4:3

Various distant pops and bangs made us shut Mr Perkins’ cat flap so he couldn’t go out. Not going out bothers him more than various distant pops and bangs.

There was an almighty crash and bang from the shower room. A wail told me it was Mr Perkins.

He had tried to jump out the window, which is very high up. He can do it if the window is open, but it wasn’t, hence the crash and bang as he landed on the bins (one for recyclables; one for non-recyclables) in the corner.

‘What have you done?’ I said to him. Then the penny dropped. ‘Your cat flap is still locked.’ I picked him up. ‘You could use your litter tray.’

It was quite late by this time, and the various pops and bangs had long since stopped, so I took him downstairs, unlocked his cat flap and pushed it open to show him. He looked through it. And he looked, and he looked. He went away.

I opened the human flap.

‘Yes, obviously, I’ll use the human flap.’


I’ve discovered freevee.

I wasn’t paying enough attention to twig that the programme I selected wasn’t Amazon Prime, but some sort of child company that shows programmes for free with adverts in.

I only twigged when the programme I was watching went to adverts not far in. There was only one short advert, and then back to the programme with no further interruptions. I surprised myself by not minding the advert break.

What programme am I watching? Why, Little House on the Prairie, of course! It’s perfect Sunday afternoon telly.

They’ve also got the first ever episode of Neighbours, as well as various significant episodes, and complete later series. It seems they’ve restarted it, too.

In other ancient programme-watching, I saw that iPlayer has a collection of all surviving episodes of Doctor Who 1963–1996 and 2005–2022, along with its spin-offs and various programmes about it.

(The pilot seems to be missing, but it has been archived on the internet. It’s worth watching that first because it gives the premise to the first episode proper.)

I was curious, so I put on the very first episode yesterday. Such acting, such attitudes, such effects.

I remember hearing that the budget was about tuppence halfpenny for the whole series. It was lucky they saved loads by using sets that Blue Peter had made earlier.