the impending carbon tax. Pundit after pundit and politician after politician was shoved in front of the camera to give their opinion. It was all so predictable. Badger gave them his best death stare, but to no avail, they still kept gushing.

What a fuss you Aussie humans are making of this. It's not as though it is anything new. Norway's had a severe carbon tax since 1991 and look how wealthy they are. They have a similar economy to Australia - one that relies on minerals, though they do have a small troll exporting sector. Interestingly their carbon emissions have risen 15% since 1991, however, economic growth has risen 70% in that period so the tax is obviously doing what it's supposed to do. Humans, especially my male staff hate change. Remember how the sky was about to fall with the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax? Well, the sky's still up there as far as I can see. The carbon tax will be the same. No one will give it a second thought in three years time and we'll all be breathing cleaner air.

Now, on a more educational note, obviously we cavies have our own language, but you humans might be surprised to learn that we use some of your words too. It's just that in our language these words have a different meaning. The following is an excerpt from the Oxford Piglish Pigtionary.

Aardvark - What German labourers do.
Antelope - What ants do when they want to marry in secret.
Aspic - Something you shouldn't do in polite company.
Bar stool - The shit behind the bar who pretends not to see you when you're queueing for a drink.
Boat - A Canadian boxing match.
Catastrophe - The prize for the best feline backside.
Communist - Anyone who disagrees with 1.Rupert Murdoch.  2.The NRA  3. My female staff's father.
Crepuscular - Being both a creep and muscular. Eg. Sylvester Stallone.
Dandelion - A large, somewhat foppish feline.
Dreadnought - A bald Rastafarian.
Election - Something an aroused Chinese man has.
Feckless - Never been fecked.
General Election - When every Chinese male becomes aroused.
Guinea Pig - The most fearsome, intelligent creature on earth.
Harpist - Fifty percent inebriated.
Inviolate - Dressed in purple.
Juggernaut - A flat chested female.
Largess - An obese female.
Manhole - Former word for an access point into a ceiling or sewer. Now replaced by the more politically    correct term - person orifice.
Nonplussed - Someone who can't add up.
Oat - What a Canadian is when he or she is not in.
Ornamental - Being both horny and mental.
Plinth - The sound made by one wet turd hitting another.
Polygon - The parrot has disappeared.
Porcupine - Yearning for pig meat.
Scales - Nasty things found on fish, bathroom floors and music classes.
Sex - What Queen Elizabeth II has her coal delivered in.
Sycophant - A poorly pachyderm.
Tofu - Edible rubber.
Vet - A human who sticks large, cold thermometers up one's bottom passage for pleasure (His or her pleasure, not yours.)

So there you are. You've learned something today. Never let it be said that my blog is not educational and informative.

The Honourable Member

Sometimes in the afternoon, when he's not having a "nanna nap" my male staff listens to the radio. Actually, he calls it a wireless, but until recently it was a radiogramme. Does anyone else on the planet listen to the radio in the middle of the afternoon? Surely everybody has an MP3 or is it an MP6 these days. Who knows? I can't keep up, and neither can my male staff. He thinks an iPAD is what you wear after a cataract operation. He never listens to music on his wireless either, only the ABC news station which has earnest sounding men and women blathering on about the economy or some documentary about capybara ranching in Peru. It's fascinating stuff, and my male staff sits there nodding sagely as if he actually understands a word of it. His listening preferences are so outdated that at any time I expect to hear Winston Churchill's voice booming through the speakers. "Never...in the field........of human conflict etc. etc.

This afternoon he was listening to a programme about unruly school kids, at least I thought that's what it was. There was much jeering, yelling, juvenile jokes and making of rude noises, and above this din the teacher was trying to make himself heard. "Order! Order!" He was yelling, and becoming quite hoarse. It was then that I realised that it wasn't a secondary school class full of slightly intellectually challenged kids I was listening to, but Question Time in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament. The guy yelling "Order! Order!" wasn't a teacher at all, but the Speaker of the House who was desperately trying to regain control of what sounded like a riot. He was shouting things like.

 "Will the Prime Minister get off the table, put her clothes back on and resume her seat."
 "Will the Honourable Deputy Leader of the Opposition help the Honourable Leader of the Opposition back into his straight jacket.
 "The Honourable Member for Wattawanka will immediately stop punching the Honourable Member for South Stench."
 "Will security please remove the Honourable Member for Great Donga once he has finished shagging the Honourable Member for Deadshit West."
 "When the Honourable Member for Little Barstead has completed his rendition of Working Class Man will he please place his empty whiskey bottle in the recycling bin and resume his seat."
 "I'm not going to continue until the Honourable Member for Kowabunga has finished urinating in the despatch box."

Yes folks. These are the people who make decisions about your future. Not mine, obviously because I'm a guinea pig and as such am not really effected by any of this. I do feel sorry for you humans though. You have a government so poor at communicating that it could make a fifty percent income tax cut look like bad news, and an opposition so addicted to the lowest common denominator and short term populism that it makes One Nation look courageous and far-thinking. Anyway, Badger and I don't care as long as my staff keep supplying the lettuce.
 

The Scalpel of Doom

Once again the scalpel of doom is poised ominously above my testostricles. I know this because I've caught my staff seeking advice from other people who are fortunate enough to be acquainted with piggies. The advice I've heard so far ranges from "Just chop 'em off." to "Get him a girlfriend and give the babies to a pet shop." The first type of advice generally comes from women and the latter from men. Funny that. Personally I'd rather go with the second option, but I don't think I'm going to get much of a say in the matter. Anyway, even that is problematic. There'd be bloody kids everywhere for a while until they're carted off to the pet shop. As soon as their eyes are open they'll be running all over the place, eating my lettuce and pooping in my water. Then the missus will be complaining that I don't do my share of the housework and she'll be nagging that I never play with the kids. Of course when my staff finally remove the little brats she'll spend at least a week in floods of tears and won't feel like a spot of "How's your Father". She'll probably blame me for that too and I'll be in the pig house for months. I can see it all now. Mmmm. Oh for God's sake just cut off my damned bollocks and get it over with!

Every Wednesday night my female staff dresses up in a sparkly outfit and goes off to teach something called belly dancing. My male staff doesn't have to have lessons as his belly dances every time he moves. There are three things I'll never understand about humans, they are; their propensity for killing each other for no valid reason, their tendency to loathe other humans because they are a different colour and their love of this weird thing called dancing. Apparently every night all over the world millions of humans go "clubbing". In Canada this means picking up a large chunk of wood and belting the hell out of baby seals, but in the rest of the world it describes the act of dressing up like a pimp or a tart, queueing in the freezing cold for hours until a gorilla in a cheap suit decides you're pimp-like or tart-like enough to be allowed inside the club.

Once you're inside and your goosebumps have subsided you are free to join the rugby scrum that surrounds the bar. I should add that long before you reach the bar you are deaf and will continue to be deaf for at least three days after you leave the club. This is because of a strange noise that humans call music. It's played at a level that would make a Boeing 737 at full throttle for take off seem like a whispering breeze. The vibrations are enough to shake your dentures loose which may account for the fact that you only find people of under twenty years of age in there. The most popular music goes like this.......Doof doof doof doof doof doof doof doof, with a memorable chorus of doof doof doof doof doof doof doof doof.

The next thing you notice are the flashing lights. These evidently cause numerous epileptic fits as many people are writhing uncontrollably in time to the doof doof doof and the lights. A lot of them are drooling and some have apparently lost control of their bladders. After several hours of this, the clubbers stagger into the dawn blinking at the rising sun and laying down a minefield of pavement pizzas to surprise unwary pedestrians a little later. A good time was had by all except any poor bugger that slips on one of the afore mentioned pavement pizzas. Can't think of any other animals stupid enough to dance. Can you?