The sad demise of Humphrey, the Downing Street cat, reminds us of Nanny's trouble with pussies.I don't know why, but she doesn't seem to like them; you will recall that Blairy banished Humphrey shortly after moving into Downing Street in 1997.
Anyhoo, not content with banning pussies in Downing Street, Nanny has extended her pussy exclusion zone to Orkney.
The good people of the Highland Park distillery on Orkney have for generations (200 years in fact) kept a distillery cat, to keep the mice and rat population down.
The most recent occupant of the important post was Barley, who was sadly knocked over the other week. Up until now the distillery would have replaced Barley with a new mouser. Unfortunately Nanny's dreaded pussy police, the Health and Safety executive, have put their big noses into what is not any of their business.
Nanny has banned the distillery from employing anymore cats, seemingly there is a health and safety risk here!
I would make two observations:
1 Surely the threat posed by mice and rats to health and safety is greater than that posed by a cat?
2 The distillery has employed a cat for 200 years, without any ill effects on its customers, why this sudden sense of danger now?
Under Nanny we have become a nation of pussies!
Having read your article "Nanny's Pussy Problems" I suggest Nanny and her minions take a one-way trip to Hamelin --- before the time of the Pied Piper; perhaps, she might then be inclined to spend her energy on real problems and issues.
ReplyDeleteIt's precisely *because* the distillery has been successfully using cats for 200 years that nanny hates it. She can't abide tradition, especially traditions that work perfectly well without her 'assistance'.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the cat , as such, but the fact that it isn't a certified and accredited humane rodent eliminator service!
ReplyDeleteI think it's probably the fact that the cat works for a living that offends Nanny.
ReplyDeleteMuch better the cat scrounges a living, in conditions defined by Nanny's 18 page guide to cat pampering.
Meanwhile hands up all those who fancy a council official placing rat poisson in the vicinity of whisky ingredients!
Cats have been effective pest control for thousands of years. The Ancient Egyptians knew this, and went as far as to consider them gods. As the people's food attracted the cats' food, a relationship was formed.
ReplyDeleteIn 1998, the Moffett Field Commissary had two cats who dealt with the rodent problem. The authorities said the store cannot have cats. Poisons, later traps were used. One time, I saw a bag of cat food with a hole. I picked it up, and a rat jumped out.