Oscar

The Figaros of this household have a good reason to remember the Acadamy Awards. My humans named one of my cousins "Oscar" - and that's him in the picture. One year, we were in Walt Disney World at this time of year and we saw him in the Disney Studios on the day of the Awards Ceremony.

All the hype this side of the pond has been for a successful night for the British. That's fine and I have no objection to my humans feeling pleased in their own quiet, British, very non-Academy Awards way. But we toys were also pleased to see a couple of Awards each for Alice in Wonderland and, of course, for Toy Story 3.

Prrr

Salsa Night

We have been on a little trip. It wasn't very far - about an hour in the car (or would have been without roadworks, diversions and Saturday afternoon traffic) but it was a bit of an adventure for my humans. They were going for an afternoon and evening with friends from "Mensa" (the high IQ society). I was going to keep them company in the car and to try out a different bed to lie on. In the evening they were going to learn some salsa dance moves and in the afternoon they were making carnival masks to help their evening outfits. I didn't want to take much part in any of that but as you can see I was forced to wear one of the masks (the one Andrew made).

The humans had a lot of fun in the evening but came back to the room quite tired from dancing. They had a teacher who tried to teach them two Latin dances. I think almost everyone in the group was a total beginner so they didn't show themselves up that much. As soon as the instructor got anywhere beyond the most basic steps, everyone tied themselves in knots.

We had a comofortable bed for the night: The humans paid a little extra for a king size one so there was plenty of room. It was billed as a "four poster" and I suppose it was. There was a wooden post sticking up at each corner.

We are back home tonight getting ready for our next night away - tomorrow visiting Andrew's mother. I don't expect the humans will be doing a lot more dancing soon but you never know.

Tonight in my own bed. Prr.

We're going on a Cruise

All the worries about no Disney holidays (vacations) this year are over! My Mikki has booked us a cruise. We will be spending 7 nights on "Disney Magic" in the Mediterranian.



Mikki says it is the port stops and tours that finally won it for her. Among other places, we will be visiting Florence and Pompeii in Italy. There is also a stop for Rome but my humans have been there and don't think it is worth going again this time. There is a fair journey from the port to inland cities so you have a lot of travelling and not much time there. My humans will accept that for Florence - which neither of them have ever been to - but not Rome.



Other stops will include Barcelona in Spain, France (for Monte Carlo) and Palma on Majorca. The humans may not bother with all of them.



I enjoyed my last cruise, as you can see from the picture. Mind you, there were lots of lounger chairs so I can't remember now why I had to share mine with my cousins Floppy cat and Travelllng Beanie. They look more relaxed than me because they are much more acustomed to lying about doing nothing than I am. They are really quite lazy kitties! I can stand up without help - and I write trip reports and a blog. Maybe we can make some improvements to the lounging arrangements this time. We only had 3 nights last time. It was also on "Disney Wonder" so I will be able to look out for all the places that are different on "Magic" where I can have my picture taken. Perhaps I will find a few more from the last cruise for the Blog.

It was also quite persuasive that Disney were offering quite big discounts on some of the staterooms. We are having one that has a verandah.

Yes, we're looking forward to it. Prrrr.

Tink's Latest Movie

We've been watching Tinker Bell's latest movie: The Great Fairy Rescue. My humans think the story is the best yet. We now see these things in High Definition from Disney Cinemagique.

Yes, we have had it for a little time now so I could have told you about it before but the humans hadn't got a nice picture of me before today. I have to admit good pictures of Tink are very easy: all her movies are totally cute and it is quite difficult to freeze the action without seeing her in a wonderful pose.

There are lots of fun ideas in this film. Some remind us of other films, like flying up to move the hands of the clock on the Palace of Westminster (Andrew won't let me say "Big Ben" because Big Ben is the hour bell, not the clock). Some are cute new things, like fairies being unable to fly in rain (Andrew thought Fawn looked very nice with wet hair and I'm sure I will get him into trouble by saying so).

There is a cat in this film and I am pleased to report my humans show no interest in him whatsoever. He is sufficiently like a real cat that he doesn't go out in the rain to chase fairies. I'm not sure it is so realistic to see him at the end appearing relatively calm about being next to a mouse. Who ever heard of a cat living with a mouse? . . Oh!

Remember the Lion King

The humans went to London at the weekend to spend a day with Mikki's sister who was passing through. They went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a quite wonderful museum with an incredibly varied collection. There is a special exhibition on at the moment of Chinese Imperial Robes. Entry to the main museum is free but this special exhibition had a charge - except that there was an exemption for disabled people and up to two carers so all three humans got in free (Andrew won't have seen much of the detail of the robes so it would hardly have been fair for him to pay full price). They also liked the paintings, jewellery and theatrical costumes.

Which gets me to the point of the story: the costumes they got most excited about were from the stage prodocution of "The Lion King". Mikki and her sister agreed it was a superb musical show. So here is a picture of a visit - quite a few years ago - to the Festival of the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom. Is the lion we can see Simba or Mufasa? I can't remember.

Oh yes, where was I? Left at home!! Meeeowww!

We were watching the television last night and saw the actor Jeremy Irons on a BBC programme, "The One Show". He was there to talk about some work he is doing with one of the Prince of Wales' charities to promote the arts to children. However, the presenters had to remind him what so many people (they said) will remember him best for: Uncle Scar. They played the "Life just isn''t fair" clip.

As soon as Mikki saw Jeremy Irons on the show, she commented how much of him had appeared in Scar - and guess what: that's what the presenters talked about too. Irons (a highly talented and very busy actor) could be amusing about it too. He reminded viewers that while the voice actors are doing their bit they are being filmed and watched by the animators. James Earl Jones inspired the magnificent Mufasa: Irons became - Scar!