Personal Blogs

"Someone's cut off my hair while I was asleep!" Tom sounded distressed.

My new TV series, Watchspring Watch, has quite a few episodes. You need to watch it gradually unwind.

If my grandad saw the quality of modern chair legs, he'd be turning in his grave.

Once Dad was a great skier. Now he's going downhill fast.

I once campaigned with Caesar in Gaul. Every evening we slept in a new place. We always had to get out our trenching tools and build an earthwork, a ‘vallum' as we called it, around our temporary camp. Caesar would say “Men, this is our Fort for the Day”.

Q. What did the first seedling say to the second seedling?

A. When you've got to grow, you've got to grow!

"Hmm. Where should I go next?", Tom wondered.

A Pupil asked the Abbess, "How shall I become a Scholar?"

The Abbess replied, "You have already asked the first question!"

Our pet snake is years old. He's had loads of accidents, but he seems to bear a charmed life.

Scientists are trying to breed a camel with three humps. If they succeed it'll be a triumph.

There's a lot of dangerous cats in our village. People have been mogged going home.

Looking for amusing animal names the other day, I remembered Shaun the Sheep, and Attila the Hen. After torturing my brains a bit they (my brains, not Shaun or Attila) finally came up with Vlad the Impala, and then in a sudden rush, Belle the Cat.

But then I realised I had absolutely no idea at all what the expression “Bell the Cat” meant. Not a clue.

It turns out it’s a fable. Occasionally it’s been suggested it goes back to Aesop, but it seems this isn't so, and the earliest record of it is from the 16c or 17c. The story goes like this.

One day the mice called a meeting to debate what they could do about a cat that was hunting them. A young and innovatory mouse came up with a really bright idea. “Let's hang a bell round the cat's neck”, he said modestly, “and then we shall be able to hear her coming, and run away”.

(You can see the utter brilliance of this suggestion, and of course many cat owners of today put collars with bells on their cats, precisely so birds will be warned by the cat’s approach.)

The mice gasped. At a stroke they could be free from fear. Cheers rang out!

But then an old and rather grumpy mouse piped up. “All very well”, she said, “but who will put the bell on the cat? It's not a job I’d fancy.”

And neither did anyone else.

Infinity. Now there's a big idea.