Poignant Thought: The Wild Cows on the Island of Swona

In the mid-20th Century, on the remote island of Swona in Scotland, the Rosie family kept animals including a herd of cows. As the decades wore on, their children moved away and the elderly stalwarts of the family stayed on and eventually died there. Moving of the cattle from the island would have been tooContinue reading “Poignant Thought: The Wild Cows on the Island of Swona”

Book Review: Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flynn

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Publisher: William Collins Books Genre: Non-fiction, anthropology, environmental science, natural history, animal rights. What happens when humans foresake and ruin landscapes? They are never truly abandoned. Instead they are engulfed by the non-human world and they become teeming with many other foresaken wild lifeforms. The weeds, plants, insects, birds and large mammals moveContinue reading “Book Review: Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flynn”

Comforting Thought: A cat represents our shared humanity during the worst of times

A cat represents our shared humanity during the worst of times Readers of this blog will remember I reviewed the biographical book about the doomed Karluk and her crew in the enthralling book ‘The Ice Master’ by Jennifer Niven. That book briefly mentions but doesn’t highlight the plight of the plucky feline on board namedContinue reading “Comforting Thought: A cat represents our shared humanity during the worst of times”

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #89

Check out some gigantic dogs, playful pups of the sea, electrifying house music, mouth-watering Lebanese platters and much more. It’s a magical mystery tour of some of the funkiest shops on Content Catnip road – edition #89. Mall Grab – Breathing I love the handheld, 90’s feel of this video clip and classic 90’s raveyContinue reading “10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #89”

Book Review: A Cat’s Tale: A Journey Through Feline History by Baba the Cat

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Genre: Non-Fiction, History, Cats Publisher: Henry Holt Books Review in one word: Bonkers Imagine, if you will, a book that is so cheeky, so guileful and slinky that it could only have been written by a worldly feline and dictated to a lowly human author. In fact because Baba is so condescending toContinue reading “Book Review: A Cat’s Tale: A Journey Through Feline History by Baba the Cat”

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #86

Hello, do you long for an excuse to flop down? what about eating a gigantic bunch of grapes or spreading seeds over the Amazon jungle. Can I interest you in a bit of Hurricane Laughter or a health and fitness magazine for Regency gentlemen, then come on in and make sure you shut the door behind you to keep out the draft…

Ancient Word of the Day: Orangutan

Orangutan: n. Orang ‘forest’ hutan ‘person’ or forest person in Malay Orangutans belong to the great ape family, our closest biological relatives. This familial link is reflected in the word orangutan itself, which Malay speakers today can still recognise as deriving from the phrase orang hutan, which means “forest person”. This term goes back over aContinue reading “Ancient Word of the Day: Orangutan”

Ancient Word of the Day: Gibbon / Kebong

The word gibbon entered European languages through French in the 18th century. The French adopted it from the Malay word, kebon. However etymological research shows this Malay word originally came from a group of languages called Northern Aslian, spoken by indigenous communities in peninsular Malaysia. In Northern Aslian, it was probably pronounced kebong. Gibbons are a type of apeContinue reading “Ancient Word of the Day: Gibbon / Kebong”

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #81

Are you yearning to know what your grandpa’s eau de toilette smelled like? Perhaps you want to see a deer from Star Wars, different coloured carrots, rotund cats…whatever you’re after, you can find it in edition #81 of interesting things… The Body is Round What did 1968 smell like? Not like your grandad’s armpit butContinue reading “10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #81”

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #78

Do you have a love of cybernetic dogs, Prince or the artist formerly known as, how about frogs that are designed to be camouflaged on the edge of creeks? Do you like hero dogs? Then you will like edition #78 of 10 Interesting Things. Stay cool muchachoes… Tati the French cybernetic dog Tati is aContinue reading “10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #78”