FASHION TIPS FOR ARCHAEOLOGISTS No. 11

THE CATWALK


Today my chum-a-riffic pals we're taking a stroll on the catwalk. That landing strip of fashion heaven where coked-up models thinner than the grim reaper (with osteoporosis) sashay about in rags that looks like they've been put on back to front. And because it's a catwalk this posting is all about cats . . . And (you will be no doubt dee-lighted to know,) it's even more removed from fashion than that. Each cat (and their relative size) is a metaphor for subsets of information about the past.


Confused? Wonderful! - Let's continue.


First down the catwalk, (to the flicker of adoring paparazzi flashes) comes (figure 1) Rum Tum the kitten. And sweet little Rum Tum represents all the things we know for certain about the past.

Rum Tum is the sum total of all that assiduously gathered data - data gathered through excavation, field walking, reliable dating methods, environmental work, osteology and of course the correctly deduced web of relationships between it all - and that's just to mention a fraction of it . . .The good news is that Rum Tum is a growing kitten and in the next hundred years she might just double, perhaps even triple in size!! A pat on the back chums - aren't we super-duper!
But just a minute who's that coming up the catwalk next? Why it's (figure 2) Macavity the man-eating tiger! He represents everything we don't know about the past.

Christ on a pogo stick, he's a big one! Lock up your tins of kite-kat, that hoor could swallow Rum Tum whole without needing to wipe his backside afterwards! Macavity is all those things we don't know, and that's a lot, I don't where to start with this one - Indus valley script? Those humungous stone balls in the Terraba River? The vast canyons of darkness yawning through our gossamer knowledge of prehistory? The bad news is, as time goes on and populations sky rocket, Macavity keeps getting exponentially bigger. 
Now big and scary as Macavity is he's only a tripping hazard compared to the next contender to trundle down the catwalk. Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls could you please give a big hand for (figure 3) Old Deuteronomy from the droid planet Feline 9. And tonight, Old Deuteronomy is representing all those mad-as-shit theories 'archaeologists' having been expressing since before the past was even invented.

Dearest Old Deuteronomy isn't just the sum total of those Erich Von Daniken style theories, he also represents all the poor postulations lazy archaeologists have foisted on the world by means of bullshit and bullying in an attempt to gild their distended egos.
Man-eating Macavity doesn't stand a chance against this monster - and as for Rum Tum -
Who the f*** is Rum Tum?

So ends the cat walk. But let's not forget the one who never made it onstage. It's (figure 4) Gus. Gus represents our pay levels - and the trap?
That's your student loan and taxes.


Until Next Week My Chutney Stompin' Buddies!