Easter approaches, the major festival in the Greek calendar and TV channels are broadcasting many a religious service as is their wont at this time of the year. Christmas we get all the Biblical epics that Hollywood has produced over the last fifty odd years. Easter candles are for sale but these are not just ordinary candles. They are highly decorated and have presents attached: like Barbie Doll for girls and Action Man for boys; that sort of thing, and VERY expensive. There are more than likely ones with presents for grown ups too but I haven’t been to the shops lately so I wouldn’t know about that. There are also gigantic chocolate eggs in the most elaborate cellophane type packaging filled with little toys, also VERY expensive. Television advertising for days now has consisted a great deal of presents for spoilt kids, presents costing from a negligible 29euro say (negligible?) to 99,99euro. I thought transformers had gone out of fashion but no they are still with us; with the kids anyway. There are also racing car games, jet fighters, dungeons and dragons, battles of various descriptions to be fought, monsters, Spidermen, Supermen and Batmen to play with. Somewhere along the line I suppose there is a religious core but really it is commercially as bad as Christmas. Maybe in my dotage I’m just an Ebenezer Scrooge but I do ask myself, is your child’s present really necessary and how long will it be before it loses interest in it and how much of the world's resources are wasted on rubbish like this?
Over the centuries cats have come in for some terrible treatment from mankind and here is the latest, not as bad but bad enough. A friend has sent us photographs of painted cats. Only in America could this phenomenon arise and, evidently some of the painting costs about three thousand dollars and has to be reworked three times a year as, of course, the cat’s fur grows out. Well, I suppose if you’ve got 9000 dollars a year to waste on painting your cat, no matter how artistic or in some cases humorous the outcome, like the Charlie Chaplin cat with its arsehole as Charlie’s moustache, your life must be pretty flat dull and unprofitable (cut that last word, it’s only a quote of sorts) and have you ever wondered what the paint does to the animal’s fur? The animal’s skin? Do you believe the animal is proud of its new identity that you so fondly show off to other idiots like you? You’re all fucking crazy.
PS: I've just had another look at the painted cats. The figure quoted is not 3000 dollars but 15000 and the cat's arsehole is not Charlie's moustache but his tie.