Blood curdling cries

Honestly, who says cat owners don't do irony?

BBC: Family cat 'eaten by pet python'

A family has called for a change in the law after a 13ft (4m) Burmese python crushed and ate their cat.

Four-year-old Wilbur, who lived with his owners in the Brislington area of Bristol, was apparently ambushed by the reptile in a neighbouring garden. Owners Martin and Helen Wadey said they heard "blood curdling cries" which they knew were being made by their pet. They said they were unable to prevent Wilbur being eaten alive by the snake, which a neighbour keeps as a pet.

Their ruthless killing machine gets eaten by another ruthless killing machine, and suddenly they want a change in the law. Me too, Mr & Mrs Wadey.

The following quote made stuff come out of my nose:

A[n RSPCA] spokeswoman said: "The snake was scanned and we can confirm that a [cat's] microchip was found inside. The [snake] owner was issued with a written warning about appropriate housing and care equipment. We can't know for certain that it was Wilbur, but it is very, very likely."

Lends a whole new meaning to the phrase cat scan.

I do hope the python is all right.

Catching a few ZZs

In celebration of the major milestone of having reached ZZ Top in my Great Alphabetical CD Collection Ripping Exercise (and for no other gratuitous reason whatsoever, no siree, Bob), here are the Topsters performing their hit Legs, ably assisted by a young lady going by the unlikely name of Carmen Electra:

Normal disservice will resume shortly.

Getting up to the Joneses

If you're wondering why I've been so quiet the last couple of weeks, it's because I'm ripping our entire CD collection to play on our fantastic new hi-fi (which really is utterly fantastic, by the way).

We have 1,400 CDs, and I'm ripping them in alphabetical order. I know this sounds really nerdy, but it seemed like the easiest way to avoid missing any. I'm currently on the J's: Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings, in fact.

Anyway, can't chat: Grace Jones awaits.

The Return of the Sausage Artist

My mate Bill, the notorious sausage artist, is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Springsteen supported Spinal Tap at Glastonbury yesterday, but Bill told me he had no intention of going, because standing around in a muddy field with a bunch of unwashed youths isn't his idea of a good time.

Yeah right, Bill: not going to see the Boss at Glastonbury, huh? So who was it in the crowd last night waving a sodding huge flag saying "I ♥ SAUSAGE"?

Glastonbury Crowd

Screen capture not clear enough, you reckon? Well, go and watch this video and fast-forward to 6 minutes and 9 seconds.

You've been well and truly sussed, Bill.

Jacko

Wacko Jacko (1958–2009)

Michael Jackson: a great talent, who touched many of his young fans; the self-styled King of Pop; the boy who never grew up. Jen summed him up rather well last night:

I can't believe Michael Jackson was 50. For some reason, I always assumed he was younger than me… Mind you, most of him probably was.

Stuff, as they say, came out of my nose.

The thing is, I would sooooooo like to be the person who arranges Michael Jackson's funeral. Just imagine: the pall-bearers (who I assume would be the remaining Jackson Four) do a moonwalk up to the side of the grave, they place the coffin on the ground, the lid slowly opens, and out leaps a red-suited Jacko look-alike to perform Thriller as zombies and stuff climb out of the grave.

Seriously. He was a great showman. It's what he would have wanted.

(It'll be interesting to see if La Toya turns up at the funeral. That should scotch a few rumours—or, more likely, start a whole pile more.)

Jammy bastard

I am such a jammy bastard at times.

The other week, I was smurfing the internet (as one does), when I came across a discussion about my favourite tipple: Laphroaig whisky. To be honest, I can't remember how I chanced upon the discussion, but someone was asking people to recall their first Laphroaig moment, and to say whether they loved it or hated it. I responded: 'Hated it because it tasted like seaweed. Now love it (because it tastes like seaweed)'.

A couple of days later, a nice lady from Laphroaig contacted me to say that I was joint winner in their competition. I honestly had not idea that it had been a competition, otherwise I would have considered my response more carefully, and would no doubt have failed to win a thing.

I picked up my prize at Hebden Bridge Post Office this morning: a limited edition bottle of Laphroaig Feis Ile Càirdeas 12 year old, cask strength malt (57.5% vol).

Admit it, you hate me.

Hi-fi nerd

Jen and I bought ourselves a new hi-fi on Friday. I won't bore you with the details, but, suffice to say, it is totally awesome. So awesome, in fact, that the chap who sold it to us won't let us install it ourselves. He insists on coming to the house to fit it in person. We would do it wrong, apparently. Very Spinal. The kit is now on order and should be here in about a week. I am ridiculously excited.

Get this, though: our new hi-fi doesn't include a CD player. CDs are very Twentieth Century, apparently. We did intend to buy a CD player, because our current one was bought in 1987 and physically shudders when you open the drawer. But when we heard a comparison between the (very high quality) CD player we hoped to buy, and the new-fangled Digital Stream (DS) player we also hoped to buy, the DS player won hands down. We realised that we would never listen to a CD player again, so why buy one? Then, the wiley chap in the hi-fi shop pointed out that, if we combined the money we had budgeted for the CD and DS players, we could get an even better DS player, which would sound an order of magnitude better again. Which it did. So we did.

Then there was the not-so-small matter of the speakers and cables, and a RAID Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive to hold all of our soon-to-be-digitised music. For any of my geeky colleagues who happen to be reading this, the answer to the question you will no doubt be asking me on Monday is 6TB. That's right, six terabitesbytes. No doubt you'll be able to get that much on a data stick by a week next Tuesday, but, at the moment, it sounds like an awful lot. The chap in the shop reckoned about 5,000 uncompressed CDs worth. That should do us for a while.

Oh, and if any ladies happen to be reading this, in answer to the question you will no doubt be asking, the new hi-fi is black. None more black.

Like I said, I am very excited.

By way of a mini celebration, therefore, here is John Fogery singing Born on the Bayou:

(If I were you, I'd expect a few more music-related posts on Gruts in the near future.)