Podcast 60 from Wiggly Wigglers, and the hilarious cat argument

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.

Further to a perfectly innocent email I sent to Wiggly Wigglers enquiring about the hopefully cat repellent properties of Bokashi treated food waste I managed to cause dissent on the Wiggly sofa. The utterly hilarious Podcast 60 is available from http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/podcasts/Wiggly%20Podcast%200060.mp3
and should come with a warning: If you intend to listen to this and drink at the same time then don’t, especially if sat at a computer because you run the risk of spraying your drink all over your monitor, which is not only unsightly but can cause a lot of fizzing, electrical problems and possibly death as a result.

Richard and Heather were brilliant; Heather the ‘my lovely cat can do no wrong’ cat lover and Richard the ‘shoot the bloody lot of them’ anti argue back and forth for a good few minutes and it is a laugh a minute. Heather made the following good points:
- You should NOT stop feeding the birds just because there are cats about, but you should try very hard to make your feeding area inaccessible to them. Of course this is a lot easier in a larger garden like the Wiggly farm garden (which also only has the one cat, compared to the 3 that regularly use my garden as a toilet)
- Cats do bring lots of comfort to their owners (as well as lots of little, sometimes still twitching, presents). It’s just a shame that the comfort they bring their owners is mirrored by the stress they cause the neighbours who choose not to have one, whatever that reason may be, and end up with their plants strewn all over the place so the little blighter can defecate (or fertilise, depending on your view) in your borders.

Richard on the other hand obviously loves to hate cats and I think it would be even funnier if you could get him on the subject after a few beers.
- He, quite rightly, points out that there are a lot of people who don’t want somebody else’s cat in their garden for whatever reason but mainly because they would like to feed, watch and encourage birds and other wildlife into their little patch of Eden without the fear that said wildlife will be mindlessly tortured, sometimes eaten (and likely puked back up on your door step) but generally just frightened out of its wits.
- Dogs have to be confined to their own garden so why not cats? I should add that it is very hard to fence for a cat compared to a dog but if you can’t be bothered to keep your cat in your garden you shouldn’t own one. If I was to keep deer in my back garden they would be hard to fence for as well, but it would still be my responsibility!

Anyway, I’m starting to waffle but I will quickly mention that responsible cat owners should read the following to help the birds (though it won’t stop them prowling unwanted in my garden): http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/unwantedvisitors/cats/collarthatcat.asp

I should also add that Heather very kindly asked me to be a guest blogger on the Wiggly Wigglers site and if you haven’t lost the will to live yet you can read my efforts at: http://wigglywigglers.blogspot.com/2006/12/simon-sherlocks-top-five-wiggly.html and view a few pictures of my garden at: http://wigglywigglers.blogspot.com/2006/12/simons-garden.html