Dear Donkeh,  

Cats can be many things, if they put their mind to it. In fact, there is a cat that lives next door to me who is a practising dentist. He’s quite good, or so I’m told. He must be; he drives a BMW. He is the lifelong Chairman of the local Rotary Club and was the founder member of the National Hieroglyphics Deciphering Committee back in the days when it was popular, before the ‘Neo-Nazi Nursery’ wallpaper fiasco. He hosts wife swapping parties, feels comfortable naming three types of craft Varnish and can, I kid ye not, sleep with his eyes shut.  

Of course, it wasn’t always like this; there was a time when he was just a mere cat, (…silence…)  a struggling medical student, laden down with a gargantuan mountain of reference books from the campus library and who shouldered the crippling burden of pressure from his father, a shabby ginger stray from the wrong side of the tracks. It must have been hard for the little fellow as he wandered in awe through the mighty corridors of knowledge, a daunting 5 and a half foot smaller on average than the rest of his fellow students. The fact that he would have had to drag his satchel by the straps with his teeth in order to move from class to class with the appropriate texts and sit perched on the desks just to see the blackboard is tantamount to genius in my book, let alone how he learned to hold a drill and scraper simultaneously without dropping them in to the patients mouth, in doing so, lacerating both cheeks and guillotining the subject’s tonsils.  

Granted, there were a few set backs. It would be foolish to assume otherwise. For instance, the day he presented his Professor with a decapitated field mouse complete with prolapsed intestines, the time he tried to ‘mount’ the overhead projector during a busy mid afternoon lecture or the shameful incident involving the shredded curtains. Those social travesties aside however, he became as much a part of the student body as any other; only his was shaped differently and had fur all over it.  

How his mother wept on his Graduation day, is beyond me as she had died shortly after he was born. His father turned up to watch his son receive his Doctorate in Dentistry but missed the actual ceremony as he was foraging through the bins for fish guts and assorted leftovers.  

From that day forth he swore to live life as a human, go in to practise as any other dentist of his calibre might and leave his feline past behind. In the summer of 1969 he met his wife, Daisy, at a Swimming Gala held in aid of the, ‘Stones for Africa’ appeal. It wasn’t quite love at first sight as she assumed him to be the pet of the host and not some potential life partner. However, over the course of the day she began to warm to his charms and his all in one swim suit, even the way he wolfed down his sumptuous meaty chunks in gravy from a bowl seemed appealing. Sorry, appalling. Several gin and tonics later, they were inseparable. His claw had become attached to the lining of her summer dress and eventually a set of nail clippers were called for. They talked endlessly about their past. She had been the first woman in Space, quite by accident as it turned out and he sat transfixed in her gaze while she hypnotised him with a ball of wool and regaled him with a bucketful of implausible tales. As the night lingered on, they clambered high in to the bows of a tree and serenaded the neighbourhood with songs under the tilting moon. They were later water cannoned off by the local Fire Department when complaints were logged and it became impossible to coax them down with promises of milk and the rattling of a can of tuna. They lived happily ever after.  

So, Donkeh, as you can see, a cat can be anything it wishes. Not a train however. That’s a matter for the unions and I don’t want to go in to it at present.  

All the best,

Dear Francis’ Knee,
Who would you worship God or the Devil if they were to launch an all out war against each other?
-Shaadorts  

Dear Shaadorts,  

If you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss religion. It is one of those issues that people get so worked up over these days, you risk offending everyone. I thank you for your question and perhaps if you let me re-word it, I might approach it from another angle.  

If say, my fridge suddenly took a swipe at my oven, I would be lost for words. Not because I paid good money for them both and the salesman assured me such things couldn’t happen because, as of yet, we don’t have the technology, but primarily due to the fact that they are inanimate objects without cause or good reason to suddenly resort to aggressive behaviour towards one another as apposed to cool or heat food stuffs respectively. Similarly, if my microwave suddenly published an acclaimed book of poetry, and ran around the room gloating at his success, intimidating my toaster, whose failed trilogy published the previous year resulted in lengthy bouts of depression and anxiety, I would be gutted. Not through jealously, more that I wasn’t consulted at any stage of the anthologies publication. It goes without saying; I would also feel sympathy for the toaster. If my multi-purpose blender and my washing machine eloped and headed ‘pronto’ for the South of France, I would be torn apart with remorse, in that, I didn’t see it coming and hadn’t offered them a quieter life in order to continue their, some might say, futile affair without feeling they need quit domesticity to achieve the perfect ambience for their love. Likewise, if I returned to find my colander plotting a sadistic attack on the bread bin, his punctured frame hunched over elaborate assassination plans, maps and outlandish propaganda beneath a solitary, un-shaded light bulb, I would be more hurt than disappointed. Clearly this sort of thing is unnecessary and thankfully, avoidable with proper storage facilities, lenient working conditions and medical help.  

I am a wise old knee. A kind, understanding knee with everyone’s interests at heart. I would hope both parties could come to me with their problems without them resorting to violence, or at the very least, write me a legible note stating their intentions so as I could ponder over the predicament before launching in to torrent of firm but fair disciplinary measures. In an ideal world there would be no wars, no famine, no poverty and thankfully, no more puppets on children’s television. I would have them all shot.  

Besides, God lives in ‘The Arctic’ and the Devil resides predominately in ‘The Antarctic’ and never the twain shall meet as they say. Unless that is, they build a bridge or something.  

Peace,

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Dear Francis’s Knee

Where do I come from?
-Tom

Dear Tom,

Rather, ‘Where do we all come from?’ Good question and one that has occupied the minds of some of the worlds leading theorists and some of the not so good ones as well. I’m referring in this instance to one, Alfred Massive, a Scotsman noted for his flamboyant nature; including his over the shoulder ‘Screeching Rainbow Storks’, his ‘Exploding Lapel Monkeys’ and his ‘International Quilted Playboy Horse’, which he called Felix on Tuesdays and Sundays and Ralph on every other day.  

Dr. Massive was once the country’s leading surgeon. But only once. He was a prominent member of the infamous, ‘Glee Society’, a notorious Gentleman’s Club in Edinburgh during the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, a period of significant scientific and social advances in Britain during the latter half of the 18th century. As a young student at Edinburgh University, Massive first delivered his papers on foot, then, as his morning round became larger, on horse and cart. All this extra work was eating in to his timetable and he was soon forced to quit his job and concentrate on his studies.  

After lengthy research, I have unearthed a transcript from one of his early University lectures, given in this instance by Dr. MacGruff, formally the world’s 1^st professional Golfer who turned his hand towards exploring the ‘Origin of Species’. Though, he may have just been pointing in that general direction or at a building.

However, Dr. MacGruff never really found the answer and I think that says something, don’t you? That, perhaps we shouldn’t go looking for something that doesn’t exist. 

Studiously,

 Dear Gerard,

There is nothing wrong with the way it talk. It are obviously talking in the ancient Itland ‘dialect’ known to it as, ‘Ittish’, where the words, ‘I, me, my, mine, you, yours, their, theirs, they, them’ are replaced with the simple omni-descriptive ‘it’.  It talk it sometimes too, when it talking to it friends from Norway or Bolivia. (In 1409, so legend would have us believe, Itland explorer, Itius Itlumbus set sail in a boat made from woven together poor people to discover new lands for his beloved Queen and country. 13 years later, he landed on the coast of Norway, which, unfortunately had already been discovered by the Norwegians. Itius decided that he quite liked the ‘Viking’ way of life; the flat-packed furniture, the lack of sunlight and the higher than average alcoholism rate and settled there, marrying in to one of the local families. Ittish is still spoken to this day in some parts of Norway, mainly the pubs and off licences. God only knows why they speak it in Bolivia.) 

It talk it to it sometimes, but most of what it learned comes from living in a cardboard box from 20 years in a bus station toilet. It blames the exhaust fumes; doctors on the other hand put it down to it dyslexia. It mother was dyslexic, her favourite film; ‘Fridge over the river Kwai’ is a classic. ‘Dustbin Man’ starring Rain Hoffman is one of it favourites. 

It care take,

Francis’ Knee

Dear Sammy,

Good to hear from you again. My favourite Micallef sketch would have to be the sketch about the Ned Kelly gang. The sketch features the immortal line, “Apricot isn’t a metal!” I love the Voiceover at the end describing what combinations of face masks they tried and the comments on the smoothness of the Bushmen’s skin, after they were gunned down in the final shootout.  

Until next time,