Removing a Tick from my Cat

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I have to remove a tick (ZECKE) from my cat that’s been there for a while. At least I think it’s a tick – it’s on her neck and I haven’t had a chance to look properly yet (but I can feel there is something there).

I asked B. (they have a cat too) if he knew how to go about it and he didn’t. There are some old wives’ tales about removing of ticks, and one of them my  mum used for all our cats whenever we were little: To put some oil or butter onto the tick, thus asphyxiating it, and then pull it out by twisting the body (to ensure the head comes out too).

However this all seems to be wrong now! Apparently you should just pull it out with tweezers now, as the ‘oil/butter’ method makes the tick spit out all its infectious bile while writhing in the throes of death, thus releasing it straight into the pet’s blood stream

Either way, I’ll need to deal with it ASAP as I’m going away for the week-end

My BF is Very Pretty and I am Very Proud of Him

It’s a pleasure to take my new BF, B., out to meet people. He’s not only very pretty but also relatively quiet, in a good way (doesn’t talk shit). Because we have a similar view on life and even a similar personality (mine is simply a bit more mature due to having lived longer, but generally we are like two peas in a pod!), he doesn’t ‘embarrass’ me in any shape or form. By that I mean that I don’t cringe or violently disagree with anything that he says, I find funny what he does, and so on.

That he’s very cute ON TOP OF his beautiful mind is nearly too good to be true. But it’s great, and makes me happy and proud. I wouldn’t mind him meeting my mum either

Cat is Now ‘Trained’ to Shit Outside

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Despite not specifically training it, my cat now seems to do her ‘business’ outside.

This is how it happened: I’ve had the litter tray in the lounge for ages (moved it from the hallway), as I don’t currently use my lounge that much and I wanted it ‘out of the way’ (my hallway is quite narrow). Last week and over the week-end, I closed the lounge door and thus access to the litter whenever I was in. A couple of times, the cat waited by the lounge door and I carried her out, putting her down on the grass in front of the house. I figured that she would eventually ‘get it’ and realise that it is in fact possible for an animal to do a shit outside i.e. in nature.

On Monday I went to work and forgot to open the lounge door. Naturally I panicked slightly, as I wasn’t sure at the time as to whether the ‘message’ had sunk in to the cat’s head (she was still at that point shitting in the tray whenever the door was open). When I got home however, there was no shit anywhere in the flat. I then continued to take the risk of leaving the lounge door closed hehe and there still haven’t been any ’surprise gifts’ in the flat in the shape of jobbies or urine stench. Hence I think she’s learnt it

Sometimes it’s just worth taking a risk. The cat really seems to enjoy being able to go out, and she continues to ‘learn’ new skills which she hasn’t had to learn in the first 10 years of her life. E.g. how to get through a cat flap (really funny observing her the first few times – she was NOT cat-flap literate at all, just padding away at it in a confused manner), how/where to do a shit, and even the fact that there is an outside world that one can *go to* and *interact with*. I’m sure it’s good for her – even if non-indoors cats tend to live shorter lives, and are more at risk of e.g. being run over, shot by airguns, and being tortured by children

iPlayer – Live Broadcast of BBC1 / BBC2 from 27th Nov

When phoning the thickos from TV Licensing yesterday to reiterate that I no longer had a device able to play/record live TV and that therefore, I didn’t need a license, they asked me to put all this into writing and send it to them ASAP.

They also informed me that iPlayer, since September, had been streaming live TV. I was sure this was incorrect and that it was about to be launched. And sure enough, after googling it today I found out it’s going to be possible from this Thursday 27th November (and NOT since mid-September!).

What I’ll have to do is send them a letter confirming that I not only DO NOT have a working TV set but also that I WILL NOT watch live TV online. It’s so tedious! NB this ‘live streaming’ will ensure that iPlayer fans will in theory be able to watch live TV (but ONLY if they purchase a license…), as the Register points out:

Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, said: “The launch of BBC One and BBC Two online completes our commitment to make our portfolio of channels available to watch on the internet. From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes, live, wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices.”

Note “licence fee payers” in that quote. While catching up with shows on iPlayer does not require a TV licence, watching any live broadcast – including over the internet – does.

Argh. I may get that TV set repaired after all. At least I’ll then be able to play my PS3 on a big screen

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TV Licensing are Big Bullies

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I cancelled my TV license in early August, as my big rear-projection TV had broken down and I had started watching stuff on iPlayer instead. Being the good German that I am, at the time I phoned TV Licensing to ask if that would definitely be OK and ‘legal’ to cancel it, seeing that I no longer watched TV on a TV set. They said it was fine and was legal as long as I didn’t watch any live streaming.

In October, I received a first letter from them, telling me that THIS ADDRESS IS UNLICENSED and threatening with legal action. I ignored it, seeing that I did tell them the reasons for cancelling at the time and even asked their permission. At the week-end, I received another letter, this time more threatening (again with legal action and a fine of up to £1000):

YOUR DETAILS ARE BEING PASSED TO OUR ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS…

I have passed your address to our Enforcement Officers who will be visiting your area soon. Therefore, please be aware of the following:

• Our officers may call at your home any time during the day, in the evening or at the week-end
• They are authorised to use sophisticated detector equipment on unlicensed households
• Every day we catch around 1000 evaders – you could be next

And this was signed by Sarah Armstrong, Scotland East Enforcement Team.

I mean, WTF? I’m even thinking now of having my TV repaired and buying a license just to get these bullies off my back (being threatened with this kind of thing in the credit crunch times will only make people anxious and depressed. I should send this in to Tony Levene at The Guardian so they can deal with it for me. In fact that’s what I’m going to suggest to them when I phone.

Though I realise the underlying problem / fault is probably that they send out these letters automatically to everyone that is registered as not having a TV license, without first inquiring what the reasons are for this.

Completely incompetent.

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Edinburgh Light Night

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This week Thursday, B. and I will be going to Light Night which starts at 17:00 in East Princes Street Gardens:

Heralding the beginning of a fabulous festive season, Edinburgh’s Christmas Light Night will see the festive lights, Edinburgh Wheel and Carousels, Winter Wonderland, the Traditional German and Highland Village Christmas Markets all open simultaneously with a spectacular show and fireworks.

I’ve been there once before with the ex (a few years back) and it was very romantic. We had had a couple of Whiskys beforehand in a pub and then went there, all warmed up and cosy. All the Xmas lights are switched on together and the Xmas fair including the German ‘Weihnachtsmarkt’ opens.

I’ve taken half a day off so I don’t have to rush around. I had some toil left to take anyway. It’s just beginning to become all Christmassy everywhere – even Wetherspoons at the week-end had the trees and decorations up. I don’t normally have any Xmas decoration, but this year, what with a cat and the home being a bit more homely, I might just do it

Mail-order Brides

Playing around with dating sites with the new BF B. (we both like just playing around with online stuff and taking the p1ss) got us talking (or rather, got him mentioning) mail-order brides. Now, I was aware of course that this kind of thing exists and in fact, as a teenager my uncle once got a woman from the Philippines flown in (yes! really…) and me and my sister had to translate letters at the start of their correspondence.

How does it work? The idea is that these ‘brides’ want to get away from the poverty they live in and they need a visa. The men, on the other hand, can’t find a girlfriend in their own country (for various reasons: they may be ugly or shy, or, they may seek more traditionally ’submissive’ females that tend to all their men’s needs incl. sexual which fortunately are not so common any more in our Western societies).

Thus, mail-order brides will marry the men, come to the Western country, get the Visa, and stay with them for as long as is required (early divorce may result in their losing their status and having to go back). The problem being of course that the men will have considerable power over the woman while they have to remain married. E.g. they can have sex on tap and can get the woman to do all sorts of things (in theory! in practice, of course if the men are interested in the person and get to love them, they should treat them equally if they don’t want her to leave him once she no longer needs him).

Speaking to the BF, I asked whether men would do this sort of thing, i.e. abuse the power they have in these first years, and he said that too right they would.

There again, it is really a market transaction. After all, men have to pay the agency to ‘get’ their bride. They ‘buy’ her as it were, and may incorrectly assume that because of this, the bride has to be docile and his property and in effect, a prostitute. Would I do this sort of thing if I was a woman desperate to get away from my home country?

Yes.

Footie Results

Germany lost against Engerland 1:2  in Berlin. Ah well. I never went to see it as my mate J. was watching Scotland v. Argentinia in a pub, which was broadcast around the same time.

After searching the net for the result of that game (not exactly on the front page of any news site etc ) I found they too lost – 0:1. The excitement surrounding the match was apparently due to the fact that it was Maradona (fat cokehead)’s first international as new manager of the Argentinian team.

Wow. I have so little interest in football that all this stuff only exists on the periphery of my consciousness

Germany v. England ‘Friendly’ Tomorrow

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Tomorrow, Germany play England in a friendly in Berlin. Last time I watched a friendly between these two ‘arch football enemies’, Germany won 2:1 and in Wembley Stadium. I’m thinking of going to my mate J. and watch it there – being a Scotsman, he’s bound to support Germany

Will send him a text later today. I can’t watch it here as I have no TV. Plus, I probably wouldn’t watch it if I was by myself at home – footie doesn’t really interest me that much.

Google Profile – Useful/Useless?

My friend anaj aka digiom sent a tweet about her Google profile the other day. I didn’t even realise one had a ‘Google profile’ – well naturally, I’ve realised that I have a Google Account and that my name is probably linked to it and so forth – but I’ve never consciously modified my ‘profile’, made it public, or similar.

What apparently is *new* about the Google Profile is that they are now an *email-free* point of contact. I.e. previously, whenever your profile was ‘public’, people could see your email addy (shock! horror!). This is no longer the case (Google profiles now an e-mail-free point of contact).

This means I may be happy to create my Google Profile and publish it – if only for personal branding.

However, right now I’m not so keen on personal branding Quite the opposite: I’ve been feeling for a while I want to become more anonymous, or certainly reduce my findability to near-zero. Might be a bad move career-wise, but to be honest, right now I don’t see myself as having a great career in the digital realm. I don’t see myself as having a ‘great career’ at all any more as I’m rather content and happy where I am

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