Tony just found this gross but ace site: whatjeffkilled.com

It especially appealed to me because Bailey, our ginger killer-cat, brought in the first mouse in ages tonight. He managed to throw off his latest collar (and bell) a few days ago so he’s now silent and deadly. He came into the house meowing out the side of his mouth because the rest of his mouth was stuffed with dead mouse. He came into the living-room and dropped it on the carpet to admire for a while.

He was most put out when I removed the mouse and dumped it in the outside bin. He sulked for a while, then stalked off outside again.

The closest we came to a blog was the CatTails wiki page that Tony started when Gizmo and Bailey were kittens. We used to keep it up to date with all the kills and crap that they brought in. Their count is way too numerous nowadays, though.

While not the most gross (though yucky and messy), the magpie to the right is the most bizarre. He wasn’t small and our kittens (at the time) were. We can only imagine that one of them (Bailey?) had managed to catch it and drag it through the cat-flap (no other way in) then been scared off by a massive flapping vicious magpie. Tony sums up the story nicely on his blog.

I love my cats.

Last Saturday evening we toddled back down to Harbour Lights (our local Picture House cinema) to watch the live cinecast of The Secret Policeman’s Ball (comedy gig by Amnesty International to Protect the Human). It was so good that I’d have blogged about it as soon as I got home except that my PC had broken down (later found to be a dodgy PSU :-S ) and, to be honest, it was past my bedtime and I fell asleep.

I only saw the old ‘Balls’ in the past couple of years when Tony bought a boxed set of them on DVD. Watching it live was even more fun though. The show was performed at the Royal Albert Hall and then cinecast live to 17 Picture House cinemas around the country.

The whole thing was pretty slick and the technology didn’t let it down. Not quite sure how it all worked but the sound and picture was good and only very occasionally did the picture flicker to show that there was some disturbance. The doors opened at 7pm and due to start at 7.30pm. From 7pm there was an analogue clock displayed on the screen counting down with witty comments alongside it as 7.30pm came and went.

It finally got going about quarter to eight…and just kept going until the interval…and then on till midnight.

Each half kicked off with music; the first half by the Zutons and the second by The Magic Numbers. They were good but probably sounded better if you were in the hall with them – I think being on a flat screen lost something there.

The comedy was ace though. Like Andrew Maxwell (who was v. good even though no one had heard of him before), Russell Brand, Jessica Stevenson, Ronnie Ancona and John Colshaw, Sarah Silverman, Seth Green, Eddie Izzard (who was back on form after his disappointing Sexie DVD, IMHO)…and special mention goes to Dave Armand and Natalie Imbruglia who were just so funny miming to Torn.

Apparently, the edited show is going to be shown on Channel 4 on 31st October. At 4-5 hours running time it must be pretty heavily edited so I’m just glad we got to see the unedited version…so nah-nah-na-nah-naaah!

And in the serious bit at the end where Jeremy Irons talked passionately about why the Ball was there at all (so serious that he didn’t even make any jokes about torture, rape or murder!), everyone in the cinema was so involved (having been laughing, clapping, and cheering the whole way through), that everyone stood up when he asked us to and signed postcards to support Amnesty’s Protect the Human campaign to prevent or resolve human rights abuses going on today.

One of those opinions that I’ve felt the need to share recently is how underwhelmed I was at Channel 4’s new comedy, The IT Crowd.

Tony downloaded the first episode the week before it aired. The only time I laughed was during the end credits when Tony suggested hopefully: “Maybe it’ll get better?”.

I have to admit that we have watched each episode since but mainly because it’s on directly before the excellent My Name Is Earl (\o/ Jason Lee). The IT Crowd has got very marginly better in subsequent episodes but, in general, the writing is terrible, the characters one-dimensional, the plots predictable, and the jokes unoriginal. Nothing like as good as Spaced or The Office, say.