Five things I learned this week (vol 3)

1. The Pope died. It was, as they say in the classics, completely inevitable. I can remember when PJPII got himself elected, and they held a barbecue at the Vaitcan to celebrate – I clearly remember the white smoke from the Chimney, and my mother exclaiming ‘A new Pope!’ Little did we know that he was going to clog up the corner office at the Vatican for 25 years or so, and basically degenerate into a slightly less-mobile version of his former self in that time. Of course, he wasn’t all bad. He did lots of stuff, like tell homosexuals that they were evil, and condemn hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and Asia to death from the dreaded ‘Bum Flu’ when he told them not to use condoms. He oversaw the paying of millions and millions of dollars to abuse victims around the world – children who had been ‘touched by Jesus’ in very special ways suddenly found themselves not only spiritually richer for having accepted god into their hearts and rectums, but financially much better off as well. Bless you Pope – enjoy the afterlife. I hope it’s as nice as you seem think it’s going to be. 2. Boredom at work is a killer. Truly. During the quiet times in the office, thoughts turn from average, run of the mill time wasting to practical jokes so complex and fiendish that they sound like something straight from the pages of a 007 script. This morning, for instance, I learnt one of the pitfalls of working with a bunch of reasonably mechanically-minded people. Having been a dedicated smoker for many years now, I was headed downstairs for a cigarette, when I heard quiet sniggers in the stairwell. Curiosity getting the better of me, I made my way out towards the car park, only to be discovered (to my dismay) by the boss. He came around a corner in the car park to find me, standing alone, next to his car – all four doors had been carefully removed, and all four wheels were missing. “It was like that when I got here,” didn’t cut it when I was seven years old, and works even less now. 3. Italian security measures are a joke. News reached me today that, for the Pope’s funeral, the Italian security forces would have more than 1000 sharp-shooters on duty. Now, forgive me for being incurably cynical, but with more than 1000 people on rooftops, armed with high-powered rifles and scopes, how are they going to be able to tell who’s a security agent, and who’s a nutcase in the proverbial bell tower? I can’t help but wonder how many agents are going to shoot other agents, merely because 1000 people is a difficult number of people to manage. However, it makes sense to boast about the massive numbers of weapons in action around the Vatican for the funeral. After all, given the list of ‘dignitaries’ and associated hangers-on and funeral groupies, and the fact that a lone crazy Turk managed to wound the Pope a couple of decades ago, who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by 1000 Italians, all armed to the teeth and ‘expecting trouble’. One can only hope that the Church will break with tradition with the Pope’s funeral arrangements… The tradition of encasing the Pope in three coffins – one wood, one zinc, and then another wooden one will be augmented by the addition of a fourth, bulletproof Perspex coffin as well. It worked wonders for his Range Rover… 4. Prince Charles is getting married. Again. I know that this will mean precisely squat to our American readers – “Prince Who? Never heard of him” is marrying some horse-faced aristocrat, thus sealing the fate of the British Empire once and for all. Anyone the world over who ever doubted that the British Royal Family cares more for horses than people can be left with no misconceptions now – Camilla, despite the fact that she’s quite probably loaded, is the single greatest travesty to befall The Crown in many years. It’s a shame that the days of simply beheading ones wife when the King grew tired of her are gone – but I still don’t think that there would be a court in the land that would argue against the principle of removing Camilla’s head. As an unwilling subject of the British Crown, I’m not entirely happy with the concept of a ‘step-Queen’. I preferred Charlie’s first wife. She, at least, knew how to shop. 5. Cats get fussier as they grow older. It wouldn’t be an update without the ‘Pablo Report’. She sends her love to you all, by the way. She’s getting more and more fussy as the months roll by – at nearly 18 months old, she’s learned a valuable lesson. If she doesn’t eat the food we give her, we will replace that food with other things until something she wants comes along. Now, if I tried that, The Lovely Renee™ would skin me alive and drop me on a salt-pan for being ungrateful, but the cat? No no… the cat can complain all she likes, turn her nose up at the dinners on offer, and even crap on the floor without fear of reprisal, if things aren’t going her way. I can assure you all, gentle readers, that having tried the ‘I don’t like where this conversation is headed, so I’m going to crap in the living room’ tactic, it doesn’t work. No matter how tactful, discreet or even well-intentioned the crapping is, it won’t result in new and better dinners being served. It will, however, result in a change in topic of conversation – and, more often than not, living arrangements.

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