I'm with BitWorksMusic. You can imagine the head count. "Ten, eleven, twelve...hang on...anyone seen Fr Pyotr? Anyone...?"

I read two or three of the entries and then just choked up. This is something most of us who have pets try not to think about, so more power to the blogger's elbow for telling us about it with matter-of-fact compassion.

May I add my congratulations. Grand news.

At least it says `some clothes,' rather than `some clothe's,' which would not be unusual.

Ralph Steadman's The Joke's Over, a memoir of his times with Thompson, paints a similar picture of a man who could be difficult to love sometimes, particularly in later life, but could also be intensely loyal and generous.

This, of course, is what London's Mayor wishes all pigeons looked like.

I never heard this story before. Thanks for posting it, even though it sucks in more ways than I can think of right now.

The best description of the Mail I ever heard wasn't so much that it was a fascist newspaper but that its sole purpose was to frighten the middle classes. And I agree: who are all those people behind the Last Man On Earth?

It's clearly being done with the best of intentions - like Wikipedia itself - but I do have a bad feeling about this.

I'm kind of reminded of the governor of Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight in the Sixties who, when some of the Great Train Robbers were sent there, asked for a garrison of the British Army to be stationed at the prison in case some of the robbers' confederates used `nuclear explosives' to break them out. Those were more innocent times.

Flying Squid@4 - that was because of the exploits of double-agent Eddie Chapman, who got himself out of jail in Jersey by agreeing to work as a spy for the Germans and was parachuted into Britain to sabotage the DeHaviland factory in Hatfield. As soon as he landed he turned himself in to the authorities and wound up working for MI6, radioing false information back to the Germans.

To make the Abwehr believe he was still working for them, damage was mocked-up on the factory, I believe by a team led by a former set designer for the English National Opera.

That's rather charming, isn't it? For anyone who's interested in this sort of stuff I can recommend HV Morton's books about London, written from about the mid-20s to the mid-30s, and which I'm staggered to discover after looking him up are back in print. (I found all mine in second-handd bookshops.) They're like guidebooks to a lost world.

Wasn't this a Gary Larson cartoon?

"What, Pluto? You want early elections?"

Don't get me wrong; if we had a flat the size of his garage, I would be more than content.

That is without a doubt one of the damndest things I've ever seen. Of course, you'd have to be entirely out of your mind to do that. But, yes, absolutely beautiful.

All I ever got was some socks and a sweater...

You do realise that Jay Leno's garage is larger than our flat? Envy is such a terible emotion, isn't it...?

Personally, I'm surprised this hasn't happened before.

At least nobody tasered him.

This does me no credit at all, but I had to wonder how this chap feels watching the Tour de France?

Apologies. That should have been `Bush-bashing.'

As someone who's watching this disaster unfold from a considerable distance (one continent and a whole ocean away) I can't comment on the political subtext. To me, Beck's comment was just unforgiveably crass and insensitive. Maybe those who have castigated other posters for Bush-basing should concentrate on that for a second. It was just plain rude. At the very least he owes, what are we up to now? half a million people? an abject apology for being such an arse.

Those were the days, though, weren't they? When you could do anything you damn well pleased, so long as you had enough cast iron.

I apologise; I misspelled Josh Olson's name.

I'm rather uncomfortable with the fact that Olsen wrote the article at all. Whatever the mechanics of it, `Audrey' has obviously suffered at the hands of `Janna.' If that had happened to me, I'd just want to be as anonymous as possible, not have someone publish a newspaper story about it.

The mystery seems to be solved. The BBC are reporting that a sculptor named Billy Johnson has been leaving them `as a gift to whoever found the works.' They're worth between £200 and £500 apiece.