Category Archives: animals & pets

clean bookshelves!

12 Wednesday Sep 2007

Posted by in animals & pets, blogging, books, computers, home

≈ 13 Comments

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Every book dusted, every shelf cleaned. And this morning I painted the bit where the Jaguar’s monitor and the printer sit. And Nog even wiped off and organised all my old cassettes and put them back in their little cassette-holder thingy (behind the monitor). And even my desk is relatively tidy for a change. Anyhow, I thought I’d take a photo of this moment for posterity as I’m sure by the end of the week (if not by the end of the day) things will be all cluttered again.

And check out Sunny. That’s his little stool where he demands to sit next to the Alpha Cat while she wastes her life spends her time on sexy beast. He actually prefers to sit on my lap but then I can’t reach the keyboard. So our compromise is the stool, as long as I talk to him a lot and give him a cuddle about every thirty seconds.

the iberian lynx

11 Tuesday Sep 2007

Posted by in animals & pets, politics, sevilla, spain

≈ 3 Comments

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How the EU saves, and kills, the lynx

So maybe Europe is giving money for preserving the lynx – it’s given 26m euros (£18m) – but the agricultural funds give money that helps destroy the lynx’s habitat.

The same institution is protecting and destroying habitat at the same time.

Fuck golf courses and fuck fake-tasting strawberries … there isn’t enough water here. And how awful it would be to see such a gorgeous creature become extinct. Yes, the dunes are spreading, but the water that exists at the moment could be put to better use.

Doñana Park is about an hour’s drive from where I live. I know a couple of people who work there – biologists mostly working with rabbits, birds and bats. But the lynx is the symbol of Doñana and I guess, being a cat person myself, their plight moves me. But not just me. A few years ago a student of mine (mid-twenties, well-educated) came up for his class and could barely speak when he came into the room. His face was all red, he was actually sputtering! I asked him what was wrong and after he sat down and had a drink of water he told me … “You know your neighbour on the first floor? Her door was open when I walked past just now and I saw she had a lynx pelt nailed to the entrance wall!”

It was actually a traumatic experience for him. I’ve since seen it myself. But these neighbours are disgusting people on so many levels that nailing the skin of an endangered species to their wall is actually not terribly surprising to me.

I’m certainly no big-time environmental activist, but fuck man – golf courses in Andalucía??? One golf course uses more water in a day than a village of 10,000 people. And tasteless strawberries that are sold for export … huh? Nice to see the world has its priorities straight, as usual.

The mind reels . . .

normal cats?

07 Friday Sep 2007

Posted by in animals & pets, miscellany, musings, weird

≈ 5 Comments

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Is there actually such a thing?

When I first moved to Spain in 1992 the last thing on my mind was getting a cat, since my living situation at the time was rather precarious and anyhow, I hadn’t had a cat since I was 18. But it turned out that some friends I’d recently met were wanting to get rid of their 2-year-old siamese girl because they were about to have a baby and – very stupidly – thought Lua might get jealous. So I ended up adopting Lua and she was the weirdest and crankiest thing on 4 paws that you’d ever want to meet. But we grew to love each other – a lot! And when she died of cancer in September 2004 I was totally heartbroken.

Meanwhile, I’d kept one of her four kittens that she had while we were still living in Salamanca – Sunny! And later, when I moved to Sevilla, I took in a street cat that I ended up calling Azar, which means ‘luck’ or ‘happenstance’ in Spanish.

Here is the whole story in case anyone is interested.

So for many years I had three cats living with me – now I just have the two boys. Ex-streetcat Azar has turned out to be a total weirdo, but very lovable in his weirdness. He is, in fact, the only cat I’ve ever met that has a sense of humour – he truly enjoys playing tricks on us humans and then sits back with a ‘who me?’ innocent look on his face. Sunny, on the other hand, is a total dog. He has a real doggy personality – he’s always waiting by the door when I come home, he greets all visitors and tries to make them feel welcome. At the other end of the spectrum is Azar who ‘pretends’ he is afraid of everyone so they’ll pay extra attention to him.

So I’m just wondering… has anyone ever had a ‘normal cat’? I’m not even sure what this would mean. I guess one that doesn’t play tricks on you or act like a dog, for starters . . .

bullfighting

29 Wednesday Aug 2007

Posted by in animals & pets, culture, television

≈ 17 Comments

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No death in the afternoon: state TV axes bullfights

I have very mixed feelings about bullfighting. I’ve never gone to one, though part of me is tempted by the traditional ‘ambientation’. But I don’t think I’d do well watching the ritual slaying because the only time I ever saw one on television I burst into tears.

On the other hand, I would feel hypocritical denouncing bullfighting since I eat meat. And although I try to buy free range as much as possible I know that animals raised on factory farms suffer much worse and much longer than the bull in the ring. The basic life story of a fighting toro is that it is lives like a king for 3-5 years with plenty of fresh air, good food and exercise, then puts up a fifteen-minute fight for its life and is killed relatively quickly. And as far as I know, afterwards the meat is usually sold to be eaten.

I think not showing the fights on TV in the afternoons is probably a good thing, though as the article says, it’s only being banned by the state television – the regional public broadcasters will continue showing them. But although I personally find bullfighting distasteful I can’t bring myself to say it should be banned altogether.

What do you think?