As predicted, Knut the Polar Bear is sinking further into depravity:

Germany’s celebrity polar bear Knut has triggered a new controversy by fishing out 10 live carp from his moat and killing them in front of visitors.

Knut has a moat.

Critics say Berlin Zoo should not have put live fish inside Knut’s enclosure. But German media report that the carp were put there to eat up algae.

Who knew polar bears like fish?

The Frankfurter Allgemeine news website reports that Knut “senselessly murdered the carp”, fishing them out, playing with them and then leaving the remains.

Last week I dropped a potato and Megan ate it. She clearly has no respect for other people’s property, and it’s a slippery slope. I once saw a dog chasing a squirrel.

Is ok - I haven’t been taken out by hitbunnies. A cat did sneak into my parents’ house and try to eat my pet cockatiel, however. I rushed into the conservatory and it was sitting on the patio, giving me a look that said “Nerve. I has it”. Cats are clearly in league with bunnies. Doesn’t surprise me.

I have been listening to Russell Brand while drinking full-sugar coke. Communication of any form is possibly unwise.

Mr Brand is quite funny. I didn’t know. I’d never really seen or heard him until he compered at Live Earth, where he kept making me laugh. I think it’s his florid way with words. Abi and I giggled involuntarily after he described Spinal Tap as ‘meddling with guitars’, while the audience around us sat in stony silence. Strange. I put his Radio 2 show on this evening whilst continuing on The Computer Upgrades That Wouldn’t Die¹, and was immediately endeared to it when RB called his producer a ’solipsistic git’ for only bringing one tea-bag. He also interviewed a representative of Finland’s Moominworld theme park, calling her ‘mooninland lady’ for the entire conversation. Made me smile, anyway.

Never really saw many Moomins. Are they like bleached Smurfs? Not that I saw Smurfs either. Ok, this is now less blogging and more just putting off washing up.

1. sorry to Scrabulous partners - this has caused me to neglect you over the last couple of days [↩]

A practically perfect photograph:

The tiger cubs and orang-utans have apparently become friends after sharing a room at an Indonesian zoo. Awwww. There’s video too.

If there are any owls reading, I have some advice: you do not help the whole endangered-species thing by sitting in the middle of the road while cars approach you. I would suggest that some people’s first reaction would be ‘wow, is that an owl’ (for you are cool creatures) instead of ‘I should take avoidance measures’. Happily, I did not run over one of your compatriots this evening, and I didn’t appreciate the ‘what the hell are you doing?’ stare as I passed him/her. I don’t know if you heard rumours of the eyes of cats, or what, but not so much with the roads. Trees. Telegraph poles. Mice family reunions. These are places to spend an evening.

Thanks for all the kind words I’ve had both on and off-line in the last 24hrs. I’m not so upset today (although I’m in Stratford so it’s not so poignant, I guess), just sad. I feel awkward about making a big deal, as some people must be thinking that it’s not like a human died, but it’s hard to describe the love you have for a pet. It’s just not like anything else. Daisy was a family member, but the feelings you have aren’t the same as you do for human relatives. It’s…different. Hmmm, not so much with the words, then. Thanks again - it really is much appreciated.

Our beautiful little dog, Daisy, had to be put down this afternoon.

Fourteen years ago we went on a family trip to the dogs’ home. My sister, Jane, had saved up £50 through pocket money and christmas/birthday presents, and with Mum and Dad both working from home by then a dog was feasible. Daisy had been returned twice, once after six months for unknown reasons, and once after three days having “jumped a six foot fence to get at some chickens”. Another prospective owner saw us walking her and asked if we had definitely made up our minds. We had.

It looks like Daisy had a stroke a week ago, and since then she steadily declined. Yesterday she couldn’t stop walking without falling over, but was bumping into walls and doors. Mum took her to the vets, where they ran some blood tests. The results came back negative, which likely meant a tumor, and they kept her in overnight. I was in Solihull this afternoon when Dad phoned to say the vet had recommended she be put down as her quality of life was never going to improve. I met Dad, Mum and Jane there and we said goodbye. Daisy was in a terrible state, and it was awful to see. After a few minutes the vet injected her, and seconds later her eyes closed.

Daisy was a part of family life all through my school days, and she came on every holiday with us. I haven’t sobbed for a long time. I miss her.

To further demonstrate that fate’s a bitch, today is Jane’s 21st birthday.

Dad phoned earlier to say that Daisy had been brought home safely from the vet’s, which is good They think she may be in some kind of pain, although the vet couldn’t find anything that caused a reaction in her. She’s on painkillers, and if there’s no improvement they’ll perform some blood tests. Apparently there are ways to treat the senility that some dogs get in old age, which is nice to hear.

Don’t Shoot The Puppy. Don’t.

Level 5 is just too mean.

Stolen from Lisa’s post:

Dear Dogs and Cats,

The dishes with the paw print are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Please note, placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Beating me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is not a secret exit from the bathroom. If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge and try to pull the door open. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years–canine or feline attendance is not mandatory.

The proper order is kiss me, then go smell the other dog or cat’s behind. I cannot stress this enough!

To pacify you, my dear pets, I have posted the following message on our front door:

All Non-Pet Owners Who Visit & Like to Complain About Our Pets

1. They live here. You don’t.
2. If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. (That’s why they call it “fur”niture.)
3. I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
4. To you, it’s an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn’t speak clearly.

This, you see, is what dogs and cats do. This is why they are lovable and generally great.

You know what dogs don’t do? Prance around for no good reason. They don’t skip around in nice circles, nor do they behave better than children. They certainly don’t bugger about with jumping over silly primary-coloured fences…For those of you not in the UK, I’m talking about the annual Crufts dog show, which makes for utterly surreal television. Oh, hell. I’ve written about this before, two years ago. In an incredible explosion of ego, I’m just going to quote myself:

I’m not really sure where to start. I don’t understand it. Any of it. Why would you train your dog to lie perfectly still for ten minutes? Why would you want your dog to run around a set of poles? Why would you want a dog to go fetch a toy, give it to you, then run behind your legs and sit down? What? What? Why? Worst of all was the part where the owners run around with their dogs, and the judges then decide which is the best dog, by seeing which conforms the most to the breed specifications. Breed specifications? What. The. Hell. How do you define what a dog is supposed to look like? It’s like saying that Charlize Theron is the perfect female, and that we should have competitions where the woman who looks most like her is deemed ‘best woman’. It doesn’t make sense. How could you possibly choose a dog to base the specifications upon? Or maybe it’s a combination of features that look good, in which case that’s totally subjective. Abu? Whatchamagoobob?

[Andrew makes flabbergasted noises for a few more minutes, until he regains the ability to speak.]

Dogs are for loving and being generally happy, bouncy and cool. This is why dogs are good. This is also why dogs are Better Than Cats. Some dogs also have many applications in work, such as sheepdogs, tracker dogs and sniffer dogs. These are the things dogs do. They do not have to lie still for ten minutes for absoloutely no good reason. No. That’s weird. It’s demeaning. What you want from a dog is for it to do doggy-like stuff that it enjoys.

I see there was a little anti-feline bias in there I like cats, really I do. It’s just that, as the old saying goes: “Dogs see God in their owner. Cats see God in a mirror.”

It’s not like I think there’s anything terribly wrong with the show - as far as I can tell, the dogs are treated well enough - I just can’t understand what would make you decide to enter.

CuteTracker is a bad, bad site. It supplies you with two pictures, and asks you to choose the cuter. Sometimes this is easy. If it’s a baby versus an animal, chances are the animal wins ¹ However, often it’s impossible to do without feeling bad about yourself. How do you make a decision like this:

?

I’m like the mule, torn between two piles of hay. There’s just no answer.

1. I have a theory that babies only start being cute after you have one of your own [↩]

I was over at Nod’s watching a DVD this evening. There’s always some debate as to what we should watch, and today we ended up with The Notebook. It wasn’t my first choice; nor second, if I’m honest. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. The story was, I suppose, predictable (this isn’t spoiling anything, since much of it is told in flashback) but with this kind of film it’s all in the telling. It really seemed to capture the spark of love, and I don’t think I’ve seen the atmosphere of summer romance portrayed so well on screen before. It was quite beautiful at times. Definitely one to catch, if you’re in the mood
I’m doing ok with the house-sitting. Cat is now eating fine and in the late afternoon strolls into the room for some attention. It’s hard to type when your wrists are being head-butted! Today wasn’t so great , though - I was miserable for no apparent reason, and spent much of the afternoon feeling sorry for myself. Were you to ask me now what was bothering me I couldn’t tell you; it was just one of the phases I go through sometimes. One of those days, I guess.

I was happy to discover that despite being here, in the middle of nowhere, in a house that has no burglar alarm, creaks with all sorts of noises and has animals scurrying about the loft, I’m not scared at all. I always used to get easily frightened when I was young, and although it’s decreased as I’ve got older the odd strange noise or passing flicker¹ at a window would send my brain into spasms of gore and memories of every ghost story I’d ever seen. But not now. I guess much of it is because I began to reject the paranormal a few years back, and now rate ghosts at the same level as unicorns. Hand-in-hand with that is the awareness of the actual chances of an axe-wielding maniac turning up right here, right now. Whatever the reasons, I’m happy it’s happened.

1. it feels oddly awkward to type flicker with an e [↩]

There’s a whale swimming up the Thames. AN RNLI lifeboat is apparently staying with it to make sure it comes to no harm. Cool! I bet he’s named soon.

Other than his remarkable ability to look older in films than real life, I knew nothing about Viggo Mortensen until a few moments ago…Now I think he’s cool

• We bought some spray that claims to null Megan’s come-hither scent for a short while, so I’ve taken her on some brief walks. I’m avoiding the park and not letting her off the lead, but it’s better than nothing. I don’t get so antsy or feel guilty, Meg’s very happy with the whole arrangement, and other dogs look a little confused when they walk by.
• This annoys me. I’m sure they think they’re very clever, but have they actually read the book? No matter how authoritarian you think the state is becoming, it’s nothing like that bad. Stop being silly.
• I’m hungry. What’s wrong with me at the moment? Maybe I have a tapeworm. Wait, does that really happen?
• Double kudos to Anna Ford: firstly, for pointing out that Michael Buerk is a muppet, and secondly for not going with the obvious yet slightly tacky retort.
• New speed cameras are calculating average speed over long distances, like between motorway junctions. Fantastic! I await with interest the response from the speed-freaks concerned road users. What will their excuse legitimate concern be this time? Given that I know perhaps two people who agree with me that it’s not ok to break speed limits except in emergencies, this can only be a good thing.
• A documentary about the mating habits of emperor penguins has out-grossed Bowling for Columbine in the US and is on the way to becoming the most popular documentary ever. Not surprising - who doesn’t like penguins?

This is Obi-Wan as of a few weeks ago, as part of an as-yet-unedited and extremely silly 1-minute movie:

This is Obi-wan today:

Even Darth Vader couldn’t manage that. On the other hand, think how much Megan would have 0wned Anakin at the end of Episode III.

(in hindsight, there are as many ways in which that sentence is complete nonsense are there are the opposite)