Pet food comes in all sorts of flavours and combinations of flavours. A selection box of Felix or Whiskas will have varieties such as beef, chicken, lamb, duck and heart, rabbit, tuna, plaice, etc.

Cat food never comes in pig flavour. I don’t think dog food does either. In all the years I have shared my home with cats, I have never come across pork, bacon or ham flavoured cat food.

I’ve no idea.

Is it the result of a feline taste-test over at Pedigree Masterfoods? Well, no. My cats eat pork and ham, they love it.

Is there a world-wide shortage of porkers? No, it’s not as if pigs are rare – we’re not talking about squid or lobster, it’s pork. Surely rabbits are harder to stuff into a can of Felix than a bit of pork loin. Lamb is more expensive, as is beef.

I can only conclude something disturbing and this is that there are simply no bits of pig left after it’s all been used for chops, sausages, pork pies, bacon, ham and the rest.

Either that, or it’s something to do with religious sensitivity. But why? Some people are vegetarians yet they still feed their cats meaty things. Some people object to killing Thumper and friends, but they don’t mind giving it to their cats. And surely if it was related to religious regions then all cans of cat and dog food would be declared Kosher or Halal and there’d be no shrimp flavoured varieties either.

Pet owners need an explanation NOW!

I wonder if you can get seal and grizzly bear varieties in Canada?

I hate cyclists – this is something that I’ve never hidden. For a lot of motorists, cyclists and buses are a complete pain in the arse; they take up too much of the road, keep stopping, cyclists swerve in and out of traffic, they don’t obey the rules of the road – I could go on.

Anyway, I’ve taken to pondering of late and I’ve decided to buy a bike. I’ve got one on order, I could be dead within a fortnight, having not ridden a bike in over 20 years. I’ve never ridden a bike that had gears. I have never ridden a bike on the road. This is the bike I’ll be getting (I wanted a black or red one, but it only comes in blue):

What sort of cyclist should I be?

Lycra-clad Nazi on two-wheels
These are the ones that direct the traffic, banging on your window if you’re turning left at a junction to make sure that you’ve seen them (they should fucking wait if they’re that bothered about not being pulverised). They’re the ones that organise into groups to lobby local councils. They wear all the gear, includng ridiclously tight cycling pants, day-glo high-vis vests, goggles, face masks (you never see pedestrians wearing face masks), super speedy helmet, even cycling shoes that clip into the pedals.

This sort of cyclist often rides a racing bike and the razor-like saddle clearly cuts them so hard that their sense of humour flows out. They’re in so much pain that they race the traffic to get to their destination for much needed relief.

They’re even worse when they travel in packs, often cycling two or three abreast while engaging in conversation about the latest in fabric technologies from Du Pont.

I’d never cut it in this gang. They seem quite wanky.

Don’t know what they’re doing, off and on the pavement
This is more likely to be me, but I’m not going to be causing a nuisance by riding on pavements. When finding themselves in traffic, this lot really don’t know what they’re doing; they run red lights, ignore junction priorities, weave in and out of traffic. This lot really piss people off. I’m quite unlikely to be in this group because I haven’t a clue what I’m doing, and I don’t have the “just go for it” confidence/deathwish to carry it off.

Old people on bikes with shopping baskets
This is where I want to be; pootling along serenely, fully in tune with the goings on around them yet carrying on with a delightfully confident “I’ve seen it all, done it all and I don’t care anymore” air. They’ve ridden the same bike for 50 years and still use its little shopping basket to carry their groceries. It’d be nice to be able to just pootle along with the assumption that other road users will be kind enough give you a bit of space when you need it, I’m not sure that’d happen round here.

Why oh why oh why???
The reason I’m getting a bike is just to have one in should I fancy going for a ride. There’s the slight problem of not being able to go for a ride without negotiating major roads, busy junctions and gangs of horrible kids who take the piss and worse. I fear I may be trapped, only being able to ride it round the avenue or perhaps down the woods. At least such activity might engender me to the local kids, or I may be accused of being a child molester for hanging around with them. There’s also the problem of security – how well can I lock the thing up in the shed, how long before it gets nicked? Will the thing fit in the boot of my car for when I go on holiday?

These apprehensions are on a par with booking a foreign holiday then deciding that I’m too worried to travel. The hassles far outway the benefits, but it’s something that I must do.

Now, can anybody tell me how the gears on a bike work? Is there a clutch?

People make mistakes, it’s human nature. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this and, likewise, there’s nothing wrong with holding your hands up and admitting that you’ve cocked up, or that you’re in the wrong. You fuck up while driving – you hold your hand up and apologise. You fuck up at work, well, I won’t go into that.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to the parents and grandparents of unruly children, who are of course immune to all admonishment.

I shall recount the tale of last night’s trip to that beacon of retail wonder, Costco (heavenly choirs sing out at the mention of its hallowed name).

While wandering the aisles, I couldn’t help but notice a young family, their two young boys (about 4-6 years in age, probably named Kyle, Callum, Connor, or Ryan – they had gelled hair) who were accompanied by denim-clad, hip-chick grandmother. The boys were excited and become more boisterous; they were being egged on by their grandmother. They started running around the aisles, with “Nan” calling them to run back to her. Then they made one.big.mistake: after a particularly long full-pelt run down the pickles and sauces aisle, the younger of the two boys ran into me.

I stopped, eyes raised in prayer to God, begging Him to show a sign of His existence by striking down this family – if not with a bolt of lightning, then at least with a dramatic collapse of shelving. It didn’t happen, but at least the boy’s mother said “Sorry”. I pointed out that the chldren shouldn’t be running around the store and this is where Grandma stepped in:

Her: “It’s not as if they’re running around, out of control.”

Me: “If they were under control, they wouldn’t be running into people.”

Her “Blah. blah – not causing any trouble – blah, blah, blah” (the red mist was rising in me at this point and it automatically engages aural cut-off)

Me: “You’d be screaming blue murder, blaming me or Costco and seeking compensation if they ran into a pallet or shelf or trolley and hurt themselves.”

Her: “Blah, blah, blah”

At this point an employee stepped in and pointed out the sign, right next to them, that said that children must be kept accompanied at all times because it can be dangerous when they’re moving stuff about on pallets and trucks. She then tried to start an argument with him.

During this time, the parents of the boys were actually quite reasonable: they told the children off, told them to calm down and insisted that they held their hands. Good on them.

I was waiting, almost begging her to come out with the classic, “I bet you haven’t got kids”, or “Can’t you remember what it’s like to be a kid?”, but she let me down and I’d already walked off after the Costco man had intervened. However, my response to such provocation would’ve been:

“Please take a moment to explain what relevance that has on the behaviour of these particular children, because it has none whatsoever. Besides, I do remember what it was like to be a child and I remember that we were never, EVER allowed to run around in shops. And yes, I do detest children, lots of people do and some people aren’t as controlled as me, so you should bear that in mind when you’re out with these two. Now fuck off you four-eyed, wrinkly, mutton-dressed-as-lamb cunt!”

I think a lot of the bad behaviour of children can be attributed to lack of parental control. However, grandparents are complete and utter cocks.

A hypothetical question that might only really apply to the UK (and perhaps Ireland), but give it a go.

If you were a teacher and, without meeting the children or their parents, you could choose which children you’d like in your class of ten from a list of names:

• Alice
• Asam
• Ben
• Bobbi-Jo
• Charlie
• Charlotte
• Daniel
• Gregory
• Harpeet
• Imran
• Isobel
• Jamie
• Jayne
• Jordan
• Joseph
• K’tee
• Kate
• Kloe
• Kristopher
• Kyle
• Liam
• Lucy
• Ryan
• Sam
• Sean
• Wayne

Which ten children would you like to choose for your class?

OK, here’s a clue. There’s more to say on this matter… tomorrow though.

You meet all sorts of people during your life. Some of them you’ll forge frienships and other relationships with and you’ll keep them with you for years. Others you meet and keep at arms length or maintain a professional relationship with them.

Sometimes, it’s better to keep a safe distance from certain colleagues because they’re absolutely off their fucking rockers mental.

I’ve had great pleasure in working with some prize fruitcakes in my time (Katherine – links above – being one of them), but I’m particularly privileged in still working with one of the best ones in my current job, right now… still…. after all these years! Let’s do her the honour of calling her “Carmelita“.

She’s lovely – great in fact – a funny one (funny ha ha AND funny stuurrrange!). This is the person that picked up all the litter from the canal bank and, instead of being the dutiful citizen and putting it in the bin, she threw it all over the local expressway. “Well, you see,” she explained, “the car drivers never see the litter that people throw near the canal so I thought they should!” To say I was gobsmacked is an understatement. I told her that it was the most insane thing I’d ever heard, and that she was a menace and a danger who deserved to be locked up.

Carmelita is the one who, after a swan that was nesting on the hospital pond was shot dead, suggested that “all the waterfowl be moved to the canal, the pond drained and concreted over to provide much needed parking”. Sounds reasonable.

But it’s the way she speaks, too. She doesn’t half rrrrrrrrrrrroll her Rrrrrrrrrs: “Oh Brrrrrrrrrrrendah, hellooooo!” But it’s not a pure “r” either, it’s said as if she closes the back of her tongue against the back of her mouth as she says it; sort of a bit throaty, but not phlegmy – bizarre. And she pronounces “re” as “ray”, so when she’s referring to a person, you always think their first name is Ray.

Bonkers is an understatement. On first impressions, she acts as if somebody would act if they asked to act “overly eccentric, mad, over medicated and slightly scary with it”.

However, she is extremely intelligent, with a keen interest in history, literature and art. I am interested in none of these things. She returned from yet another holiday today (she doesn’t half travel a lot) and another colleague landed me in it by telling her that I’d just returned from Rome. She made a bee-line for my office and II was given the third degree about the art periods on display in St Peter’s and the Vatican Museum, this after telling her that I haven’t got a clue about art, history or architecture.

Me: “Errm, up to and just after Raphael, I guess. Is that renaissance?”

Carmelita: “Would that be early or late renaissance, because I can’t stand late renaissance.”

Me: “Eerrrrm, early? And there’s some Greek stuff that the Romans pilfered too.”

Carmelita: “Aaaahhhhhhhh!!! Gooooood!!! And what about the architecture, because I LOATHE (or was it love?) Baroque.”

Me: “I’ve no idea, there were lots of domes and statues, it was very big and very grand. I think you should go and make your own mind up.”

Fuck’s sake, who the fuck hasn’t seen what St Peter’s Basilica looks like? Surely she’d bloody know. She was glued to PJP2’s demise in the spring, she MUST have seen what St Peter’s looks like.

I’m never going to go anywhere ever again for fear of her finding out about it and subjecting me to another Witchfinder General inquisition. Some people are just too clever and too interested in stuff.

Lumpy tits
Here’s a question for you: if you had a 2cm benign breast lump, would you have it removed or would you keep it and make a feature of it by dressing it up with raffia.

Went to see Mr Surgeon man today and he said that there’s no problem with leaving it or with taking it out and that it’s entirely up to me. I’m tempted to leave it, but there’s a danger of – should the moment arise – somebody freaking out if things were getting a bit thingy. Not that anybody ever gets a bit thingy with me, but I wouldn’t want the moment of the century ruining by somebody chucking a mental when things were just hotting up.

Despite the biopsy coming back as benign, the surgeon said that they only sampled from a small area of the lump so they can’t say about the rest of it. That had me brimming with confidence, but you can’t expect too much from the NHS.

I don’t mind either way, so I’m willing to be swayed by the reasoning, concerns and wishes of others.

I have four months to decide.

To save wasting my creativity, I thought I might as well steal somebody else’s. Popbitch is a weekly e-mail digest of the latest hot gossip from Celebland. To subscribe to Popbitch, visit www.popbitch.com.

They have some excellent celebrity gossip in this week’s “Moss on the cross” digest; a selection of some of the more bizarre stories follows:

Californian sea otter Morgan was abandoned as a pup, and taken into care by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter programmes, which attempts to rehabilitate parentless otters. But like so many products of the care system, it all went wrong. When he was released back into the wild, Morgan became a serial killer paedophile… of baby seals.

Morgan used to shag the seal pups and when he was done with them, hold them under water to drown them. He raped and killed about 20 seals off the Californian coast, at one time even attracting a copycat Son-Of-Morgan rapist wild otter.

After a year, naturalists finally managed to recapture Morgan. They considered castrating him but then decided that would leave him a non-contributing member of otter society, taking up valuable space in otter habitat. So they kept him in captivity, where he will only be allowed to have sex with female sea-otters. No doubt Morgan finds this rather dull.

Cute otters at Monterey last week:http://flickr.com/photos/folkestonegerald/tags/otters/

In a recent Popbitch, we alleged that a Sydney man had been arrested for having sex with, and then killing, 18 rabbits. We are now informed that, in the case of the first 17 rabbits, he merely tortured and killed them. It was only the lucky 18th that got shagged by the weirdo. And he somehow managed to have full vaginal sex with it.

Croatia has started Sheep Idol. The winner of the 10-day competition will receive poetry in its honour instead of money. Those voted out of the seven-member herd might be eaten. “I am not an insensitive bastard who abuses animals”, says organiser Sinisa Labrovic.http://www.stado.org

Central Park zoo’s gay penguin couple Silo and Roy have split. Silo left his mate of six years for Scrappy – a girl penguin.

The UK’s Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) is supposed to ensure that all business premises are safe environments for workers and visitors. It clearly became law before computer keyboards were even dreamt of.

Not long ago, Sniffy Experimentals brought you the keyboard challenge, in which anybody interested was invited to check out the crap that falls from between the keys of your tippytappybox when you upend it and give it a bash. Connie and Trillion provided me with some spectacular photos of the shit that came out of their keyboards:

#

Shocked and appalled! That shit on the keyboard that Trillion is forced to use probably contains enough biological agents to find cures to all diseases known to mankind.

Being quite obsessive about this sort of thing, I keep my work keyboard pretty clean with caustic foaming cleaner:

During a discussion at work as to the reasons for our trousers being a little on the tight side, in addition to pointing out that we’re all a bit podgy, I used the excuse that I was ovulating and that I always swell up (a touch more than usual) at the P of the pop. My colleagues claimed never to have felt themselves ovulating. And these so-called women are supposed to be in tune with their feminine sides, womanhood and all that, having sporned their offspring.

Why would a woman not feel herself ovulating?

a) She has no ovaries
b) She has no follicles
c) She doesn’t ovulate for another reason
d) She is really a man
e) She is fucking useless, with no idea what’s going on, how it all fits together or how it’s controlled

Weird.

I bet women like that have no idea how to masturbate. I bet women like that think that women can’t masturbate.

Fuck.

All those bras burned and what for??

How can you not feel when something inside you swells to up to 2cm and then pops? How can the huge hormone spikes at this time not register any noticeable physiological signs? And, what about that kind of gooeyness that happens? And the orange/brown wee? (Perhaps that’s just me).

It’s beyond me how these women manage to get themselves out of bed in the morning.

Pop goes the Data Protection Act
Some fucking numpty has just been on the phone asking whether we were interested in saving money on telephone calls. I asked him if he was interested in being prosecuted for breech of the Data Protection Act and then had to explain to him, a telesales “professional”, that such businesses are not allowed to contact anybody who has registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

Him: “Are you going to prosecute me?”

Me: “No, but the Information Commissioner may shut down your 2-bit pile of shite little operation if enough people complain about unsolicited telephone calls from you. You’re supposed to check before you phone people. Your boss should know about this.”

Him: “I understand that it must be very irritating to be contacted this way.”

Me: “Yes, it is. So, a) why the fuck do you do it? and b) why the fuck do you think we registered this number with TPS in the first place???”

Him: “So you’re not interested in saving money?”

Me: “Grrrrrrrrr.”

Him: “I’ll take you off the database.”

Me: “Good idea.”

Tossers.

Cakesniffer and Chimp are joing forces in the Darth Fucking Vader of Blogs: Shut the fuck up and listen to me.

In addition to our usual stuff at Cakesniffers and Angry Chimp, Shut the fuck up and listen will hopefully allow us to get back to some of the more vitriolic, unprovoked and unreasonable observations and attacks that we started our respective blogs with way back. We’ll also be able to do some joint things.

Not sure how it’s going to work just yet. It won’t be pretty – no graphics and very few or no photos – but it might be fun.

Cakesniffers and Chimp will remain as they are, but Shut the fuck up will allow us to vent our respective spleens in full, glorious beige.

S’pose I’d better do something for it now.

Way back when we were still waiting the promise of summer to be filfilled, a cultural exchange programme was set up between Cakesniffers and that Canadian blog GODDESS, April over at pissoff.

We saw them before they were packed away…

We saw what April got in return…

And we were as delighted as she was when she stretched that t shirt over her womanly form and paraded round in front of the camera for us….

Ahhh, alas, the summer has passed, but one lasting reminder of those balmy days landed at Cakesniffer’s door today…

Oh the excitement!

On opening the box, I was thrilled to see that some cans of smoked salmon, captured and murdered by April’s own fair hand*, had also made it into the box, along with some crackers with French writing on (probably poisoned, knowing those Frenchies).

*Unfortunately, April hasn’t provided any photos of her wrestling with anything, so we’ll all just have to use our imaginations as far as that’s concerned.

So, what of these amazing pickles?? Worth the wait?? Let’s see the very moments that I tried them…

Yep, they’re fuckin’ delish, no doubting it. A bit saltier than the ones we get over here and that makes them FOOOKIN’ DELISH in my book.

So April was right, as far as dill pickles are concerned, those darned Canadians have got it sussed. But us Brits have got it licked as far as not getting sucked in to paying $30CDN for surface mail: £1.99 it cost me to send that T-shirt airmail. Let that be a lesson to you all thinking of engaging in cultural exchanges: send something that doesn’t cost a fortune to post.

Thanks though April, I really do appreciate it, they’re lovely and I’m going to save a jar especially for the Boxing Day running buffet.