Merry Christmas!

Five minutes into Christmas Day, and I'm going to bed. That is because tomorrow morning I will be up early. I'm going to a flea market with a bunch of friends, as I do most years.

But just now I was checking out My Best Gadgets, and came across what would have been the perfect Xmas present for that hard-to-buy-for man if (a) it wasn't already sold out, and (b) it wasn't too late. Also, you'd have to be rich.

But still, it would almost have almost been worth it to see people's faces when he casually produced this to peel an orange with.

Merry Christmas!

Toys

When I was very small and we had just moved, our new (but old) house had a couple of huge rainwater tanks on a tankstand out the back. The tanks were not needed, and eventually my father took them down. I don't know why he took them down. Maybe they leaked, or maybe he wanted to use them for something. It's possible he thought they were an eyesore, but that sort of thing didn't usually bother him, so I doubt it.

But I was reminded of the rainwater tanks when I saw this comic. Those tanks were huge, and for a while we kids used them to play in. We'd run inside them, rolling across the lawn and banging loudly into trees and fences, or stand on top of them and roll them along feeling like acrobats. Those of us who were big enough could stand inside like a starfish and be rolled along by another kid, and then when the tank stopped rolling we'd stagger out, fall over, and with a bit of luck, not throw up.

I don't remember our parents ever buying us toys from a toyshop, but we still managed to have the best toys of anyone I knew. We had climbable trees, a trampoline, the longest swing I've ever seen (the older kids made it, and it hung from an eight metre rope. You needed someone to pull you by another rope tied to the main one, and you FLEW), and the rainwater tanks. I'm fairly sure that if I'd been asked at the time what toys I wished for I would have answered just like the guy in the comic.

It's possible this cat feels the same way.