Digestion

The moon turned to blood, and then we sat down to dine. No savoury, sinewy hare stewed in port and cinnamon. No starchy goodness, no citrus-and-currant mess soaked in the perinephritic fat of swine who fortuitously looked the other way at the very last moment.

No. It was pie for us. Pie pie. The rancid steaming flesh of dung-eating prairie magpie in a pastry crust of the most exquisite delicacy and flakiness. The contrast very nearly made me faint.

Then the dancing. The antic postures by La Ghoone. The striking athletic poses by Master B. Followed by Delicate's sombre morality play on the desperate lunacy of the Contemporary Arts Scene.

We went to bed well after the light broke, late on the first day of the Sun's return.

I've only just got up. HA!

Delicate's Brechtian Masterpiece: Rehearsals begin ...

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Two more days until Halibut's Solsticial Feast.

Sealed with seven seals

This morning I found a scroll of rolled-up parchment pushed through the grate of my cave. It was addressed to "Flétan en papillote" in pencil, in handwriting that looked suspiciously like Delicate's.

I must say that my black heart leapt skywards when I saw this. Éditions Flétan has not been giving me the comfortable extra income I expected. Although I had hoped for more work from the inestimable M. Jean au Visage-Poilu, that librettist of extraordinary sensitivity and exquisite dolorousness, I admit I would settle at the moment for some comic verse penned by an overweight, semi-alchoholic Moggie.

But the parchment had nothing on it. Not even a limerick about dust bunnies. (Do you still have that somewhere, D?) It is a mystery, or another bad joke.

Countdown to the Solstice: Casserole's On

My hare -- or a replacement -- is alive and dancing in the Park. I saw him dart from a denser, safer spruce than Badger can boast of, bounding along the surface of the snow, ending his dance on two springy hindquarters. Lovechild of lady meerkat and a boomer.

He was looking right at me, damn his eyes! It is hard to be a secret black puma in the snow. (The sun was going down. At 3:15 pm or so. But the long shadows are blue, not black.)

And damn those springy stringy quivering thighs! I'll have to marinate them for days.

No clerk to this St Nick

Today is the Feast of Saint Nicholas around the world. On the wintry prairies, however, we have an impostor materializing through doors and windows.

The real St Nick rescued little boys chopped up and pickled in brine. He saved them from the lunch table of a wicked innkeeper and restored them to unchopped boyhood, with presents. He saved little girls from dubious careers as insurance brokers by throwing coins through their father's window. He is even kind to thieves.

Above all, he gives the righteous good stuff. Usually in their shoes.

Since business has been bad, I thought I would put out the biggest clodhopper I could find. This morning, did I discover almonds, apples, spicy cake? Was there a shiny gold coin, left just for Halibut?

Had I a coal-burning stove in my cave, I might be willing to think generously about this.

Adventures in cooking

The days grow ever darker, but the arctic hares are at their brightest. From now on, they will lose steadily the acquired succulence of late fall. One has been seen near Ye Olde Badger's Cave, under the spruce. (Although adjacent pawprints of a large dog, coyote, or possibly PUMA suggest that this one may already be taken.)

I have therefore been rifling my file of recipes, with thoughts of a new sensation for my annual Solsticial Feast. Polarhasenpfeffer? Saddle of Blanched Hare Vigneronne? Jugged Puss?

Hmm. Therein lies the rub. Everytime I catch a glimpse of the witless stare of Lepus arcticus, I think of G & B and how awful they would taste.

I am fine with that but have no brain.

I have no brain but am fine with that.

Table Manners

My international spy network informs me that big black cats have been seen in the unpronounceable hills of Pembrokeshire. Sheep have been eaten. "Was it you, Halibut?" a self-righteous broccoli-eater asked me on my Facebook page. (See his self-promoting video here: Catbrat eats cruciferous veg. Unfortunately, I cannot unfriend him, since he has a rare letter from Hodge to Johnson and has half-promised that I might publish it.)

No it was not me. After my glorious summer travels along seabird-gravied seacoasts, I have been fasting in the fastnesses of the prairies. Nor do I believe in a race of super-Halibuts in Wales.

Still, I rotate my ears in the direction of "Mark Fraser, founder of the research group British Big Cats Society." Someone told Mr Fraser about a dead sheep or two. Mr Fraser, upon hearing about the dead sheep, said: "Without examining the carcass itself, it's impossible to be 100 per cent certain that a big cat is responsible for these killings."

"However," continued Fraser, "The way the predator has peeled back the skin of the sheep to eat the flesh is very much a cat trait - only cats do that."

Oh yes, Mr Fraser. We felines all carry around potato-peelers on our belts. At the slightest provocation, we whip them out to peel our prey -- like a spud! like a banana! -- before feasting on the gelid goodness beneath.

Sheep Farmers of Wales! Beware of Halibuts! Be on the watch for their characteristic spoor!

Drop into my eaves, why don't you?

You may think, because of the handsome pelage that grows right into my ears, that I do not hear you wittering outside my cave. Hush, you say, the Dear Halibut is asleep. The weather has turned, the snow already lingers under Gooney's favourite bush, the Arctic Hare has put on his snowsuit. We won't be hearing from H for a long time, you say, perhaps with a snicker and some relief.

I am not a bear or a dormouse. (Would that you were the latter, and under my teeth.) My hearing is excellent. I have heard the long lines of squeaking pelicans, high up, heading southeast. I have heard the geese in their Vs, much louder and more vulgar, further down. I have even heard about the oily ducks, 'euthanized' by the wasteful and toxic humans. (How many precious dark-fleshed thighs have disappeared into your incinerators, cretins? What will you eat when you've starved and chased and poisoned all the other animals?)

So, watch out when you pass my grate. My claws are sharp.

Mr H's Sporting Tour of the British Isles

Following the Oystercatcher from the northeast to the southwest takes stamina and tact.  In fact, in places I have been taken for a mysterious puma, sic:

My gratitude to http://www.bigcatmonitors.co.uk/, but I do think they've photoshopped the teeth to look rather too 'American'.

The Oystercatchers have their headquarters down here, along with delicate egrets, delightfully rancid cormorants, and gamey gulls -- all the makings of a Halibut 'Celebration' Pie.  Must get shopping.

Oystercatchers

I have always wanted to listen to the Oystercatchers.  Do they catch oysters?  Does it matter?  They are the banshees of the bird world.  Their windscreen-shattering skreeks will drill a hole through any amount of earwax.  Not only that, but they are a delicious white-and-black.  If I sink my teeth into them, the colour scheme will be perfect.

Though I have been stalking up and down, seeking whom I may devour on the verdant banks of a northern river, the score remains Halibut - NIL.  Tomorrow I disguise myself as a mollusc.

Delicious Ravens

These are birds after my own heart.  Unfortunately for them, if they choose to peck at my heart, I will vacuum their bird brains out of their eye sockets.  They don't usually nest in my Stupid City, so I feel privileged and hungry to have them so near.

The beginnings of my new wealth

Éditions Flétan is pleased to present to you an entirely new work by the esteemed librettist M. Jean au Visage-Poilu.  M. V-P:  Milles remerciements chaleureux pour votre foi téméraire!

L'amour d'un orange: opéra aux trois chats

En anglais.

Scène: un jardin. Ghoon et Bhik mangent de l’herbe. Orange entre; Ghoon regarde très intentement son cul. Il revient chez lui avec dignité, en chantant (baritone):

I see his eyes! I smell his pain!
All that he wants is a princesse lointaine (tra la)! 

Ghoon commence à chanter, à la voix épuisé et indistincet d’un eunuche:

My hero lies in the next garden
My hero lies over the fence
The centre of love and ambition
The centre of reason and sense

My hero lies in the next garden
My hero lies over the wall
The centre of meaning and being
Without whom I’m nothing – at – all!

Bhik le regarde avec sympathie fraternelle, et commence à chanter (countenor)

O Ghooney your hero
Is not such a queer-o
Is not such a queer-o
As you

All night he is sleeping
While you, dear, are weeping
With eyes so wide open
And blue

So come now my littermate
Don’t be such a catamite
Forget all that amour
Courtois

Let’s sleep with each other
Like brother and brother
Vive Ghooney, vive Ghooney
et moi!

Ils s’embrassent. FIN.

My new career

I have at last hit upon a plan to rise above my customary style of living (dusty cave, stale cartilaginous takeouts).  Everyone praised Halibut the Ascetic, seeking his cave to drink from the limpid -- though somewhat tannic -- well of wisdom.  But they never left anything in the tip jar.

No more.  Luxurious living will soon begin.  Everyone will invite me for lunch.  I am about to become the Maecenas of this uncouth age.

I herewith announce the creation of an online publishing house.  Éditions Flétan will specialize in the publication of fresh and exquisite Oeuvres.  The Artistes will be undyingly grateful and will happily bring me succulent bits as tribute.  Manuscripts may be sent to:

M. Flétan c/o Halibut
Cave

I thought my cave was ex-directory

From: Dr. Mr Pot Joe Hello, Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics although, I wish to use this medium to get in touch with you first because it's fastest means.

I really do not know why Dr Mr Pot Joe Hello is writing to me. Nor do I understand his mysterious reference to 'my personal ethics'.  Has he somehow heard of my high-minded approach to small fowl and tender rodents?  My loving relations with the young of all beasties?  (Why, even now I listen for the first peeps from the ugly magpie chicklets, so that I may go out and greet them with my claws and teeth.  Welcome to the world my tenders!)  Well, for whatever reason Dr Mr P. J. H. is on my case, I must say that I am cold both to his prose and his offer of friendship.  I shall not reply.

Vernal stirrings -- who needs them?

Where have I been all winter?  Not here, I can tell you.  This brutish, brainless city does, from time to time, jolly itself into a tepid glow.  Now, as the glaciers shrink, the breakfast-cereal-bar-eaters stretch their wintery legs from ballooning, over loud shorts.  Halibut glares from his cave.  Not for him the balmy airs and vermin-scented breezes of the spring.  Not for him the slave life of Goon and Bhik, tied down with gaudy strings.  I'd rather sniff the stale air than open a window to all that.