village life – Page 24 – don't confuse the narrator

cat’s cradle

I think he wants to be a ship’s cat when he grows up.

(Edit 14/4/2013: anyone looking for invisible cat hammocks won’t find them here. You might try physicscentral for a light-hearted look at the subject, or download the pdf on graphene from the Nobel Prize site)

paws for thought

Years ago, I used to have an orange-brown tabby. She was a perfectly normal short-haired cat, but skinny and delicate. She had one or two pink pads, but mostly her paw pads were black, and I always suspected this indicated that she had Siamese ancestors.

At last count there were five black cats ranging around the finca and, although I haven’t got close to the two smallest, when I saw these paws on the windowsill, I was struck by the fact that the three siblings born 15 months ago all have black pads.

After some brief on-line research, I find that this is to be expected, although, if I’ve understood correctly, it would theoretically be possible for a black cat to have pink paws.
Continue reading “paws for thought”

of telephones and translation

I went to a workshop in the Cotswolds last week, where we discussed translation and poetry. Specifically, translating the poems of Lorca, as it was related to the Lorca in England competition. I do want to write more about translation, but have been caught up in discussion of my other hobby horse, the narrator in poetry.

So, while I try and find time to compose my thoughts and write some more on the subject of translations, which, “like women, when faithful are seldom beautiful and when beautiful are unlikely to be faithful” – (I’m not sure who to attribute that thought to) – here’s a picture of an English telephone box, just to brighten the page.

playing gooseberry

(Click here for a picture of male and female kiwi flowers)

As I’ve mentioned before, when I first saw kiwi fruit back in the Seventies, they were called Chinese gooseberries. But, although the fruit are greenish and furry and have tiny seeds, they aren’t really anything like gooseberries.

Or so I thought until we started growing them.