I used the term 'hysterical' to describe the gross over-reaction of certain cat-owners to finding a dead cat on their property.

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 11:44am:


I once asked a neighbour who's a gun fanatic if he knew where I could get an airgun from. I even explored the possibility of getting an airgun through the mail from the US.

A stinging ping on the flank of a visitting cat would soon stop it coming over.

My cats have never attacked the Blue-Tongued lizards on my property, and sparrows are 99% what they catch when this rarely happens.

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 11:44am:


That's incredible.

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 11:44am:


If you're a female, they'll leave you alone, but if you're a man ~ you'll soon have some Neanderthal knocking on your door wanting to engage you in fisticuffs on your own front lawn.

Like yourself, I live in a lower socio-economic neighbourhood where eye-contact is not recommended as you go about your business.

Avoiding eye-contact with your neighbours is your first line of defence.

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 11:44am:


If I pulled a stunt like dobbing in a neighbour to the council ~ I would thereafter be living in a state of siege from shouted abuse to things being thrown over the fence.

I once had an Italian family living the other side of my back fence.

The 65 year old who was at home all the time used to call out to me for conversation about 3 or 4 times a day ~ no matter what I was doing, and even if I had guests.

Then one day I ignored her and went into the house. And that was the start of a typical Italian vendetta against me.

Stones thrown against my back door. Their dog's poo thrown over the fence. Shouts of "Bastardo!"

All because I simply didn't want to be at the beck and call of this woman who had nothing else to do all day.

... and a brick-to-London the family would have been telling each other that my reluctance to be button-holed several times a day was a case of Anglo 'racism' ... some kind of anti-wogism.

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 6:34pm:


My brother once left a polite note on someone's door about their dog barking incessantly all night long, and sure enough this fellow and a friend knocked on every door in the neighbourhood streets.

My brother immediately said it was him who left the note, and the issue was the barking dog and not initiating a vendetta.

***

It's stopped in the last 6 months in the next street from me, but there used to be several residential properties that had big dogs with big deep voices barking almost non-stop at night for hours.

Thank God they were a little too far from me to be a nuisance, but I used to wonder how the hell the neighbours over there could put up with this racket for about 6 or 7 years that it went on.

I genuinely believe that Australians have thick skins and semi-anaesthetised nerves that makes them a lot more immune to being annoyed or disturbed by the sort of racket that upsets people from north and western Europe.

The insensitivity is something I've noticed since arriving here.

The nerve synapses don't fire so readily as they do with people from the temperate climates, and this makes Australians surprised that you're feeling a bit pissed off with some persistent racket like a barking dog or a sound system playing at full blast.

It's why we're called 'whingeing Poms' because our sensitivities haven't yet had time to adjust to Australian conditions and become dulled into a semi-comatose stupor from the summer heat, the bad beer, and the mindless idiocy of 'Footy'. 

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 6:34pm:


Perhaps it's time you got a large and aggressive husband (or Toy Boy?)

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 6:34pm:


I don't drink and I don't suffer from Parkinson's, so the only chance of me shooting it in the eye would be if someone knudged my elbow and said ... "Go on, then!" ... just as I pulled the trigger.

mantra wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 6:34pm:


Oh hell no. He's incorruptible. He does everything about guns to the letter of the book. No cut corners. I could hit him, and he wouldn't punch me back because that alone would lose him his fire arm licence.

John Smith wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 10:45pm:


Oh God ... not you too. At my cat forum website I've been hounded (is that the right word?) by mobs of North Shore cashed-up doctors' wives that I should buy a whole complex of modular cage-tunnels for my cats in the backyard.

Not .... a ..... chance. No way.

That's just way too precious.

If I was a breeder of $1000 exotic pussy-cats to supplement my meager Age Pension I might consider it worthwhile to protect my little furry investments, but ... all I have are lower socio-economic moggy bogans with no pretensions and appalling table-manners.

In fact, for the first time ever Gizmo gave my face a spray about 3 in the morning last night. True story. I'm going to have to close the bedroom door in future.   

Love comes in many forms, but being woken at 3 in the morning by a stream of hot piss from a cat that's lady gaga about me is not an option.

I'm seriously thinking of pissing on Gizmo in the backyard to see how he reacts. It might teach him a lesson. First I'll stick him in the wire cat-trap cage so he can't make a bolt for it ...

John Smith wrote on Aug 26^th, 2013 at 8:31am:


What? Give Gizmo the chop? I can't do that. When I got Gizmo he fit weightlessly in the palm of my hand like a little ball of fluff.

Our destinies are linked forever.

True Love.

4 eva