081 R: Truth about Garfield 28 October 20044 September 2024 Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
080 R: Something Not Right 26 October 20044 September 2024 Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
079 R: Two Headed Cat 26 October 20044 September 2024 Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
Two cats walk out of a bar in disgust. Also Banjos 16 October 200423 October 2024 Neal’s Belch no. 167 for 16th Oct 2004 I’ve recently been looking into the possiblity of learning how to play a musical instrument of some kind. Obviously this is a drastic step but I’ve been bored recently and the winters drawing in, and I have to fill my time up with something. I don’t like, any more than you do, the idea of creating more noise pollution that will further contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer and the change in the climates. If it helps, I’ll try to make sure that whichever instrument I choose is made of an environmentally friendly material such as plastic, so that when it ends up in a landfill it won’t rot and cause a smell. Anyway I thought maybe the banjo. Newer readers won’t be aware that some time ago I published an online course that caused a cultural revolution. For those who didn’t partake, here it is again. NewsBurp University Course NBU-04: How to play the banjo Although I, your lecturer for course NBU-04, have never played the banjo and have never handled one or read any books on how to play the banjo, I firmly believe that a good teacher can teach anything, regardless of knowledge and experience. Playing the banjo can be a rewarding and fruitful hobby, in the right hands. In the wrong hands, it can have consequences that lead to the forced evacuation of your town or city, and can result in harsh economic sanctions being placed on your country by the international community. First some background. In 1976, Christopher Columbus, the grandson of the explorer of the same name, was travelling by car to a second hand record market in Holland, where he hoped to pick up a bootleg copy of the yet-to-be-released unnamed fourth Led Zeppelin album. The one that some ignorant listeners mistakenly refer to as Led Zeppelin 4. Anyway, on his way he took a brief diversion and inadvertently discovered America. Now, America had of course been discovered several hundred years before that, but everyone in Europe had sort of forgotten it existed. So it came as a complete surprise to find that there was another country at the other side of the big blue water-filled hole where they kept their inflatable matresses. Suddenly everything made sense. They now knew where all those mysterious unidentified flying aeroplanes (UFAs) were coming from, and why the aliens who travelled in them always spend a couple of weeks harmlessly exploring museums and local McDonald’s branches, before disappearing without even bothering to kidnap anyone. Anyway, this guy, Columbus Jnr (Jnr. was an abbreviation of Jennifer, a name of which he was not proud, because there was a much loathed serial killer at the time, by the name of Jennifer) , came back from America with a new musical instrument, and a couple of board games. At first people were skeptical. “That’s pretty much just a violin that’s not made out of cat whiskers, isn’t it?”, they would say. They always said it in those exact words, because the well organised anti-banjo movement used to walk a hundred feet ahead of Columbus wherever he went, handing out cue cards to the locals. (The anti banjo movement is now a political party, but in the interests of impartiality, the NewsBurp University will not tell you which one.) Anyway, somehow the proponents of banjoism managed to overcome these hurdles, and nowadays it is rare to walk down a street and see a person who isn’t carrying a banjo. Well, that’s the history bit – let’s get down to learning how to play your banjo. First, make sure you have oiled your musical instrument.And always adjust the “saddle” before attempting to play it. Now, assuming you’re right-handed, hold the handlebars in your left hand, put your right foot on the left paddle, and gentle push youself down the hill. When you have a momentum going, throw your right leg over the saddle and start peddling, remembering to watch out for traffic coming from behind. Now you’re well on your w:ay. Well done. You’ve all passed. After writing that lecture, it occurred to me that I should practise what I preach, so I went to my local musical intruments shop to purchase a banjo. There weren’t very many to choose from, so eventually I settled for a grand piano. Obviously I will have to modify the piano by removing several dozen strings from it until there are only six left. Otherwise it will become very confusing when I start to teach myself chords. Not that I wouldn’t be up to the challenge of playing a sixty-four string banjo. It’s just that I need to make it portable, because otherwise I won’t be able to get it through the door of my apartment and I’ll have to leave it in the communal hallway where people will see it and mock me behind my back, and I won’t even know that they’re mocking me. Which will be very frustrating because I hate it when I don’t know what people are up to. Just yesterday my cat was up to something in the back garden, and I knew nothing about it until early this morning when I noticed that the rotary clothes line now spins anti-clockwise in the wind, instead of clockwise. My cat has always been opposed to forward-moving clocks. I think he’s a bit touchy because he’s on his seventh life, and is finally becoming very conscious of the passing of time. He really should chill out though. Maybe learn to play the banjo or something. Come to think of it, I bought him a banjo a few years ago. But if I remember rightly, he proudly asserted that his whiskers were much more musical than the banjo strings. He’s always been tremendously proud of his whiskers. Which is stupid, because it’s not as if he designed them. He is just the lucky cat to whom they have been given, and he has nothing to be proud about. Whoever created them, on the other hand, should stand up and take a bow. They really are quiet remarkable. I’ve hired a cat tuner who visits every few months, and also cleans the chimneys. I might get him to start tuning my piano banjo while he’s here. Anyway, two cats walk into a bar. One of them immediately walks out in disgust when he notices that the pub band does not contain a banjo player. The other cat, being more open to new cultural experiences, sits and watches the band while drinking an imported semi-skimmed, semi-pasterised, mixture of goat’s milk and cow’s orange juice. After a while he remembers a book that he read about the cruel methods used by the manufacturers who extract orange juice from cows. Apparantly they distract the cow by waving a red rag at it and making it feel so proud about the fact that it’s been mistaken for a Spanish fighting bull. While the cow is engrossed in it’s new-found, unfounded and short lived feeling of self esteem, they steal it’s orange juice and replace it with cheap beer. The cat, on remembering this, stands up in disgust and walks out of the bar. Where he goes after that is not relevent. I could tell you what he does next, but where would it end? I can’t just sit here describing every minute of the rest of his life That would take years, and I’d get hungry and tired from all the typing and stuff. Get off my back. Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
078 R: Flashback to a Flashback (Holiday Time) 16 October 20044 September 2024 Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
076 R: Off the Rails (Philip the Train Driver) 13 October 200419 June 2025 From 2004, these are the very dodgy early episodes of Matchstick Cats. Like the podcast, it took hundreds of episodes to reach tolerable quality. To start at episode 001 go here. I am gradually reduxing vintage episodes for accessibility reasons – more about those here. Full episode list here, reduxed episodes list here. Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
075 R: Justin’s School of Etiquette 13 October 200419 June 2025 From 2004, these are the very dodgy early episodes of Matchstick Cats. Like the podcast, it took hundreds of episodes to reach tolerable quality. To start at episode 001 go here. I am gradually reduxing vintage episodes for accessibility reasons – more about those here. Full episode list here, reduxed episodes list here. Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
Two Cats who got Replaced by a Clown 11 October 200423 October 2024 Neal’s Belch no. 166 for 11th Oct, 2004 I’ve always been a great believer in the dictum “quad ete demonstrandum”, which of course means “buyer beware”. People should always be very careful when buying things. Once, for example, a friend of mine bought a crocodile skin handbag for his wife. It was not untill three weeks later that it emerged that the crocodile was not dead, just in a deep coma. Luckily it didn’t wake up, and his wife simply detached the crocodile from it’s life support machine, which was sewn into the inner lining. Of course, this raises various ethical questions. But I’m not going to answer those here. I am, after all, not a theologian. I just happen to give off an air of great wisdom and higher knowledge, so people tend to ask me these sorts of questions.I suppose, in a way, I’m a bit like the doctor who, whenever he goes to the pub, gets asked to look at people’s discoloured tongues and faulty limbs. When I go to the pub I’m invariably asked which end of the bar the two cats will be sitting at when they arrive. Everybody always wants to sit beside the two cats, because they know from reading this website that when two cats walk into a bar, things are going to happen. Personally I think it’s sad that people have to live vicarously off the exitement of other patrons in a bar. In my day, we used to create our own entertainment. I remember as a child, being told to stand on top of the televison, my arms outstretched, so that it looked like I was standing on top of the girl on the tightrope on The Paul Daniels Show.This often backfired, and I was made to look really stupid when the camera shot changed to show a bucket of elephant droppings. My family would shout things like “you’re standing in a bucket of elephant crap, you numbskull”. I of course retained my dignity and explained that I was merely dropping my standards in order to entertain my low brow siblings and parents with the only sort of childish humour that they were capable of understanding. After that one of them invariably proved me wrong by switching over to Newsnight, and apparantly understanding every word of it. Which doesn’t really make sense to me because “newsnight” is, itself, not a real word. It was made up by a broadcasting organisation that was too trendy to use real words, so they had to make one up. Of course that all misfired on them when it turned out that by sheer chance, the new word with which they came up happened to look exactly like a combination of the words “news” and “night”.I do hope you’re following this.Anyway, two cats walk into a bar. One of them drinks some Guinness and nothing much happens to him. The other cat also drinks some Guinness, and nothing of any great interest occurs in his evening, either. So of course the barman panics, realising that his customers are going to become infuriated when they realise that they are to be deprived of the usual entertainment derived from the two cats’ antics. He decides to rent a clown for the night. So the clown turns up, and tells a few jokes but unfortunately he doesn’t do anything cat related. So the audience applaud politely but clearly they are not satisfied at all. And the barman also realises that perhaps if he got out of the habit of referring to them as an “audience”, and just called them patrons instead, they might lower their expectations of their night out, and he would be under less pressure. But it’s too late, he realised, to worry about that now. Anyway, the barman fails to come up with anything else to entertain the aud- I mean patrons, and many of them go home perhaps twenty or thirty minutes earlier than they otherwise have, due to there being nothing to keep them there. The upshot of all this was that takings for the evening were around eight percent lower than normal, although the accounts have not yet been signed off on for this year, and that figure is not official. Share this post: Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket