Saturday 9th June 2007

My mistress was telling me about a game they all played in England when they took the children to see their grandparents recently. She had to tell me because I wasn’t invited. I’m not bitter you understand, I just hate being left out. Anyway, in the game you take it in turns to go round everyone and all have to say an animal starting with the letter ‘a’ then you have to go round everyone with the letter ‘b’ and so on. It got a bit out of hand when people started on ‘I’ and came up with everything from an ‘Indian elephant’ to and ‘Indian rabbit’. It reminded my mistress of a secretary she worked with years ago who filed everything under either the letter ‘a’ or ‘d’. All the files were named ‘Department something or other’ or ‘A something or other’ – it made it totally impossible to find anything. Back on the subject of the game, just in case they ever include me I have been looking up some exotic names I might be able to throw in to make sure I am never out. For ‘I’ I am ready with Iberian Lynx and Indus River Dolphin, then I’ve got a Vaquita, a Vasayan Spotted Deer, a Javan Rhino and my favourite a Hispid Hare. The beauty of this is there are some very odd names, which would make it possible to completely make names up and no one have the least idea you were doing it. Never let it be said that I would be caught cheating. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to say I am only 18 months old and knew no better. Andy still gets away with things at 5 so I ought to be ok. “What do you mean you haven’t heard of the lesser spotted fan-tail rhino?”