Has Paul 'Pen' Farthing left Afghanistan?

Yes, he has left. Finally, after much animosity between Farthing and the MOD, he took off with his 94 dogs and 79 cats at 4:30 pm, Saturday 28th 2021 from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. It's been reported that he travelled to the capital of Uzbekistan initially with the ultimate destination being England.

The report is from The Telegraph online newspaper. Earlier reports in various news media outlets support this as they reported on a gradual, tortuous and dangerous progress towards the moment when they were evacuated. However, the news that Farthing has got out is not 100% guaranteed as news from Kabul is a bit shaky at times.

Has Paul 'Pen' Farthing left Afghanistan? Yes.

Mr Farthing was highly critical of the MoD, particularly the special adviser to Ben Wallace the Defence Secretary who he claims unreasonably delayed evacuation. Farthing claims that if the MoD had been more efficient and reasonable, he would have got his staff out as well. As it happens, they have stayed behind.

Also, there were other animals, not cats or dogs, who have remained at the Nowzad animal sanctuary in Kabul. His staff had visas to leave. It must be particularly galling for him and for his dedicated staff members to be left behind through, as he sees it, MoD inefficiencies.

The MoD argue that they didn't want anybody queue jumping. I suspect that the MoD thought the 'optics' to use a modern term were not good because it would have meant seeing dogs and cats being prioritised over people. But that was not the case because Mr Farthing had made his own arrangements using private donations to charter an aircraft.

Therefore, he was not queue jumping. He was adding to the number of aircraft available. In fact, he suggested that because there were seats available on his aircraft, he could take some people as well. I'm afraid it looks like the MoD were bogged down in their own bureaucracy and it indicates poor decision-making but that is a personal comment.

It has to be said that it has been a very trying saga to get his animals out of Afghanistan. There were numerous obstacles, difficulties and dangers. It must have been enormously stressful for all concerned. And I include in that the animals who at one stage were in a vehicle, cheek by jowl, in cages, in sweltering heat for 10 hours. And he said that at one stage he had an AK-47 stuffed in his face. He may have been lucky to survive the experience.

I think at that point Mr Farthing was concerned whether the animals would actually survive the journey to the airport which must have been quite a short one in terms of distance but a mountain in terms of time.

At one stage he got into the perimeter of the airport but not into the airport itself as he was turned back. He blames that moment on President Biden who just before had changed the rules about who was allowed out.

If you want to read some background information on this then please tick on this link.

Cats with concrete pillows

Clearly, this is a couple of street cats but curiously they are using concrete parking stops as pillows.

Cats with concrete pillows. Photo in public domain.

The lumps of concrete are designed to stop a driver driving into the low wall at the edge of the parking lot. The tyres contact these blocks to remind the driver that they are at the limit of the parking area. They remind me of my cat actually. My cat likes to rest his head in this position on my leg. It's an alternative to the curled-up position. However, it does not look that comfortable. I have a feeling that they are siblings. 

Probably like you, when I see this photograph, I want to help them. They should not be living like this. It is an interesting photograph but also a sad one.

My friend's grandad feeds the local strays, this is what he woke up to today

'My friend's grandad feeds the local strays, this is what he woke up to today', said Reddit user: u/Gaib_Itch. I sometimes think that these guys see a photograph on the Internet that they like and figure out a caption to it which will catch the eye on Reddit.com. It's a way of generating a post on this well used website. 

I don't think the photograph was taken by this Reddit user. I think it was taken by somebody else under entirely different circumstances. That said, who cares because it's a nice photograph and it shows a whole bunch of young cats snuggled up in a flower pot. I think that you would call this a 'clowder of cats'. I am going to suggest that the photograph was actually set up by the photographer. I might be accused of being cynical but I would say that I'm being realistic. It looks too neatly arranged to me to believe that it happened spontaneously. 

My friend's grandad feeds the local strays, this is what he woke up to today. Photo: Reddit.com

Hospice patient gets Sylvester the Cat tattoo as a final wish

NEWS AND COMMENT - KANSAS CITY, USA: I don't have much information about this but it caught my eye. A hospice patient, Clara Burnett, 83, had a lifelong wish fulfilled last week when she received a Sylvester the Cat cartoon to her forearm. 

Hospice patient gets Sylvester the Cat tattoo as a final wish. Photo: Opera News.

Clara is a resident of Harbor Hospice in Johnson County. That's all I know! The reason is because the website is barred to me because I live in Europe and the website owner does not want to comply with European website regulations on privacy.

Quite a lot of people have Sylvester the Cat tattoos! Incidentally, I have a page on cartoon cats (click here to see it).

Here is a little bit of information about Sylvester. He is a Warner Bros cartoon star. His biography would include the fact that he has a lisp and is a bird-craving, black-furred, white-bellied cat who began his screen career in Life with Feathers in 1945. He had a saying which is very well known for this cartoon cat: "Sufferin' succotash". 

He starred in 104 cartoons and was animated by Friz Freleng who said that the cat was designed "subtly to like a clown with a big red nose and a very low crotch to look like he was wearing baggy pants". Mel Blanc provided the voice. Click here to read more about Sylvester.

Back to Clara. When you are dying, it is a moment when you really must do the things that you thought about doing for the previous decades of your life. We tend to look to the future and tell ourselves that we will do 'that' in the future, whatever it is. And then suddenly the future arrives and 'that thing' has not been done.

I think this scenario applies to this lady so she decided to go for it. She had to travel across the state line to Midtown Tattoo for the procedure. It took commitment and no doubt it has made her happy.

What parts of lilies are toxic to cats?

All of the lily is the answer to the question. I have spent a reasonable amount of time researching an answer to the question in the title, in terms of the specific chemical, without success I have to confess. I have searched the Internet using Google Scholar looking for studies on this topic. The studies that I found are quite old (e.g. 2009) and they tell me that they don't know the specific chemical that causes such toxicity to cats. But they do tell me that all parts of lilies i.e. the whole plant-petals, stamen, leaves, and pollen are toxic.

What part of lilies are toxic to cats? All of it. Image: MikeB

Not all lilies are toxic, funnily enough. You can click on this link if you wish to find out which lilies are not toxic. However, as a cat owner you should not have any lilies in the home at any time in my honest opinion. This is because they are lethally toxic. They are just too dangerous and only a small amount of pollen from a stamen can harm or perhaps kill a cat.

There are many hybrids of the lily which is another confusing point. And as little as two leaves or part of a single flower can kill a cat. The onset of poisoning is rapid which suggests a rapid absorption of the toxin concerned. It is disappointing to realise that the scientists don't know what this toxin is. If you know better than me then please leave a comment and tell me exactly what this chemical is.

Click for the top 10 cat poisons in the USA and lilies are in the number 1 spot.

The experts say that the renal tubular epithelium appears to be the target of the toxin. A water-soluble fraction of the lily is nephrotoxic. The symptoms of lily intoxication include depression, anorexia, vomiting and salivation. Polyuria renal failure leads to dehydration and anuric renal failure and death results.

Specifically, it is called nephrotoxicity which means toxicity to the kidneys in my understanding of the word.