Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Written at 'the New Inn'

Okay, so the pubs are within walking distance.

It's hot. The Met office have issued a weather warning saying that things are melting and that now is a really good time to go and use an outdoor pool, or something like that.

But tonight I saw physical evidence of heat that went beyond tarmac melting. I was wandering from one pub to another, going down a street that is not, shall we say, the poshest in Worcester (this will become relevant later) and saw what I first thought was a pool of oil on the pavement. This tuned out to be a cat. An actually black cat on the pavement, lying there in the heat like all of its bones had been removed, like it was a puddle of cat. It didn't even have the energy to raise its head and give me that look that all cats give those who mix with dogs, that sort of resentful stare that you would allow your lower legs to become polluted with the scent of the canine.

Walking along and pondering on cats, heat and, shame on me, roofs, I see another one. What's been going on, has somebody been dropping cats from the sky to land in a cat splash in the road? I thought that cats were supposed to be individuals. here were two cats, lying on the pavement like notes on a sheet of paper: 'bloody hell it's hot' first movement.

Just how hot it was was driven home when I passed the (open) door of one of the houses and was regaled with the sight of a fat bird reclined on the sofa. OK! So it's hot and okay - you're fat and you probably have some sort of doctor's certtificate to wear that top in this sort of weather (and yes, we are talking breasts like unfettered wild horses running over a stomach like a tsunami) but really, do you have to have your front door open? Can you not just open a window, or a fridge, or, you know, a diet book?

I had a second experience of all that is right and holy and good and true. Asking the sweating landlord (same chap who, some weeks ago, offered me a sampler of beer and is therefore a good chap) how the beer was keeping, he replied that the cellar was the only decent place to be. I nearly relocated to there with a bag of pork scratchings and a straw, but manners dictated I should not.

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