Two words: Cat cam.
I've accepted my status as cat slave and sofa and now I'm thinking Christmas gifts for kitty, and clearly I don't have to look very far.
To my mind £37 is a small price to pay to unleash Mister Tim's artistic potential and spy on the neighbours ( - in fact is Cat Cam legal? Don't want to get done for voyeurism...)
Consider your festive feline dilemmas solved.
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Danger: Daily Mail at work
I'm slightly worried that not only did the last post on this blog have a touch of the Daily Mail about it, but now I find myself nodding along to Paul Dacre's keynote address to the Society of Editors conference, too.
Whatever you think of the Mail's politics, I think you'll have to grudgingly admit that the man at the top had a point today when he held forth about the NOTW Max Mosley payout.
"The British press is having a privacy law imposed on it, which is, I would argue, undermining the ability of mass circulation newspapers to sell newspapers in an ever more difficult market.
"The law is not coming from Parliament - no, that would smack of democracy - but from the arrogant and amoral judgements, words I use very deliberately, of one man.
"I am referring, of course, to Justice David Eady who has, again and again, under the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act, found against newspapers and their age-old freedom to expose the moral shortcomings of those in high places.
"What is most worrying about Justice Eady’s decisions is that he is ruling that - when it comes to morality - the law in Britain is now effectively neutral, which is why I accuse him, in his judgments, of being 'amoral'.
"Surely the greatest scandal is that while London boasts scores of eminent judges, one man is given a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media enabling him to bring in a privacy law by the back door."
I'm glad to see the Mail using it's mighty voice for good - especially as Max is off to the European Court of Human Rights in an attempt to muzzle the press yet further.
There's a danger that I'll end up a DM devotee, sorry, reader, if he keeps on like this - don't even get me started on his criticism of the BBC.
Thirdly, something must be done about my favourite bête noire: the ever growing ubiquity of the BBC. For make no mistake, we are witnessing the seemingly inexorable growth of what is effectively a dominant state-sponsored news service.
The corporation has all but seen off ITV’s news services, both nationally and locally, has crippled commercial radio, is distorting the free market for internet newspapers and now, with its preposterous proposal for 65 ultra local websites, is going for the jugular of the local newspaper industry. Lines must be drawn in the sand.
Anyone working in regional news will tell you he's got a point.
Whatever you think of the Mail's politics, I think you'll have to grudgingly admit that the man at the top had a point today when he held forth about the NOTW Max Mosley payout.
"The British press is having a privacy law imposed on it, which is, I would argue, undermining the ability of mass circulation newspapers to sell newspapers in an ever more difficult market.
"The law is not coming from Parliament - no, that would smack of democracy - but from the arrogant and amoral judgements, words I use very deliberately, of one man.
"I am referring, of course, to Justice David Eady who has, again and again, under the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act, found against newspapers and their age-old freedom to expose the moral shortcomings of those in high places.
"What is most worrying about Justice Eady’s decisions is that he is ruling that - when it comes to morality - the law in Britain is now effectively neutral, which is why I accuse him, in his judgments, of being 'amoral'.
"Surely the greatest scandal is that while London boasts scores of eminent judges, one man is given a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media enabling him to bring in a privacy law by the back door."
I'm glad to see the Mail using it's mighty voice for good - especially as Max is off to the European Court of Human Rights in an attempt to muzzle the press yet further.
There's a danger that I'll end up a DM devotee, sorry, reader, if he keeps on like this - don't even get me started on his criticism of the BBC.
Thirdly, something must be done about my favourite bête noire: the ever growing ubiquity of the BBC. For make no mistake, we are witnessing the seemingly inexorable growth of what is effectively a dominant state-sponsored news service.
The corporation has all but seen off ITV’s news services, both nationally and locally, has crippled commercial radio, is distorting the free market for internet newspapers and now, with its preposterous proposal for 65 ultra local websites, is going for the jugular of the local newspaper industry. Lines must be drawn in the sand.
Anyone working in regional news will tell you he's got a point.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Losing the will to give
Sign up and save the world - it's really easy - all you need to do is set up a monthly direct debit.
I'm fed up of being charity mugged by vest-wearing drama students pretending to care for whichever cause has its logo emblazoned on their nylon bib that day.
I dislike being followed down the street by a man with a clipboard making comments about my hair in an effort to get me to turn round and direct debit £10 a month to a charity I've never heard of or don't support.
More than that, I object to the guilt trip hard sell that comes next - not because Shelter doesn't do a great job - but because I'm hearing what my £10 a month could do for a homeless single parent family from a bloke who's paid up to £18 an hour to tell me about it.
Maybe I'm naieve to suggest that charity is better conducted at a grass roots level with people giving their time, thought and emotional support to a cause, rather than just their cash - but that's the reaction being charity mugged provokes in me.
I look at the old bloke from the Royal British Legion with his poppy can asking for donations that will help returning troops in his home town, and I can't help thinking his work is more important.
He's passionate about the cause, he's giving his time for free and by doing that he's inspiring respect in the people who donate - they're more likely to take his message home with them.
Of course charities wouldn't be using an aggressive fundraising approach if it didn't work, and in financial terms it obviously does pay dividends.
I suspect this is because once you've set up a direct debit you're likely to forget about it and so don't question if it's a worthy cause and carry on giving unthinkingly.
It means that in the battle for hearts, minds and money the charity bib brigade are raking in the cash but raising very little lasting awareness or real support for their cause.
And maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd argue that in the long term the sales speil and the "quirky" bouncy twenty-somethings irritating shoppers on high streets everywhere with their boderline anti-social pavement blocking antics actually damages a charity's reputation and standing.
I do hope that wasn't too Daily Mail for you.
I'm fed up of being charity mugged by vest-wearing drama students pretending to care for whichever cause has its logo emblazoned on their nylon bib that day.
I dislike being followed down the street by a man with a clipboard making comments about my hair in an effort to get me to turn round and direct debit £10 a month to a charity I've never heard of or don't support.
More than that, I object to the guilt trip hard sell that comes next - not because Shelter doesn't do a great job - but because I'm hearing what my £10 a month could do for a homeless single parent family from a bloke who's paid up to £18 an hour to tell me about it.
Maybe I'm naieve to suggest that charity is better conducted at a grass roots level with people giving their time, thought and emotional support to a cause, rather than just their cash - but that's the reaction being charity mugged provokes in me.
I look at the old bloke from the Royal British Legion with his poppy can asking for donations that will help returning troops in his home town, and I can't help thinking his work is more important.
He's passionate about the cause, he's giving his time for free and by doing that he's inspiring respect in the people who donate - they're more likely to take his message home with them.
Of course charities wouldn't be using an aggressive fundraising approach if it didn't work, and in financial terms it obviously does pay dividends.
I suspect this is because once you've set up a direct debit you're likely to forget about it and so don't question if it's a worthy cause and carry on giving unthinkingly.
It means that in the battle for hearts, minds and money the charity bib brigade are raking in the cash but raising very little lasting awareness or real support for their cause.
And maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd argue that in the long term the sales speil and the "quirky" bouncy twenty-somethings irritating shoppers on high streets everywhere with their boderline anti-social pavement blocking antics actually damages a charity's reputation and standing.
I do hope that wasn't too Daily Mail for you.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
A suicidal silence
Suicide is something I've been thinking about for a while - not as a personal prospect I hasten to add - but the way it's reported in the media.
Or rather I should say the way it goes unreported in the media.
Of course there are very noteable exceptions - and of these Bridgend is the obvious example.
But how well did the press respond to what appeared to be a spate of suicides in a tight-knit teenage community? Badly, I would argue.
Suicide is something the media industry is scared of, we don't understand it and neither do our audience. By definition the person who has ended their life has reached a point of isolation which they felt no-one could help them back from, plus by the time anyone finds out it's too late for questions.
I'm not trying to be flippant about this, I think it's really important, but I also think it's time we changed the tone of the discussion because suicide is frighteningly normal.
The only more "normal" way to die if you're male and aged under 35 is to be involved in a car crash.
According to the mental health charity MIND suicide accounts for almost 23% of all deaths of people aged 15–24 years.
Working on a regional weekly paper I can vouch for the fact that almost every single traffic accident, fatal or minor, we get to hear of is reported online or in print.
The same is not true for suicides. Why?
Certainly we find out about less cases - there's no denying it's easier to spot a three car pile up than it is a paracetamol overdose - but that's not the reason suicides goes unreported.
Post Bridgend it feels as though the issue is one of the last taboos left in the news industry.
The reports about the Bridgend deaths made things worse, not better, because journalists tried to force a sexy narrative that simply wasn't there onto the events and, in doing so, once again reinforced the idea that there has to be an exceptional back story to merit reporting on a person taking their own life.
Bridgend isn't a tiny village, the young people that died did not all know one another, the numbers were worrying - but not that much higher than the expected average, and by now it's clear that there was no suicide pact cooked up on Bebo.
Often the feeling is that unless there's a "news angle" it would be intrusive and unneccessary to report on a "straightforward" suicide.
I think that's wrong: Yes, suicide is a harrowing thing for any family to have to deal with, yes, grief is personal, and yes, mental health issues are difficult to report sensitively and responsibly - but that doesn't mean suicide shouldn't make the news.
If we don't talk about it, then it's stigmatised - and what's more likely to make an isolated and desperate 19-year-old feel like a freak than a total absence of the issue in mainstream culture?
But the British press aren't a bunch of sensitive souls who back down when people get upset, so why does this culture exist?
There are several reasons. For a start I think the industry assumes that there's no public appetite for suicide stories because the issue is depressing and therefore likely to turn readers off. Which is nonsense if you ask me - people have a natural, morbid curiousity in tales of tragic misery - we all know that good news doesn't sell papers.
Then there's the Press Complaints Commission Code 5 ii) which states: "When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used."
Obviously the code doesn't prevent journalists writing stories about suicide, it just asks us to be responsible in the way that we do it - but its very existence (it's a relatively recent addition to the code) gives a nervous journalist or news editor something to hide behind.
And while we're talking about hiding, the coroners court does its fair share of hiding its head in the sand on this issue. Open and narrative verdicts are recorded compassionately to save family members the further grief of a suicide verdict - but I can't help thinking this does a huge disservice to those who might benefit from greater awareness of the issues surrounding suicide.
Mental illness is a killer - the only one that the news industry seems scared of - and yet it's the one we could do the most to fight.
Two excellent charities that know the score far better than I do are:
www.thecalmzone.net
www.papyrus-uk.org
Or rather I should say the way it goes unreported in the media.
Of course there are very noteable exceptions - and of these Bridgend is the obvious example.
But how well did the press respond to what appeared to be a spate of suicides in a tight-knit teenage community? Badly, I would argue.
Suicide is something the media industry is scared of, we don't understand it and neither do our audience. By definition the person who has ended their life has reached a point of isolation which they felt no-one could help them back from, plus by the time anyone finds out it's too late for questions.
I'm not trying to be flippant about this, I think it's really important, but I also think it's time we changed the tone of the discussion because suicide is frighteningly normal.
The only more "normal" way to die if you're male and aged under 35 is to be involved in a car crash.
According to the mental health charity MIND suicide accounts for almost 23% of all deaths of people aged 15–24 years.
Working on a regional weekly paper I can vouch for the fact that almost every single traffic accident, fatal or minor, we get to hear of is reported online or in print.
The same is not true for suicides. Why?
Certainly we find out about less cases - there's no denying it's easier to spot a three car pile up than it is a paracetamol overdose - but that's not the reason suicides goes unreported.
Post Bridgend it feels as though the issue is one of the last taboos left in the news industry.
The reports about the Bridgend deaths made things worse, not better, because journalists tried to force a sexy narrative that simply wasn't there onto the events and, in doing so, once again reinforced the idea that there has to be an exceptional back story to merit reporting on a person taking their own life.
Bridgend isn't a tiny village, the young people that died did not all know one another, the numbers were worrying - but not that much higher than the expected average, and by now it's clear that there was no suicide pact cooked up on Bebo.
Often the feeling is that unless there's a "news angle" it would be intrusive and unneccessary to report on a "straightforward" suicide.
I think that's wrong: Yes, suicide is a harrowing thing for any family to have to deal with, yes, grief is personal, and yes, mental health issues are difficult to report sensitively and responsibly - but that doesn't mean suicide shouldn't make the news.
If we don't talk about it, then it's stigmatised - and what's more likely to make an isolated and desperate 19-year-old feel like a freak than a total absence of the issue in mainstream culture?
But the British press aren't a bunch of sensitive souls who back down when people get upset, so why does this culture exist?
There are several reasons. For a start I think the industry assumes that there's no public appetite for suicide stories because the issue is depressing and therefore likely to turn readers off. Which is nonsense if you ask me - people have a natural, morbid curiousity in tales of tragic misery - we all know that good news doesn't sell papers.
Then there's the Press Complaints Commission Code 5 ii) which states: "When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used."
Obviously the code doesn't prevent journalists writing stories about suicide, it just asks us to be responsible in the way that we do it - but its very existence (it's a relatively recent addition to the code) gives a nervous journalist or news editor something to hide behind.
And while we're talking about hiding, the coroners court does its fair share of hiding its head in the sand on this issue. Open and narrative verdicts are recorded compassionately to save family members the further grief of a suicide verdict - but I can't help thinking this does a huge disservice to those who might benefit from greater awareness of the issues surrounding suicide.
Mental illness is a killer - the only one that the news industry seems scared of - and yet it's the one we could do the most to fight.
Two excellent charities that know the score far better than I do are:
www.thecalmzone.net
www.papyrus-uk.org
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Chiuauas and Jimmy Choo-ow-waaas
Small dogs, high heels: A combination fashion statement we can blame on a certain Dorothy Gale of Kansas? Maybe. 
But things have changed since Judy was a girl/alive and these days any fashionista worth her size zero skinny jeans has downsized the dog - sorry Toto, you were looking chunky - and upped the ante with the heel.
And when I say "upped" we're talking heels higher than those freaky flying monkeys on Judy's diet pills.
These are statement shoes. Forget WOW factor, these shoes have WAG factor.
They say: "I have a heel like a rapier dagger, and I will use it if you so much as put one acrylic-nailed, french-manicured finger on my man."
They say: "Walk? I don't think so. Taxi!"
They say: "I over-compensate my low IQ with a sky-scraper high heel - is that a problem for you?"
But behind the botox their wearers say: "OMFG the pain! The pain! Amputate my feet!! F!F!F!"
These women aren't slaves to fashion - they're martyrs to it, the condition has a medical name: "Stilettotarsal" damage.
What unsympathetic columnists and men don't understand is that this condition isn't just fashion's frivolity, it's an addiction as dizzying and damaging as crack cocaine.
If these women could walk away from the habit that will leave them crippled and penniless, then of course they'd do it faster than Dorothy could click her Ruby heels and take Toto home.
But they can't, and now they're injecting. That's right, botox for the feet has become a mainstream phenomena.
For a mere £300 you too can inject who-knows-what-crap into the balls of your feet and teeter around without feeling a thing. This week I was offered the chance to test the procedure out, but strangely declined.
Who wouldn't? What would make any sane woman want to pay for the privilege of freezing her feet with botox?
Well, my friend, these shoes are siren shoes, they are crafted by dark lord designers who seek to tantalise, tempt, exploit and torture unsuspecting females with their ever more terrifying footwear ranges.
[I do hope Mr Shoe Fetish isn't reading this.]
They conspire to seduce and then render their wearer paralysed and resorting to poking dubious cosmetic fluids into her feet.
The clue to this, aside from their obvious annihilation-of-all-comfort-aesthetic, is in the name.
"Monolo Blahnik" to those of sound mind evokes the slurred speech of a stiletto devotee botoxed to her eye-balls and raving madly in pain - but to the victim it is the sound of the shoe devil himself speaking in tongues, telling her if she dons this season's spiky orthopaedic prostitute shoes she'll look HOT.
Meanwhile the name "Jimmy Choo" not so subtly foreshadows the involuntary cooing these shoes provoke among the female population.
And make no mistake, they are beautiful: Sublimely crafted, everything about a pair of Choos is perfect, right down to the exquisite pain of wearing them.
At which point the "Oooooos" become "Owwwwwwws".
But things have changed since Judy was a girl/alive and these days any fashionista worth her size zero skinny jeans has downsized the dog - sorry Toto, you were looking chunky - and upped the ante with the heel.
And when I say "upped" we're talking heels higher than those freaky flying monkeys on Judy's diet pills.
These are statement shoes. Forget WOW factor, these shoes have WAG factor.
They say: "I have a heel like a rapier dagger, and I will use it if you so much as put one acrylic-nailed, french-manicured finger on my man."
They say: "Walk? I don't think so. Taxi!"
They say: "I over-compensate my low IQ with a sky-scraper high heel - is that a problem for you?"
But behind the botox their wearers say: "OMFG the pain! The pain! Amputate my feet!! F!F!F!"
These women aren't slaves to fashion - they're martyrs to it, the condition has a medical name: "Stilettotarsal" damage.
What unsympathetic columnists and men don't understand is that this condition isn't just fashion's frivolity, it's an addiction as dizzying and damaging as crack cocaine.
If these women could walk away from the habit that will leave them crippled and penniless, then of course they'd do it faster than Dorothy could click her Ruby heels and take Toto home.
But they can't, and now they're injecting. That's right, botox for the feet has become a mainstream phenomena.
For a mere £300 you too can inject who-knows-what-crap into the balls of your feet and teeter around without feeling a thing. This week I was offered the chance to test the procedure out, but strangely declined.
Who wouldn't? What would make any sane woman want to pay for the privilege of freezing her feet with botox?
Well, my friend, these shoes are siren shoes, they are crafted by dark lord designers who seek to tantalise, tempt, exploit and torture unsuspecting females with their ever more terrifying footwear ranges.
[I do hope Mr Shoe Fetish isn't reading this.]
They conspire to seduce and then render their wearer paralysed and resorting to poking dubious cosmetic fluids into her feet.
The clue to this, aside from their obvious annihilation-of-all-comfort-aesthetic, is in the name.
"Monolo Blahnik" to those of sound mind evokes the slurred speech of a stiletto devotee botoxed to her eye-balls and raving madly in pain - but to the victim it is the sound of the shoe devil himself speaking in tongues, telling her if she dons this season's spiky orthopaedic prostitute shoes she'll look HOT.
Meanwhile the name "Jimmy Choo" not so subtly foreshadows the involuntary cooing these shoes provoke among the female population.
And make no mistake, they are beautiful: Sublimely crafted, everything about a pair of Choos is perfect, right down to the exquisite pain of wearing them.
At which point the "Oooooos" become "Owwwwwwws".
Saturday, 18 October 2008
OMG more about Julia Allison!!!
I know, I know there's enough already on the internet about the pointless fame-hungry brunette Julia Allison and by writing this I'm playing to her hand, stoking her ego and perpetuating the myth, but I can't help it.
I'm hooked.
She's so irritating, I can't believe she thinks her vapid musings need to be shared, and if I read another bleating tweet about her lack of sleep I'll scream.
For the uninitiated Allison has a self-obsessed form of Twitter-tourettes, a Time Out column and an online TV show. This is what she sounds like:
omg omg omg neighbor's breakfast smells wafting into my studio. I WANT BACON SO BADLY. And I don't even eat meat!!!! I CAN'T TAKE THIS!
Agenda tonight: Soho House Party for "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People," with a very good-mood'd @MaryRambin 1:57 PM Oct 1st from txt
The truth is, part of me doesn't want to go back to New York. I miss this ... This quiet. This family. This LIFE.
Cabbing home in the rain from an EPIC six episode TMI Weekly taping with my co-bunnies @MaryRambin & @MeghanAsha. Xoxo ladies.
You can vomit now.
So why am I writing about her? Because loathe her or loathe her, Allison is no Big Brother 7 contestant.
At first glance she might seem like one;
- Occupation impossible to define,
- Will turn up to the opening of an envelope,
- Shares every aspect of her life with a voyeuristic audience.
But what I find fascinating about Allison is there's no reality TV producer pulling the strings, she's not selling copies of Heat magazine for Emap, she's not a kiss'n'tell slapper and she has no known connections with Max Clifford - in other words she's not part of the establishment.
And yet, she's establishing herself online as a force to be reckoned with.
With a 3,337-strong Twitter following, Allison out-ranks the Guardian's media pundit Jemima Kiss and has graced the cover of Wired but no-one can figure out what she wants beyond celebrity - and if that's all she wants why doesn't she just hire an agent?
Maybe she just likes being in control, maybe she's enjoying it, maybe there's a bit of entrepreneurial flair in there somewhere - and do you know what? If that's the case, I like her for it.
If Allison's only talent, and tireless ambition, is to become a one-woman media mogul - then good luck to her, it sure beats seeing Chantelle's breasts plastered across the cover of Zoo magazine.
I'm hooked.
She's so irritating, I can't believe she thinks her vapid musings need to be shared, and if I read another bleating tweet about her lack of sleep I'll scream.
For the uninitiated Allison has a self-obsessed form of Twitter-tourettes, a Time Out column and an online TV show. This is what she sounds like:
omg omg omg neighbor's breakfast smells wafting into my studio. I WANT BACON SO BADLY. And I don't even eat meat!!!! I CAN'T TAKE THIS!
Agenda tonight: Soho House Party for "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People," with a very good-mood'd @MaryRambin 1:57 PM Oct 1st from txt
The truth is, part of me doesn't want to go back to New York. I miss this ... This quiet. This family. This LIFE.
Cabbing home in the rain from an EPIC six episode TMI Weekly taping with my co-bunnies @MaryRambin & @MeghanAsha. Xoxo ladies.
You can vomit now.
So why am I writing about her? Because loathe her or loathe her, Allison is no Big Brother 7 contestant.
At first glance she might seem like one;
- Occupation impossible to define,
- Will turn up to the opening of an envelope,
- Shares every aspect of her life with a voyeuristic audience.
But what I find fascinating about Allison is there's no reality TV producer pulling the strings, she's not selling copies of Heat magazine for Emap, she's not a kiss'n'tell slapper and she has no known connections with Max Clifford - in other words she's not part of the establishment.
And yet, she's establishing herself online as a force to be reckoned with.
With a 3,337-strong Twitter following, Allison out-ranks the Guardian's media pundit Jemima Kiss and has graced the cover of Wired but no-one can figure out what she wants beyond celebrity - and if that's all she wants why doesn't she just hire an agent?
Maybe she just likes being in control, maybe she's enjoying it, maybe there's a bit of entrepreneurial flair in there somewhere - and do you know what? If that's the case, I like her for it.
If Allison's only talent, and tireless ambition, is to become a one-woman media mogul - then good luck to her, it sure beats seeing Chantelle's breasts plastered across the cover of Zoo magazine.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Drop the dead hamster
I might retire from the news industry after today delivering the immortal line: "Drop the dead hamster!"
My Monday morning arranged itself into a pear-shaped configuration at 9.05am when I got a call from Harry the hamster's people.
Harry was no ordinary hamster; he was a devil-may-care, daring, dashing rodent who should rightly have borne the moniker "Houdini the hamster".
"Why", you ask?
Well my dears, because Harry escaped his happy cage, romped down two flights of stairs, dodged oncoming traffic to cross a main road, and shimmied into No.47 Sea View Drive, to terrify the life out its slumbering owner, Mrs Smith.
Much screaming ensued from Mrs Smith, but fortunately Mr Smith was made of sterner stuff and, with a cool head, was able to catch Harry and later reunite him with his family, the Peters.
Miraculous!! Hold the front page! Or page 12.
Dutifully I spoke to the family, and they agreed to an exclusive photoshoot at 9.15am on Monday morning.
"And how is Harry now?" I enquired on Friday.
"He's very tired, in fact I think he might not be well," said Mrs Peter.
"Dear me, will he make it to Monday - or should we get round sharpish?" I asked, ever sensitive to the family's feelings.
"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing, Monday will be fine," was Mrs Peter's reply.
Come Monday morning and with the photographer dispatched in pursuit of a Pulitzer Prize winning piece of photojournalism, my mobile rang.
"What's that Mrs Peter - Harry's dead?!"
[In the background I hear the doorbell ring, and realise that this signifies the arrival of my man in the field. I begin plotting ways to escape the office before his return.]
I dedicate this post to Harry, R.I.P.
My Monday morning arranged itself into a pear-shaped configuration at 9.05am when I got a call from Harry the hamster's people.
Harry was no ordinary hamster; he was a devil-may-care, daring, dashing rodent who should rightly have borne the moniker "Houdini the hamster".
"Why", you ask?
Well my dears, because Harry escaped his happy cage, romped down two flights of stairs, dodged oncoming traffic to cross a main road, and shimmied into No.47 Sea View Drive, to terrify the life out its slumbering owner, Mrs Smith.
Much screaming ensued from Mrs Smith, but fortunately Mr Smith was made of sterner stuff and, with a cool head, was able to catch Harry and later reunite him with his family, the Peters.
Miraculous!! Hold the front page! Or page 12.
Dutifully I spoke to the family, and they agreed to an exclusive photoshoot at 9.15am on Monday morning.
"And how is Harry now?" I enquired on Friday.
"He's very tired, in fact I think he might not be well," said Mrs Peter.
"Dear me, will he make it to Monday - or should we get round sharpish?" I asked, ever sensitive to the family's feelings.
"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing, Monday will be fine," was Mrs Peter's reply.
Come Monday morning and with the photographer dispatched in pursuit of a Pulitzer Prize winning piece of photojournalism, my mobile rang.
"What's that Mrs Peter - Harry's dead?!"
[In the background I hear the doorbell ring, and realise that this signifies the arrival of my man in the field. I begin plotting ways to escape the office before his return.]
I dedicate this post to Harry, R.I.P.
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