A shiny tuppence for everyone?

You know something I don't get?

Well, yes, you're right obviously, I'm still not sure that I completely understand how aeroplanes work, or why so few ocean-going liners capsize and are lost with all hands (I was going to put a link to that post too, right up until the point where I realised that I hadn't written it yet)

What I'm currently having trouble 'getting' is... The whole... area of... Ladies intimate topiary...

Now, I'm a child of the sixties, and started my long appreciation of the female form, specifically the female form as displayed in various gentlemen's art pamphlets, such as you may or may not find in the bins behind the newsagents after they had closed on a Thursday evening, during the late 70s and early 80s.

The ladies of the time were, how should I put it? The best word would be 'hirsute' perhaps? Their lady-gardens were guarded by an impenetrable (There's a poor choice of words I suppose, when you think about it.) thicket of tortile fluff that, to my untrained eye, looked as if it would repel all boarders, nautical, piratical or otherwise. (Yes, I appreciate that there's an obvious 'Seaman' joke in there - Feel free to make it yourself - For added pre-pubescent jocularity, may I suggest the addition of the word 'salty' to increase the general mirth quotient.)

But, over the last thirty years or so, the 'acreage' of the female frontal bottom area that is thus covered has slowly reduced, up to the point about ten years ago, when it became fashionable for it to be virtually non-existent. (or so I understand. I myself have been happily married for approximately 15 years, so I am no longer exposed to the frenetic variety of mimsy 'in the wild' that I once was.)

I vowed to find out what was happening and why.  Donning my favourite gaberdine raincoat and picking up one of the microphones that we normally use for playing SingStar (TM) I strode out into the wide world with a badly prepared handful of diagrams - Drawn on little cards for extra authenticity.

Did you know that it only takes two or three resounding slaps around the face to make your cheek feel really sore?

Also, it seems that young ladies find being asked the question, 'Would you mind pointing at the card that contains the feverish Sharpy drawing that most closely resembles your secret special place?' upsetting and impertinent in equal measure. One young lady did in fact examine the cards and go to the trouble of pointing one out.  Unfortunately, as the card in question was a postcard featuring the head of a Bison that I had accidentally picked up in error, I had to abandon that particular test.

I retired to the Internet... Which, as it turns out, is the go-to place if you wish to compare the sleekness of a selection of muliebrital beetle-bonnets and found that there are almost as many reasons to cut-back the grass on the Mound of Venus as there are coiffured leaves on any bush that you care to mention.  It seems a lot of people decide that their choice of beachwear can have an impact on their ventral tonsure... variation in gusset-width and translucency when wet for instance.  Others opine that it is 'Cleaner' and 'Lower Maintenance' when in fact, it seems that many specialists (people who specialise in looking at moustachio'd pudenda - Not just casual hobbyists such as myself) believe that this is not the case, shaving can give you all kinds of icky infections and pustular complaints... Ewww pustules... Doesn't bear thinking about does it?

Then of course there's the sticky situation that you get yourself into when you start taking puberty into account.  Traditionally, that's when the stuff in question appears, usually sometime in the early to mid teens.  It signifies the translation from childhood to (biological at least) adulthood.  So you'd have to question the motive of someone who was trying to turn back that particular clock wouldn't you?  No wonder DJs in the olden-days sometimes got confused.

It's also thought by many that it acts as a kind of 'sponge' that holds pheromones that are produced... Erm... locally... And people who get rid of it are making themselves less attractive to people with a half-decent sense of smell - But, I think that could go either way really, depending on the weather.

The thing that I really don't get is that it seems that the popularity of hair 'down there' for ladies is reducing at about the same rate as the popularity of luxuriant beards for men is increasing.

Oh...

Wait...

I think I might have got it...

Felis Catus

Which is not, as some of you may think, the spell Harry Potter uses when he needs a little furry companionship (leave it!) But the Latin name for the common housecat.

I was watching the news this morning before leaving for work and caught the end of a story, (well, I say story...) that the Cats Protection League have produced a guide to cat behaviour.  It seems that some people don't know what certain cat behaviours mean.

They include (and I kid you not)

If your cat is purring - It is contented.
If your cat is walking towards you with its tail up - It is greeting you.
If your cat is wiping its cheek on the furniture - It is scent marking its territory.

You would, in my opinion, be very special (In an 'I ride on a special bus with a five-point harness and specially flavoured windows for me to lick'  way) to not know all that already if you'd ever spent more than five minutes with a cat.

There was one thing that I thought 'Oh, that actually makes sense.' However, and it was:

If your cat lies down, stretches onto it's back and presents its belly to you, it's letting you know that it's so comfortable in your presence, that it feels like you are no longer a threat to it.

It does not mean 'Yay two-legs, tickle my belly.' as anyone who has ever tried this will testify... What you get if you do is the whole 'Did you think that I was a cat? Sorry, I usually describe myself as a furry bag full of razorblades' treatment and your arm looks like something out of Hellraiser.

There are some very odd things about cats which aren't so obvious though, especially to a dog person like myself - Although we do have a cat, called Pop, I have slowly trained her to become more dog-like so that I don't get so easily confused.

Here are a couple things to look out for:

Cats are attracted to people who don't like cats - This is perfectly true, cats will indeed be attracted to people who don't like them, do you know why?  If you watch a cat for any length of time, you'll notice that they do a kind of slow blink every once in a while and then turn away... Go and watch one now, You see, it did it... Unless it was asleep, then I'd have to question why you were watching a sleeping cat for twenty minutes.

Anywho, that slow blink is a gesture of approval, it's the equivalent of John Thomson's Fast Show character 'Louis Balfour, the host of Jazz Club' turning to the camera and saying 'Niiiice!'.  So, picture the scene, you're at someone's house, they've got a cat and you don't like cats, you don't even like to look at cats, you'd never think of even sniffing, licking or playing a melodic harmonica solo to a cat. so you close your eyes and look away.

Cat thinks 'Hey! a new friend, and he likes me enough to have learned my language!'  then it jumps on your lap, nestles down in your nether regions and slowly pumps its claws into any area where hair mysteriously started to grow during puberty.  Because you're polite and don't want to offend anyone, you just sit there like a swan... Unmoving on the outside, but screaming like a lunatic on the inside - That is Swans right?  Actually, thinking about it, I might have swans confused with something else - Not sure what, it'll come to me probably.

The headbutt is another cat thing that has a meaning, it's kind of a question.  Your cat is saying 'Are you mine? you used to smell like me, but you don't anymore.'  The initial 'butt' is the question, if you don't push the cat away, squirt it with one of those plant spray bottles or hit it with a telephone directory, then it will assume that you are its property and re-scent you with its cheek glands.

This is the cat marking you as its property, confirming your status as a chattel, something that the cat wholly owns, but allows to move around within certain boundaries, known only to the cat.

Our cat does this to our dog, often.  Here is a picture of our dog, trying to tear my throat out in a loving and caring manner.

He is not as kind to the cat... There is chasing, and a little light, occasional biting.

But when you get down to it (No, not with the cat you skanky pervs) cats are simple animals with simple drives for everything they do.  If you look into it deeply enough it tends to be because they despise you with all of their black little satanic hearts.  You are just there to service their every whim.

There, I said it cats are evil.  I think Terry Pratchett might have said it best: 'If cats looked like frogs, we'd realise what nasty, cruel little bas*ards they are'

And they are, if a child plays with its food, it means that they're making the word 'Bumholes' with their alphabetti spaghetti, wheras if a cat's playing with its food it means that it's biting the leg off a baby bird and then jabbing it with its claws while it flails spastically about until one of its eyes pops out. (And yes, I have given myself extra points for using the word 'spastically' correctly and in context)

You can, and I have seen this happen to Mrs Dandy, feed a cat a plump, juicy prawn... Which it will proceed to eat, wash itself all over and then hunt you down and kick your ass by jumping from the ceiling fan, grabbing onto your ears with it's front paws and slicing your face open like an over-ripe beef tomato with its hind ones.

There is anecdotal evidence that they smother babies in their cots. According to Japanese sailors, they can bewitch you with their tails (I guess this really depends on how long you've been at sea). It was a commonly held belief that black cats are an incarnation of the Devil, which is a little racist, but I applaud the basic sentiment. and in the 9th Century, King Henry the First of Saxony was so seduced by a cat (History does not record whether he'd ever sailed on a Japanese boat) that he made it illegal to kill cats, a crime which carried a fine of sixty bushels of corn.  If that isn't evidence of witchcraft then I don't know what is.

This is our cat, Pop

She look like a perfectly normal, fuzzy little animal, until you realise... That her eyes don't have any pupils...

I leave you with a bit of ugly Feline doggerel.

There once was two cats of Kilkenny,
And each thought there was one cat too many.
So they quarreled and fought
and they scratched and they bit
Until there was only their nail,
and the tips of their tails
Instead of two cats, there weren't any.

And I think that sums it all up perfectly - Cats? Just say no.