Alex K

Why not enquire at the textiles / costume section of the V&A [email protected] what contacts are available at Norwegian museums of costume and historical dress? Given the age of the portrait, you may want to enquire into Swedish expertise as well -- I've forgot when Norway left Swedish rule, but it wasn't that long ago.

This is deliciously loopy.

RD, PGC -- got my answer from an estate agent. Short: You won't lose money. Long: You won't make money, either. No point in having an extra en-suite upstairs when the downstairs is so cramped. Which makes good sense!

Not to worry: Be patient. Time is on your side. On the average, free-range cat, carrying a higher market / gastropub price as it does, for the most part is substantially shorter-lived than battery (inside) cat. This world's Andy1s will have high-personality cats, to be sure, but also not for long. And one of these centuries, this world's Andy1s will figure that out. I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, and I was able to decide that Mike (grey, Burmese) and Sonny Boy (tawny, also Burmese) can stay inside at night, null problemo... Mind you, we'll never know what they'd have been like without psychological warping from the get-go. But they SEEM just fine.

Red Devil, that's probably the way to go. Thanks. And PGC... What is this "de-clutter" of which you speak? These are TREASURES, (wo)man! Treasures!

A grand time on Friday at SWEENEY TODD. Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball absolutely heart-rending. "Aspects of love" and consequences of dementia, excuse the redundancy. Take in your hip-flask, the interval drinks prices are extortionate.

Well, the mortgage is paid off **wait for appropriate cheers to die away** and it is time to overcommit financially again. And stuff, quite a bit of stuff, has piled up. Requiring, yes, more space. The thought of moving house terrifies me. So what about a loft conversion? Can't say that skulking about on the estate has identified many houses put through that process; one, which overlooks the amenity land between ginnel and railway line, up in the seventies on Abbotswood Road; perhaps folks choose instead to move away, to "trade up". But between stamp duty and inconvenience... maybe adding a bedroom and an en-suite is the way to go. Anyone applied and failed (overlooking neighbours' gardens as opposed to "amenity land" -- a euphemism for "waste ground")? Anyone considering the same palaver? Grateful for thoughts / recommendations.

@BrandNewGuy: Guess I'm a cynic, then. TJ's career, personal / political, seems directed toward answering one question only: "What's in it for me?"

Good for him. Ties them into the tax / benefits / health care systems. Integration into society rather than discrimination and rejection. These are kids who were brought by their parents, grew up American without more than hearsay contact with their parents' cultures (well, they couldn't exactly go "home" summers to visit their nan, could they?)... acknowledge that they're Yanks and embrace them as such. Points up the Republicans for the spiteful racists that they are.

Certainly washed her hands of her husband when he was tarred with the Berlusconi brush. "For better or for worse" -- same approach to marriage as to Old Labour principles: If they get in the way as you climb, jettison them and don't look back. Appropriate that her honour is handed her by a Tory government.

Thanks, KidKruger. Shaila Shah, if the branches aren't scraping the side of your house (**grin**), you can probably breathe a git easier. And if you breathe easier -- so will the trees, who now worry every time that you step into your back garden you have a chainsaw behind your back...

Forty foot, fifty-five foot, "quite close"? Roots of trees extend laterally as far as do trees' branches. I boggle at the thought of a tree with a crown 110 feet in diameter, and I suspect that no such tree is in your vicinity. LEAVE THE TREES ALONE. They REALLY are NOT bothering you.

"Have I screwed up my kids?" Paging Mr Larkin -- Mr Larkin, womanofdulwich awaits you in the lobby -- Mr Larkin, please pick up the nearest white courtesy telephone to be connected with womanofdulwich... How EVER did you set your expectations at the level of finding a "perfect" holiday? ANY holiday will have rubbish bits and, in balance, bits that make you cry with laughter twenty years later as you re-tell them. Stop thinking too much. Now go book your holiday. Shoo!

Jen, this fascinates me -- worms transmitted through the feline breast? In the milk? A life-cycle that involves secretion of a parasite into the lumen of the lobular acinus, into the lobular duct, into the milk duct proper -- for the parasite then again to migrate into the wall of the gut and thence into the bloodstream, to re-gain access to the milk? Uncanny. But when one considers schistosomiasis, or the dopaminergic effects of cerebral toxoplasmosis upon normally cautious mice... Well, ma'am, I'm here to learn. Thanks for any additional information that you can supply.

Serve breakfast in an orange, or / perhaps a pewter porringer...

"Cattery"? Bite your tongue. If you even consider that again... well, I have Cat Protection Services on speed-dial. You need never use a cattery during your holidays if you know Jane Matthews at CatCalls (Matthews, Jane / [email protected] e-address), who deserves to have her fingernail clippings collected and placed in a shrine. For years when no human(s) has / have been in the house she or a member of her team have dropped by and at a VERY reasonable rate have provided cuddles, litterbox emptying, feeding, and watering (both catz and plantz). And if Moggers needs twice-a-day visits, medications, injections... CatCalls will do. For a few shekels more. We in ED are immensely lucky to be able to rely on Jane and her crew.

I hope that "shall-I-let-my-cat-roam" Simon is reading this. Pity for the cat -- and, grudgingly, some pity for the owners who will miss their darling greatly but who could not learn from others' loss.

@Foxy: "Hunde, wollt Ihr ewig leben?!" -- Frederick the Great, watching his grenadiers flee at the battle of Kolin...

Two posters have recommended Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Gourmet Burger Kitchen! For shame. You know who you are. *** Don't MEATWAGON mean to return to the Rye? Every time I bus through there I crane my head hopefully to the left, trying to monitor the rate of progress. Glacial. But, dear sweet little Lord Jesus, if they come back, oh, happy day! And you lot who think that dolloping this and that avocado - bleu cheese - chutneyfied stodge over a "burger" not worth nailing over a mousehole makes that non-burger "gourmet", just you wait till MEATWAGON indeed ARE back. I promise not to say "I told you so". *** Maxxi: Check your local Japan-free-and-easeries for "kashiwa" (alt. "kasiha"). Chicken sashimi. Lovely delicate stuff. I've had it only in Tokyo, made with breast meat. Mmmmm. But maybe it's available in London. Most things are. *finger to nose, wink*

At East Dulwich station, northbound; to see it made me feel as if I had been promoted to Zone 1.

@The Minkey, DJKQ -- I can't gainsay anything you've brought up. The caveat regarding selection bias, the trust in good luck personally experienced, and the suggested restrictions on hours outdoors all seem perfectly sensible. However, Simon's cat (isn't there a book deal in this somewhere?) seems not to be the twinkliest fairy light on the tree, intellectually speaking. Sorry, Simon. I'm sure she's lovely, but... do you really trust her skills in vector analysis and vehicle-trajectory prediction? So, you size up the pluses and the minuses, and you do what seems like the best thing at the time. If I had a cat who moved its lips when it watched television (and I do; Burmese, he is, and without a lick of common sense), I'd keep it inside. Sonny Boy, this household's "special" fur-child, takes a ramble through the back garden only under supervision. He loves squatting under an acanthus leaf, admiring the feathered aerial traffic overhead and dreaming of fat wood-pigeons on crutches; I can't take that away from him; but big ol' pudding that he is, he seems best off not roaming on his own. Again, Si, good luck.

"Advice about letting my cat out"... ah, Simon. Don't if you aren't ready to lose her. Fifteen years life expectancy for an indoor cat, five for an outdoor cat, according to results of a Google just now: "Indoor cat" x "outdoor cat" x "lifespan", try it yourself. She won't feel the wind in her fur... true. But nor will she wind up the subject of yet another EDF post headed "flat dead moggie in the gutter two houses down, yours? come fetch it". Sometimes, popular culture notwithstanding, the rule should be: If you love something DON'T let it go. Good luck.

Yes, it's in Brixton Market, but... well. Worth a visit. And not all THAT far away. Proper Mexican food, my partner assured me (and he lived in Aguas Calientes for a year; he should know) -- "better than my Mexican host-mother's," he said about the mole. I know only Tex-Mex, with mammoth portions and primary-colour flavours, and what Casa Morita plates up is quite different. Caution: The portions are small-ish. But our four tacos (chicken mole, chorizo; two each) and our quesadillas (ditto) were delicious and, really, enough. ?15 with coffee for two. Recommended.

Lovely! But as commented by others, duplication will be dear. If someone admires it, why not sigh and say "Part of a set once, but in the divorce..."? -- No need to specify whose, mind you.

The boroughs as the laboratory of the city... Westminster bans hot-dog stands, Southwark permits them (under whatever conditions), perhaps Tower Hamlets ditto with a different set of conditions? And persons concerned with public health compare the general welfare of hot-dog eaters among the three venues and suggest a MINIMUM set of conditions. Let time collect evidence that will tell if Fox or his antagonists are correct.