Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

Cats
Phoenixine Ninety-Four, June 1997
My cat Milo has been in a fight. Nothing odd about that, you might say -- cats fight all the time. However
in order to have a fight, a cat has to be awake and since Milo spends only 15 minutes awake out of each
24 hour period, his opportunities for fighting are severely limited. (If you are interested, 7 minutes in the
morning for breakfast, a pee and a poo and 8 minutes in the evening; 4 minutes for dinner and 4
minutes for a bit of begging for the human food on the human plates).
In his fight, a huge clump of fur was ripped from his back, leaving a bleeding, leaking wound which
wouldn't heal because he kept scratching and licking it, pulling off the scabs and chewing them with
every evidence of enjoyment. A trip to the vet was indicated. I plonked him into his carrying cage and
took him out to the car. He cried piteously all the way to the vet (and all the way back again) and I felt like
a baby-killer out on parole. I kept expecting to be lynched by outraged citizens...
Jan Needle (a writer of whom I have never heard) has made a very creditable start on a series of stories
set in deepest Patrick O'Brian territory. A Fine Boy for Killing is a novel of the eighteenth century navy.
Unusually for this kind of book, the story is not told from the point of view of an officer, but from the
point of view of an ordinary seaman (and a pressed man at that). And neither do the officers espouse
the softer 20 th century humanitarian virtues with which so many pale Hornblower imitators ruin their
period pieces. Captain Daniel Swift is a firm disciplinarian, a believer in the lash and the brutality of life
before the mast under such a regime is one of the book's major themes. This is not a book for the
weak-stomached. And now I've got yet another series to try and keep up with, damnit.
For many years James White has been entertaining us all with his tales of Sector General Hospital where
aliens of all kinds come for medical treatment. "The Galactic Gourmet" is the latest of these tales and it
concerns one Gurronsevas, the galaxy's greatest chef who comes to Sector General as Chief Dietician.
His mission is to make the hospital food palatable, and it could be his greatest challenge yet. What more
can I say? It's a Sector General story, and I loved it.
The vet injected Milo with cortisone to help remove the inflammation that was causing him to scratch at
the irritation and gave me some vile green goo to smear on the wound. He also prescribed a course of
antibiotics, one and a half pills twice a day. Milo's sister, Ginger, is asthmatic and has to have a pill every
second day. For a while mealtimes became confusing -- which cat got which pill and how often? And
would I survive unscratched?
The green goo proved less than successful. Milo appeared to regard it as dessert and gobbled it up
eagerly during his post-prandial wash. The wound continued to leak over the furniture, leaving vile stains
on the carpet. It was time to go back to the vet...
Return of the Dinosaurs is an anthology of dinosaur tales, mostly whimsical ones. As a bit of froth
for passing an hour or two it isn't bad, but it contains nothing very memorable.
With Washington's Dirigible, John Barnes continues the story he began with Patton's Spaceships.
In this latest instalment, Mark Strang visits an alternate 1776 where George Washington is the Duke of
Kentucky and the American Revolution never happened. He also comes across an alternative Mark
Strang in this reality and (of course) the two are on opposite sides of the conflict. There is a lot of thud
and blunder and our hero wins through with glory and honour -- of course he does; there's at least
another four books to come. As mindless entertainment goes, this isn't bad. But it is VERY mindless.
The vet gave Milo yet another cortisone injection and declared that the wound needed covering so that
Milo couldn't get at it. "I have just the thing!" he pronounced in ringing tones and went into the back of
the surgery from whence he emerged a few minutes later carrying an enormous purple pullover. He cut
off a huge swathe of sleeve and put two small holes in it. Then he pulled the sleeve over Milo's body and
pulled his front legs through the small holes to hold it in place, thus effectively covering the wound, and
most of Milo's body as well. Milo was so stunned by this that he didn't cry once on the way home...