Sunday, August 18, 2019

My Friend Mr Leakey

(Yesterday) I just finished reading My Friend Mr Leakey or at least the first three stories in the book which are about Mr. Leakey. I'll save the other stories for another time. I can't read a bunch of short stories in a row because I get confused, it feels like that segment in Spicks and Specks where they make you sing instructions from a gardening book to the tune of 'Friday on my Mind'.

The reason I wanted to reread was that when I gained these cats and decided I wanted to keep one of them, from somewhere in the depths of my mind I thought he should probably be called Pompey, after Mr. Leakey's slightly naughty dragon. Actually, Pompey the cat is not particularly naughty (his brother Chanticleer is very naughty) but quite reclusive and shy, though since he got out of the house a week ago and had a lost weekend (in rain and cold) from Friday-Monday he has also become quite affectionate, or whatever I interpret as affectionate. Wants to be patted. Which I suppose is less affectionate and more affection-receptive. Anyway, Pompey the dragon lives in the fireplace and has to always been intensely hot, I think the most text devoted to him is when he goes awol in a volcano. He is sort of like a naughty, dangerous dog.

As a child I somehow knew that J. B. S. Haldane was not an ordinary children's book author, but I didn't know anything about him really, and the wikipedia entry above actually makes me interested enough to want to possibly think about reading a biography. I enjoy this kind of figure. But before I do that I have to fix the stupid structure of the actual wikipedia entry which is foolishly ad hoc.

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