Maybe it needs new batteries

Montmartre Cemetery Cat.

I think it’s time I changed the name of my Blog. I mean it used to be about Vienna but I have sort of merged with Vienna now and really have nothing to complain about. 


Apart from the Fershlugginer smokers.

I mean shag me twice on Sundays - it’s like running the gauntlet now that there is a decent number of non-smoking restaurants in Vienna - because now the smokers congregate in droves in the doorways outside the non-smoking restaurants and create toxic zones that are like oil wells on fire that you have to avoid when you pass by – or worse – walk through to get into the non-smoking restaurants.

And going past a Cinema or Theatre at intermission is quite an experience – you need someone like Red Adair with you – with dynamite – to blow a hole through the smoke.

And when they come back into the restaurants after the puffathon you can smell them 50 meters away and of course they are always opening and shutting the doors and allowing great billowing wafts of smoke into the restaurants - and its enough to make you vomit.

And I really don’t give a rats arse if they want to kill themselves (although I wish they would do it more quickly) but I do give a rats arse if they want to kill me - and not just kill me but give me a thumping migraine - which they do – every time.

That and dogs shitting on the pavements are the only things that bother me. 

Other than that Vienna is perfect.

So perhaps I should change the name of the Blog. Perhaps to something like Badger’s Droppings? And I need a new template for Spring. Perhaps some Ducks.

And one of the things I like most about writing a Blog is that I can start sentences with ‘and’  - or indeed any word I like.  

I have tried very hard to fire up the Care-O-Meter which stopped working when I fell off the Dog Sled in Lapland and broke my ribs.

I have watched Fox news. I am back reading about politics in America. I watched 'Presidential Candidate' Mike Huckabee talking about President Obama growing up in Kenya. I have even watched a snippet or two of that blabbering honking tosser Glenn Beck spraying around the room while rats eat his brains. 


I thought I could kick start myself by reading some of the jabbering columnists in that rancid Murdoch rag ‘The Australian’. Nothing. Not a quiver.

Maybe it needs new batteries. I’ll take it in for a service. 

You cannot have a Monkey on a Leash

Pet Cemetery Paris

I thought initially that I had arrived in Paris during the International Beggars Convention as there is - and I am not kidding - at least one Beggar every 30 Meters.  

Rather than in Vienna, where the Beggar Franchise has been granted to the Romanians - in Paris it is free range beggaring. They are of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages.

There are old men and women and there are also very young men and women.


Outside Galeries Lafayette there is man with a sign saying that he is 79 years old. 20 Meters away is another man with a sign saying that he is 78 years old. 


There are some people without signs who may well be 100 years old but who could also be dead because they show no signs of life whatsoever and are in the same spot every day.

There are lots of begging people with Cats and Dogs. These got most of my money. There are people playing music machines and some have animals. I did not see any Monkeys. These may not be allowed. You are permitted to starve to death in Paris but you probably cannot have a Monkey on a leash. 

Groups of men roams the streets with battery powered music machines and blow trumpets. After two deafening notes they ask people for money and seem surprised when they don’t get any. They infest the subway and it is impossible to take the Metro without being aurally assaulted.

There are many homeless people living in the streets. There is one man living in the lane just near Melissa’s apartment. He sits on a big pile of his belongings staring into space or playing Angry Birds. 


Families of homeless people roam the streets with their bags. They have nowhere to go until nightfall when they can find a churchyard or an empty doorway. 

I think this this is part of Sarkozy’s new society. It seems to be a bit messier that the old society. There are now many more people to step over. 

We went to the Pet Cemetery and saw where Rin Tin Tin is buried. This seems to be a surprising place for Rin Tin Tin to be buried as he is a famous American dog - but then Jim Morrison is also buried in Paris. I don't think Rin Tin Tin died in a Paris bathtub. 

The cemetery is actually called the Dog Cemetery - which I think is unnecessarily exclusive - but there are more cats that dogs – and indeed more live cats that live dogs. There is a Lion buried there somewhere but we did not look for the grave. There is one Rabbit – Bunga. 

People suffer from great poverty of imagination when naming their pets. Every second dog is named Ulysse. The cats almost all have names such as Chou Chou, Pou Pou or Frou Frou.

If I was a cat and was named Pou Pou - this is what I would do in my minder's slippers each morning. 

Our cats are happy and well balanced because they have proper names such as Monika Rupert Jerilderie and Sissi Leopoldina Katoomba.

Well alright Muffin is an exception - but I was inexperienced at naming when I got her 19 years ago and anyway she is has Alzheimer’s and does not care what her name is – or about much at all really.

There are live cats in the Paris Pet Cemetery

I really did try to Blog from Paris but technology beat me. 

I have demonstrated that I am incapable of Blogging with an iPad. I am sure it is entirely possible - just not for me. 

I can write the Blog but the process of getting it onto the Blog with photos tested the Badger beyond his limited capacity. I can assure you that in terms of technology the Badger is very limited indeed. 

I am good at buying it but bad at using it. 

In fact the first Blog vanished into the ether and is at this moment traveling at the speed of light towards another galaxy.   

The Villathena is not the hotel I thought it was but on the bright side - if the TV remote clagged out I could change the channels with my toes. The bathroom was compact. If I was tired I could rest my head in the wash basin while I was sitting on the toilet. This was not a problem. I am a small Badger and require little space.

I am very thankful that I did not choose this hotel for a visit with Cate. My ears would still be ringing. My ears are still ringing. 

It was definitely the noisiest hotel room in which I had ever stayed. It was very noisy on the first night and they raised the stakes when a troop of workmen arrived at daylight on my first morning - with trucks and roaring and clanking machines -  to start erecting scaffolding around the building opposite the hotel. That is - about 5 meters from my window - which did not have double-glazing. It may not have had single-glazing. It may have been cellophane for all the noise it kept out.

At night tag teams of drunks took turns throwing each and passers by through shop windows and at dawn the garbage trucks arrived and the men had shouting and bin throwing contests. On my last morning it was the semi-finals and I think the team from St. Lazare won.

Meanwhile in India - Cate had a room with a view of the Taj Mahal. She said it was the biggest hotel room she had ever seen. A man filled her bath with water and sprinkled it with rose petals. A man sat outside her door in case she needed anything. Like more rose petals. Why would she need more rose petals – was she supposed to eat them?

More disturbing was the advice from Melissa that I should 'take care' on the way home as I was apparently in a dodgy area. I am not sure what that meant. A number of ladies indeed tried to entice me into bars but I told them that I could not possibly accept any such invitations without Cate's permission - and that this was extremely unlikely to be forthcoming if I woke her at any time at all – and especially at 2:00 AM Indian time.  

Not that the invitations were particularly enticing. Most of these ladies were neither young nor attractive. Not that I am either. But if someone wants me to pay €250 for a bottle of no doubt very nasty and watered down Champagne I would expect that there would be some fringe benefits.  

And if they send as their representatives outside these establishments – which look like they have not been renovated since D-Day – women who - shall we say - barely pass muster in street light – one must wonder what one will find in these dimly lit dens of grimness that pass for places of adult entertainment in Place Pigalle in Paris.

I mean if they used me – for example - to entice women in to see the Chippendales you would not expect much of a result would you. You see what I am getting at. I mean Ferrari does not use Paris Hilton at the Berlin Motor Show. 

One particular woman- with a head like a Grave Robber’s Dog - suggested that Melissa and I should both visit a particularly odious and festering looking bar. This prompted Melissa to ponder what her role would be in any transaction which took place inside. It is a place that I would not have contemplated entering without wearing a 7mm wetsuit and rubber gloves. 

It would defy anyone at all to make this area more hideous than it is. It simply could not be possible. 

Oh – alright maybe the NSW State Government could add something – it doesn’t have a concrete car park to provide kickbacks to politicians – but it has just about everything else. 

It even has a Japanese restaurant where a Chef went berserk and  murdered three people with a Sushi knife. That takes some doing. 

All of which sent me scuttling at a fairly rapid pace back to my small and cozy hotel room – avoiding the clutches of the many ample-bosomed women in the bars on the way down the hill. 

It was not all tough going though – we saw some excellent (live and happy) cats in the Pet Cemetery. I shall report.