Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all our readers! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and wish you, your families and your cats good health and happiness.

My family and I are going to Orlando, Florida for Christmas and New Year. We are celebrating my daughter’s 21st Birthday (six months late) and our Silver Wedding Anniversary (four months early)! I shall be thinking of you all whilst meeting Micky Mouse, sitting by the pool, or driving through the sunshine.

Communication
Please note that during my absence from the office (12 December-5 January) that your Emails, letters, show reports etc may not be acknowledged, until my return.
Please be patient, as priority will be given to getting your next two copies of OUR CATS to the printers on time - earlier than usual because of the Christmas & New Year holidays. Thank you.

Pens a plenty!
Southern Counties have a Best Pen competition for its Members, three prizes are given, in no particular order, for the three pens that the Judges (Liz & Simon Fremont) liked best. One of the winning pens can be seen in our Supreme feature and the other two are here, below.

Mrs Peek’s PR WESTRIKATT KESS’s pen (photo L & S Fremont)
Miss Hall’s GR CH TALIPAW SORRENTOMOON’s pen

Royal Canin Wordsearch
The answer to the Indoor and Intense Hairball Wordsearch was CALORIE. Our Wordsearch compiler, Lizzie Shenton, has some fun puzzles in store for readers in the next issue of OURCATS!

National Feature
Congratulations to the winners at the National at Club Show. A full feature will be published in OUR CATS, 13 January. To book your ‘Show Brag’ please contact anne@ourcats.co.uk or call 0870 731 6506.

Emily comes home
Emily went home in style! Two months ago a cat called Emily strayed from her home in Wisconsin, having managed to get bundled up at a paper factory and sailed to France in a cargo container. Earlier this month, she boarded an aircraft in Paris and enjoyed all the comforts of business class. ‘I don’t think she’ll drink champagne, but I think she will be happy to rest,’ said Philippe Fleury, of Continental Airlines. The airline kindly provided a seat and an escort for the globe-trotting tabby!
TV Licence? But it’s only my dog who watches the telly...

Our Chief Reporter, Nick Mays sent me the following article -
“IT’S AMAZING how many people think that they don’t need to buy a television licence if the only creature in the house that watches the thing is the dog.

But of course they do. The man from Sheffield who offered that excuse when the detector van arrived in his street, adding that he was certainly not going to fork out good money for the dog, got nowhere with the TV licensing agency’s officers.

The dog’s master was among almost 350,000 licence evaders who were caught in the first ten months of this year, according to a report issued by the TV Licensing Agency. Viewing illegally can attract a fine of £1,000 - and after paying that you still have buy the licence.

One evader told the inspectors: “That’s not a TV, it’s a fish tank.” Equally inventive was the evader in Newport, Gwent, who said: “I never use my set. I just switched on EastEnders to see if it affected my radio reception.”

Another evader in Dunfermline, Fife, offered the tortuous explanation: “I don’t need a TV licence because I only watch Australian soaps and, as far as I’m aware, you don’t need a licence in Australia.”

Animals often get the blame. One person in Lancaster claimed: “I used it as nesting material for my snake, so it got lost among the newspapers.”

Other claim that they only leave the TV switched on during the day when they are out to keep their dog or cat happy, as the voices from the TV soothe the pets and calm them.

But there’s nothing like being on the front line for excuses and anecdotes – often involving animals. According to the annual excuses report issued by TV Licensing last week, one inspector replied through the letterbox to shouted questions as to who was at the door. He then realised that he was being interrogated by a parrot — watching an unlicensed TV set.

It was probably a repeat…”

A friendly show!
Andy & Ian (the ‘penning boys’ give MD, Vince Hogan a friendly hug at the Supreme Cat Club show.

This issue is packed with news from the show and has a massive 64 pages! Enjoy!