Ooh, don't count on the animal making a special trip to another room just 'cos it wants to sharpen its claws; remember, they're lazy as well as contrary. A sacrificial rug or toy cat pyramid in the living room is probably still a good idea.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will become the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other contender. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and, as a result, has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that will become known as "Euro-English". The 5-year plan will be implemented as follows:

- In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konsiderable konfusion, and keyboards kan be manufactured with one less letter.
- In the second year, growing publik enthusiasm will be anticipated, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
- In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil sertainly agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and should be done away with.
- By the 4th yer, people wil be mor reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
- During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" resulting in a more sensibl riting styl.

By ze end of ze fifz yer, zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis; evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand evrivun els and ze drem of a united Urop vil finali kum tru bekos ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas!

Hello all, back from Paris with only a small hangover. Happy New Year 2008 to all and sundry - hope it's full of laughter, sunshine and cake.

[rab] I suspect that it's the luck of the draw. I have two moggies and have attempted to get them to use two varieties of scratching devices. Neither of the cats took to either of them. One contraption was a pole (wrapped with rope) the other a flat, foldable, unit covered in a lighter grade of rope. Good luck.

I have to confess - before I did the sprogging thing, I was a cat obsessive so can fully understand the 'desire to acquire' cat-like ness. All I can advise is .... whatever you wish them to do - they will graciously and very politely do the opposite ... and whatever direction you may want to send them [ with the best possible intentions] they will go the other way with a beguiling manner encompassing charm, purposefulness and intention, which sumply leaves you in a place whre you simply wouldn't even deign to complain. Adorable little hussies, each an every one of 'em.

'sumply' is a fine word - but as you can proberBly guess, was a bit of a misstype.

sumply - in the manner of a sump; L. sumpus, some cat.

Cats are shifty, evil, nasty pieces of work. No-one has ever had one as a pet. Millions of cats have had humans as servants, though.

Well, I've never had much time for dogs - so there you go.

I was wondering if one of the US Presidential Election experts (Projoy, CdM?) could explain if there's any reason why the Republicans and Democrats have their first nomination quasi-election thingy on the same day. Presumably there's nothing in the rules that says that candidates have to be nominated in anything like a similar way, let alone at the same time. Is it simply to try and prevent one party getting more press attention than another?

[rab] You just made me google the answer to that, cos I didn't know, but according to this page, anyway, "there was a mutual decision in 1976 between the parties to hold the event [the Iowa caucuses] on the same day because they understood the need to make it a heightened media bonanza of sorts."

There has been some change this year because the Republicans moved their caucuses in Iowa forward to 3 Jan. It was only after that decision was made that the Democrats decided (presumably for reasons of not handing momentum to the GOP race coverage) to move theirs forward also. The two parties do indeed use separate caucusing methods in Iowa (I think the Republicans do secret ballots, whereas Democrats tend to use the non-secret "go stand in the corner of the room relating to your candidate" solution. There has been quite a bit of shuffling this year of the primary calendar, mostly with different states jostling to put themselves earlier on in the process. I expect this drives up the cost for the candidates.

+)

Mmm... absence.

My brain was definitely on half-cock yesterday. Today, it seems to be on full-power again, with no discernable reason why.
As an aside, it's mild and windy here today in Grantham. And instead of being the last person on my cul-de-sac road occupied by mostly pensioners to put my bins out onto the roadside this morning, I was the first. Hurrah!

[penelope] The last time I managed that it turned out that I was putting them out on the wrong day. Something about holidays and skip-days, I don't know. Everyone hated me because the bins got knocked over, either by their kids or by the backwash from a passing vehicle. Great neighbourhood. Not.

Communal refuse collection for the building. It's magical.

[nights] Yes, we have that too, due to the sheer density of people living in the area (4 storey flats). The downside is that it means there are big wheely-skips on the streets, which don't do a huge amount to improve the look of the place. Preferable to bin bags being ripped apart by birds, though, which would be the alternative.