© ITN 2009

According to work by scientists reported on ITN today, cats control people through their purr, particularly where their food is concerned.  However, this also applies to their creative projects and Rocco (the Cat) has reminded me of a couple of things I need to do. Incidentally, he looks very like the handsome cat in the above photograph.

Firstly, he has asked me to report calls from actors union, Equity, for cats to return to the London theatres in their traditional role as catchers of mice and rats, as headlined in this week’s edition of The Stage.

Secondly, Rocco has suggested that I consider developing a play (possibly for theatre, but perhaps for radio in the first instance) based on the synopsis of a drama I wrote last year at our other Janet Rocco Blog, with the working title of “The Right Hon Lord Shag of Solihull”, about a gentleman with a fortune originally made in the carpet business.

With regard to the latter project, I’m now minded to call this drama “The New Country Wife”, after the 17th century Restoration Comedy “The Country Wife”*, and, yes, it will of course deal with the subjects of Sex, Politics and Money in the later Noughties, or as it’s heroine, Samantha Shag calls them : the Naughties.

Rocco will be acting as agent for this venture, so  if any one would like to sponsor our New Restoration comedy, please could they email janet.rocco@tiscali.co.uk  Many Thanks !

Background to The New Country Wife and a Preview can be found @ http://janetrocco.blogspot.com  

More information about Restoration Comedy and The Country Wife @

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_Wife

We are in the process of putting together a website for Janet Rocco along the following lines :

Janet Rocco is a creative business whose services cover :
• Cultural Studies
• Literary Reviews
• Crafts & Design
• The Healing Arts

Cultural Studies
Cultural Studies places a wide-angled lens on the contexts through which the arts and wider culture, notably as reflected in politics and The Media, evolve over a particular time period. Contexts include :
• Economic/Technological
• Demographic/Social
• Environmental/Health
• Philosophical/Religious

Literary Reviews
The literary medium is distinguished from other media, and its qualities considered from a range of perspectives : most importantly the historical. Literature is broadly defined as :
• Poetry & Prose Fiction
• “Ideas” & “Ideology”
• Journalism/Blogging
• Audio Books & Radio

Crafts & Design
The cultural contributions of craft and design, as part of wider social movements and economic development, are explored through various contexts. Categorisations include :
• The Traditional Crafts
• “Modern” Design
• Contemporary Fusion
• Roles of Technology

The Healing Arts
Health is defined as the maintenance of a sense of proportion in life, whether for the individual or wider society. The role of The Arts in maintaining such equilibrium is explored through the following :
• Vibrational Medicine
• Arts-based Therapies
• “The Creative Project”
• Uses of the Internet

Contact Information
Email: janet.rocco@hotmail.co.uk or janet.rocco@tiscali.co.uk
Tel/text +44 (0)7790 633190
Post : Studio 13 79 Friar Street Worcester WR1 2NT UK

“Born Standing Up” is the autobiography of the massively and multi-talented Steve Martin, and narrates his years doing stand-up comedy around the United States, prior to his major success as a film actor.

This is a fine story full of insights, not least when Elvis (the real one) attends one of Martin’s early shows and comments, in ”his lovely Mississippi drawl” : “Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humour”.

After a few problems, we are proud to introduce  “Tails of Two Nations” : a major international feline political discourse between the Cats of the Russian President and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dorotheus and Sybil. This dialogue will be facilitated by Boris the Cat.

We apologise for the delay, but a cat fight broke out between between Dorotheus and Boris, and we felt a little time was required to enable tempers to cool.

Dorotheus Medvedev

Oleg Shchedrov of Reuters has written the following account of Dorotheus (Dorofei in Russian) :

“According to Trud daily, the four-year-old Dorofei belongs to a rare Neva Masquerade breed, revealing Medvedev’s love of St Petersburg…

“One more guy from St Petersburg,” wrote Trud, referring to the cat.

In fact Medvedev’s wife Svetlana bought Dorofei in Moscow.

“When Svetlana came to pick up the kitten, she was not the first lady yet, just a simple and very nice woman,” Izvestia quoted the owner of a breeding company Great Hunter, Irina Ilminskaya, as saying. “She played a bit with the kittens and said they always kept cats in their home.”

The cat’s name was given by the breeder and is popular in Russian fairy tales.

According to the Russian media, Dorofei is a rather tough character — independent and unwilling to follow protocol. He is also a great fighter, keen to protect his territory and grow it at the expense of his neighbours.

One of such fights nearly ended in his death and left scars on Dorofei’s body.

“According to rumours Dorofei fought another VIP cat belonging to (former Soviet President) Mikhail Gorbachev,” said Trud adding that Gorbachev’s cat won. 

However, Dorotheus claims much of this information is only press speculation, and – despite a generous private allowance from  President Medvedev- he regards himself as a Revolutionary Socialist who has renounced violence (insofar as humans are concerned anyway) who wishes to carry forward the legacy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as set out in his “Letter to the Soviet Authorities” of 1974. For those unfamiliar with the text of this, we recommend Geoffrey Hosking’s excellent book, Russia and the Russians, which states that the letter “proposed that Russia abandon its international commitments and hyper-trophied heavy industry and withdraw into itself, taking the opportunity to develop its agriculture, crafts, and small-scale manufacture…”.

Sybil Darling

The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Cat declares herself to be a One Nation Conservative, and part of The Great Tradition which began with Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in the mid-19th century. Reforms started in this period, she believes, removed the need for violent revolution of the kind which had already taken place in France and would later occur in Russia. Although a common garden black and white mog herself, Sybil is a supporter of hereditary monarchy and aristocratic patronage, and deplores the kind of social polarisation associated with modern capitalism. Naturally, “The Aristocats” (Walt Disney 1970) is her favourite film. 

Sybil regards herself as the heir of the kind of British Conservatism which evolved up until the 1970s. Although this was temporarily suspended during the rule of Margaret Thatcher, Sybil maintains that something of its ideology was reborn under the John Major Government with the arrival of Humphrey the Cat in Downing Street in 1989 (presaging the downfall of Margaret). Sybil greatly regrets Humphrey’s internal exile to the Home Counties by subsequent decree of New Labour Prime Minister’s wife, Cherie Blair, and regards her own resumption of power over these territories as marking out a new “sphere of influence”.

Cherie Blair with Humphrey the Cat in 1997 (AP)

Notwithstanding her distaste for Thatcherism, Sybil is, like Margaret, is an admirer of former Soviet President Gorbachev, and, would, indeed, very much like to meet his Cat.

Boris the Cat

He is not related to the current Mayor of London, but has dined on many occasions with Peter Mandelson. Boris is demanding a large fee – as “a Cat not having the private means of Dorotheus, or Sybil’s access to the public purse” – for his involvment in this enterprise. As we are his agents, cheques should be made payable (Sterling only)  to : Green Man Projects, and sent to Studio 13, 79 Friar Street, Worcester WR1 2NT UK. For more information about Green Man Projects see : http://woodwose.wordpress.com

Boris describes himself as a Neo-Liberal Pragmatist. He attended an elite private school in Southern England before Oxbridge, where he was recruited simultaneously by both the British and Russian secret services, but activated by neither. Boris later became a Fat Cat in the City of London. However, even he was appalled by its excesses, and has for many years been involved in International Good Works, for which he nevertheless ensures that he is paid handsomely.

Ideological & Theoretical Antecedents of this Discourse

Our enterprise adopts the spirit of Glasnost (frankness and truth) and Perestroika (change), and pays tribute to Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), who, according to Geoffrey Hosking (see above) : “re-habiliated dialogue as the fundamental context of all discourse, including that which claims to be scientific”.

Could feline station masters hold the keys to the regeneration of Worcester’s two railway stations and provide a much needed boost to the city’s visitor economy ?

Cat boosts economy of Japanese city

In the face of global economic gloom, a cat has provided a spectacular boost to the finances of a small Japanese city.

AFP reports that a study credits nine-year-old tortoiseshell Tama as the key figure in the millions of dollars banked by the city of Kinokawa in western Japan.

The famous feline is the official master of the unmanned Kishi railway station on the provincial Kishigawa line in Kinokawa. But it isn’t her ability to help travellers or stamp tickets that has bought the cash rolling in.

Tama’s regular appearances at the station wearing the formal black cap of the Wakayama Electric Railway have caused tourists to flock to Kinokawa in droves. Her appointment makes cultural sense in Japan, a nation where cats are considered good luck and are believed to boost ailing businesses.

According to a recently published study, 55,000 more people have used the Kishigawa Line than would normally be expected. As a result, Tama is being credited with a contribution to the local economy calculated to have reached as much as 1.1 billion yen (almost £6 million). The publicity generated by the celebrity cat – including a recent television appearance – is estimated as being worth 280 million yen (approx £1.5 million) alone.

Despite her national fame, it seems Tama is keeping her paws firmly on the ground. Although her hard work was recognised with a promotion to “super station master“, she remains content being paid in cat food.

We are delighted to announce a major new international collaboration between the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s cat, Sybil, and Dorotheus, feline of the Russian President. The collaboration will involve a series of dialogues, facilitated by our old friend Boris the Cat, on a range of important political themes. In the opening session, each cat will clarify her/his ideological pedigree. Photographs are courtesy of The Telegraph and Izvestia. The title of the series owes it’s inspiration to “Sybil, A Tale of Two Nations” by 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, to whom the saying ” Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” is attributed.

Sybil

Dorotheus

by MILES ERWIN – Wednesday, September 17, 2008

To some he was known as Ginger. Others called him Dave or Atkinson. Some even knew him as Fonzworthy III.

Now the death of a charismatic stray moggy who won the affection of an entire street has sparked a flood of ‘Diana-like’ tributes.

 

Ginger, aka Dave, aka Atkinson, aka Fonzworthy III: RIP

Residents who once fed and fussed over him have laid poems, flowers and photographs at the spot where the ginger tom liked to stretch out to cat-nap.

‘He touched our lives in so many ways,’ said 40-year-old Keith Davis, of Holloway, Bath. ‘Although he was streetwise, he was wonderfully affectionate.  

‘Collectively, we looked after him and he’ll be missed terribly.’

One tribute addressed to Dave read: ‘We’ve enjoyed your company immensely over the years and will miss and remember you.’ Tony Brown, 66, knew the cat as Atkinson. ‘When he died, we thought we ought to put a notice up because he was so well known,’ he said.

“I am sincere but I may be mistaken..” so said the famous occultist Madame Blatvatsky of  her mediumship work, sounding a cautionary note which all speculation should respect.

In our Tarot Card Readings we follow her advice. Satisfied clients may make a charitable donation.

Some years ago, after Janet had sampled a few Bombay Sapphire gin tasters in the Windsor branch of Waitrose, her host – a rather dapper gentleman, in the true meaning of the word - said that she reminded him of Britain’s best selling poet Pam Ayres. Janet was slightly taken aback, still hoping at that time for a favourable comparison to Madonna, or other glamour girl. Pam Ayres is somewhat her senior. Seeing Janet’s slight surprise, her host stressed that he’d meant the comparison as a compliment. Now Janet thinks of him as one of the inspirations for her “Water Poems” (see below).