Anyway, so I was getting the train back from Manchester to Scarborough. The usual thoughts going through my head - should I get chips on the way home or would a bowl of Super Noodles do me for tea. When this cat climbed up on my table.
'Is it all right if I sit here, boss?' he asked.
'Oh yeah, just make yourself at home, why don't you?' I replied and I moved the packet of Barbecue Hula Hoops I'd had open on the table. Didn't want cat hairs in there.
'What's with all the talking?' I asked.
'Don't get uncool,' replied the cat. 'This isn't the quiet carriage.'
'No, I mean being a cat and talking.'
He stared at me crazy, crazy style.
'I am not of this Earth, human! What think you of that!'
And then he gave a bizarre ear-piercing miaow that coupled with his odd grasp of grammar convinced me of his non-terrestrial origins. That was enough to trigger an age old memory.
'I've just remembered a competition I entered when I was at junior school,' I told him. He didn't seem to be interested in this and went about his own indifferent feline affairs. But I persisted.
'The Disney film The Cat from Outer Space was coming out and we had to draw what we thought such a creature would look like. I'm not much of an artist, but I put considerable thought into my rendering of a green cat in a spacesuit with annotations showing various scientific features of interest. I can still remember the teacher's bemused expression - it wasn't as accomplished as the work of others but it was fabulous frankly and I still recall the disappointment from the teacher's lack of appreciation, nay, her mild mockery even.'
That's when the cat on the table turned to me and said:
'Man, I love that film!'
(I don't know if he was saying 'Man' in a kind of 'dude' type of way or whether he was just calling me a man like he'd called me a human earlier.)
Anyroad up, that seem to improve his mood. So I thought I'd chance my arm and move the conversation on.
'What do you think of The Gnome-Mobile?' I asked him.
'Don't make me hurt you,' he hissed.
More soonliest.
