Greetings from Schiphol Airport, where it’s early morning and Professor Ceiling Cat has a 4 hour layover before the 7-hour flight to New Delhi. And I have just received the latest Hili dialogue, which is below.
As several readers commented, Schiphol is now a generic international airport, complete with Starbucks and McDonald’s. Yes, you can buy stroopwaffels and Gouda cheese in the food shops, and there is one place selling tulip bulbs, but I would not rank this as the best big airport in Europe. (I still say Munich is better, as they have Weisswürst und Bier on offer. And Heathrow is the WORST.)
Herewith is the Furry Princess of Poland, still afflicted with chronic solipsism:
Cyrus: What are you looking for in this computer?Hili: I’m checking whether I am in Wikipedia.
In Polish:
Cyrus: Czego szukasz w tym komputerze?
Hili: Sprawdzam, czy jestem w Wikipedii.
If some reader wants to start a Hili entry, be my guest!
Good morning and welcome to the old world.
Maybe the Princess of Poland is of African descent?
“In Zulu mythology, Tikoloshe, Tokoloshe or Hili is a dwarf-like water sprite. It is considered a mischievous and evil spirit that can become invisible by drinking water. Tokoloshes are called upon by malevolent people to cause trouble for others. At its least harmful a tokoloshe can be used to scare children, but its power extends to causing illness and even death upon the victim. The way to get rid of him is to call in the n’anga (witch doctor), who has the power to banish him from the area..”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikoloshe
Schipol is currently undergoing a big overhaul so it’s not at its best.
One thing they used to have which is currently closed (I do hope they bring it back) was a small art gallery that was a little satellite of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
It displayed a dozen or so old master paintings from the main museum in a small room and was a brilliant way to spend some of the ‘lost time’ of a layover – far superior to traipsing around duty free shops which is just about all there is to do at most airports.
Schipol has a great train station underneath it that will take you into Amsterdam for something like 5$. If you need to get out for a beer or smoke. 😀 It’s fast and friendly, at least in my experience.
Travel safely.
Getting out for a smoke might be nice. Are you still there, Jerry?
cats and dogs, for sure a good topic!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/frizztext/16018205495/
I’m not sure what was intended by posting this piece of artwork, but lest anyone think the dog is harming the cat…
My sister had a standard poodle and a fine orange kitty, who were best pals, and who would engage in this behavior all the time. The dog loved to wash the cat’s ears and head. Often the dog would take the cat’s head entirely in its mouth, holding it very gently, the better to wash it, by sliding its tongue in and out. That was the cleanest cat I’ve ever known.
thank you Peter, for this information – I was not quite sure about this play between dog and cat – I’ll copy and paste your description to my watercolor sketch at flickr – OK?
Be my guest!
Indeed, the body language of both animals in the sketch does not suggest any violence to me. I once had a black lab who more or less adopted our newest pound kitten; that kitten was “washed” so much he sometimes looked like he’d fallen into a bucket of water.
At other times the kitten pounced all over the “long-suffering” d*g, or slept with her in her crate. They were buddies.
Years ago on my father’s farm there was a farm cat that used to stand in the manger and allow the calves to suck its head. The cat seemed to enjoy it but it left it with very gummy mussed up hair – we used to call it Sid Vicious because of this ‘punk’ hairstyle it had acquired.
That’s really amazing! Calves are, uh, hard suckers, as you’ll know if you’ve ever let one suck on your finger.
Sub
Whoever does create Hili’s page, be sure to also add her here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cats
b&
Thinking about it. I’d suspect that starting a page from scratch would possibly open up a minor edit war. So should we get the bones fleshed out here?
What is notable about Hili (which isn’t true about other cats, so not the noms fixation)? Well really, it’s only the posts here. I can’t read Polish, so I don’t know if Hili gets any references in Racjonalista (cue A+M to post some links? Does Racjonalista have a wiki-page, in Polish?)
Breed or styling – standard tabby as far as I can see, with the “white-socks” mutation?
Mention of Pia’s previous duty as Philosopher Cat?
Any other things to add.
If Sockington can be “a cat famous for his posts on Twitter the microblogging site,” then Hili can be famous for being the star of the Hili Dialogues.
See today’s Hili dialogue; she’s the Editor-in-Chief of Listy. I don’t think very many cats can claim an editorial post.
You’re probably right that we should get it polished here before tossing it to the Wikipedia Wolves. I don’t think Professor Ceiling Cat would object if the Hili Dialogues were temporarily hijacked for that purpose….
b&
It’s a polylog concerning Hili.
I shall re-load this page to see comments in better context.
So, does anyone have wiki-links for “Racjonalista” and this other site, “Listy,” and a summary of what they’re about. My Polish isn’t up to it. It’d be logical to link the Hili-page to them (in their turn, linked to other relevant articles about rationalist and/ or Polish websites). Otherwise, it’ll come up with a “orphan” page tag pretty quickly.
Sorry, but I do not think Hili should be linked to Racjonalista. She never had anything to do with Racjonalista and she shouldn’t take credit for something she never done anything for. But one of her staff, Andrzej Koraszewski, is in Wikipedia: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Koraszewski#cite_note-Pr.C3.B3by_.C5.9Bwiadectwa-4
and “Listy” is mentioned there – no separate entry for Listy.
Oh, right. Sorry, I was getting the various Polish magazines conflated.
Which is exactly why I suggested getting the material sorted out here, rather than through an edit-war on Wikipedia.
A little correction: Hili is not connected to Racjonalista in any way. Since almost a year she is the Editor-in-Chief of http://www.listyznaszegosadu.pl
Every day her dialogue opens the edition of “Listy”. She also wrote a couple of articles, but she prefers to supervise the work of her staff to writing herself.
Somebody MUST add Hili to the list of famous cats! Malgorzata gives the link to Listy where she is editor, and there are pictures of her, and a Tumblr link of the Hili Dialogues is on the left of the main page of this site.
p.s I’m in India