More on “Sleepy cats on a wet Sunday afternoon…”

Or why I had to snooze on the sofa…

Friends indeed.

“How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You”

“How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You,” by Matthew Inman. catswhothrowupgrass.com, ?Nov 2008.

Click for story

Mr Bats does a Shrek Puss in Boots

At least the cat isn’t stressed

I got hit by two really tough bouts of the flu in Aug – Sep again, heralded in (I suspect) by the irregular rains of the SW monsoon and the stress of the new term and my usual heav Semester I schedule.

Now I hear that the flu season is around the corner. Sheesh. I’ll not mind sitting this one out.

Watch this then go hug your cat (or friend)!

The 2:28 annotated video of Christian the Lion’s reunion with his former caretakers, c.1970.

RIP George Adamson.

I was reading today’s Today when I heard of this. Christian’s Wikipedia entry and links therein will reveal more.

“Lion hearted video charms millions.” Today, 25 Jul 2008. Thanks to the Internet,clip of pet lion embracing his former owners has been immortalised:

LONDON — The “Christian the lion” video, which shows a full-grown lion hugging and kissing his former caretakers in a heartwarming reunion, has become an Internet sensation, logging more than 4 million views on YouTube by Thursday afternoon.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the video has all the right ingredients of a smash hit: The lion’s menacing slink towards the camera, then the look of recognition on its face as it lunges towards the young men to embrace them, with Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You playing in the background for full sentimental effect.

But the video is attracting even more attention because of its back story, which first appeared in the Daily Mail last year.

The two men in the clip are Anthony “Ace” Bourke and John Rendall who lived in London in 1969. They bought the lion, then a 16-kilogramme cub, from Harrod’s which then sold exotic animals. The department store had acquired the cub from a zoo but wanted to get rid of it after it broke out of its cage one night and wreaked havoc on a display of imported goatskin rugs.

The men named the cub Christian and kept it in their living room. They became local celebrities of sorts, the Daily Mail said, parading the cub around London, taking it to restaurants and even playing football with it.

But Christian soon grew to 84 kg and his food bills became exorbitant, so they were forced to move him to a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya. After visiting him periodically for several years, they found out that he had already adapted to his new environment and wanted to return for a last good-bye.

The men were told the lion would probably not recognise his old caretakers. But as the video shows, Christian not only recognised them, but ran to them and hugged them.

“Christian stared at us in a very intense way,” Mr Rendall was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying. “Then, as if he became convinced it was us, he ran towards us, threw himself on to us, knocked us over, knocked George over and hugged us, like he used to, with his paws on our shoulders.

The next day, Christian walked back into the bush, where his lionesses and cubs were waiting. He was never seen again — but the power of the Internet guarantees that he will never be forgotten.

Scaredy-cat

Tiger’s (initial) reaction to the sounds of new washing machine:

For Dawn: yeah, cats and dogs can get along

In response to Meep and River on Dawn’s blog. Sue and VJ have more photos; I’ll get ’em!

Hair on my chest

Okay actually I meant fur. Featuring Mr Bats, the purring machine.

Exhausting week, too tired to blog

I have been hunting down students, marking and processing marks for the past two weeks. Did what I could and my Reading Week schedule went out the window; good lesson though. It’s all over now and boy oh boy, was excel useful! I updated the post about excel functions I use to check marks and will provide it with figures as a webpage for the TAs. I will be getting them to use the gradebook functions built into NUS’ web-based IVLE system.

Am now dealing with the last of student queries via MSN; setup a live.com account for that. Still have the honours theses to examine this weekend. Hopefully I finish that before the exams begin on Monday. I am actually looking forward to marking exam papers to make comparisons after the changes in teaching methods I applied this semester.

Meanwhile, the exam invigilation reminders have turned up at the entrance of the department office. This announces the final and critical leg of the semester. Laurence used to present them like performance billings but I guess he’s too busy mopping up coffee to get fancy. At least he kept the colour, very useful. Its a good reason to drop by the department office every now and then. You can keep track of breaking news!

The notice reminded me of the stress our students must be under so I I SMS-ed cheery greetings to my research students and Toddycats project managers – I had their numbers in my handphone and ssw their replies come in thick and fast!

Thankfully, back at home, Mr Bats has been keeping me company during my marking processing and student hunting phase. He will reprise that role next week.

Sometimes he crawls in to a nice comfortable bag and territorially swipes at my hand when it ventures too close his “cave door”…