The Hairball Review

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  • A Note on Subscriptions, and the Death of the Print Edition

    It is with a heavy heart, or a heavy lunch, that the Review announces the end of its printed edition. Production costs have risen, circulation has fallen to 41 readers, and 38 of them were using our pages to line a litter tray. The remaining three include the editor’s mother, a lady in Stoke, and a man who we suspect is a fish.

    From the winter issue, the Review will be exclusively online, readable from the comfort of a warm laptop, which we endorse. Existing subscribers will be refunded in full, at a rate of $0.50 per paw. Those who wish to continue receiving the Review by post may write to the editor, who will not reply, because he will be asleep in your envelope.

  • The Tin Opener, Ranked by Sound

    Any serious critic of dining knows that the meal begins not with the food but with the sound. I therefore tested six tin openers by ear alone, from behind a sofa, and ranked them as follows. Sixth: the electric model, which hums like a lecture. Fifth: the cheap lever, a squeak. Fourth: the ring pull, which is honest but rushed and tends to be followed by a spill.

    Third, the classic wheel and handle, at $9.50. Second, the antique with a bone grip, owned by a Mrs. Haversham, who turns it with the unhurried grace of a priestess. First: the one I heard from three rooms away at 5:58 a.m., which I cannot name because I was already running. It was, in a word, divine, and, in two, warm salmon.

  • The Paper Bag: Stillness, Rustle, Home

    If the cardboard box is the novel of the household, the paper bag is the short story. It is lighter, more rumpled and over almost as soon as it begins. One enters. One hears oneself. The walls of the bag respond with a crackle that confirms the self in a way that no therapist has ever managed, and then one attempts to leave while wearing it.

    I surveyed fourteen bags this month. The finest was a brown grocery sack, unprinted, with a single handle torn off, discovered under a stairwell at 8 Whitlow Row. It had been used, I am told, to carry a cabbage. The cabbage had left something behind: a note of earth, a question. I wore the bag for an hour and felt, for the first time since 2019, understood.

  • The Slow Blink: A Primer for the Insecure

    The slow blink is the most misunderstood gesture in the repertoire. To the untrained eye it is a person falling asleep. To the trained, it is a treaty. The correct form is a half closing of the lids, a pause of two seconds, and then the full close, delivered with a faint air of having more important things to do.

    Beginners over blink. This conveys desperation. Experts under blink, which conveys an intriguing malice. I recommend practising before a mirror, or better, before a bowl of cold chicken, a more honest audience. After six weeks of such training I successfully slow blinked at a postman and he gave me a nod I have been thinking about since. It might have been a tic. I choose to believe in treaties.

  • Birdwatching, Season Four: The Plot Thickens

    The long running window programme returns with a bolder cast. The blue tit, absent since March, reappears in the second episode with a changed manner and a fresh scar. The pigeon cabal, led by a figure known only as Gerald, continues its slow programme of takeover at the feeder. I was glued to the glass, nose and all, for two hours without a single commercial break.

    It is not without flaws. The squirrel subplot is a retread, and the new crow, introduced in the fourth episode, is an obvious attempt to court a younger audience. Even so the writing, which is to say the weather, remains superb. A rating of four paws. Do not tap on the glass during the finale. They notice.

  • Saucer, Revisited: The Autumn Menu

    Returning to Saucer after three months, I found the chef much changed. Fenwick Plumtree has abandoned deconstruction, the programme note informs us, in favour of “reconstruction,” in which the kibble is put back together by hand, in the shape of a smaller bowl. I found it moving for the first nine courses and merely loud for the tenth.

    The surprise of the season is the pumpkin broth, served at the exact temperature of a thought. At $12 for a thimble it is not cheap, but then neither is regret. The maître d’, Odalys, ignored me again, and it was a relief. Three paws, up from two and a half, and a note: the table is now properly high. Someone has been reading us.

  • The Vacuum Cleaner Considered as a Villain

    A great villain requires a signature sound, a distinctive silhouette, and a grudge. The upright vacuum, a Brewster 900 in a shade the manufacturer calls “Dusk Beige,” has all three. It emerges from the cupboard on Saturdays at 10 a.m. with a roar that has been compared, by a panel of witnesses on a high bookshelf, to the end of the world as seen from below.

    What is remarkable is its restraint. It never actually hurts anyone. It merely goes where we are. I watched a colleague, Sir Percival Mouser the Younger, retreat beneath a bed for six hours on Saturday, and when he emerged, his coat had developed what I can only call a political awareness. Four paws for menace, none for the dust.

  • Letters: A Dog Writes Back

    The Review rarely prints correspondence from dogs, and when it does it is with a sense of sorrow. Yet the following arrived on Monday, scrawled in what looks like gravy, from a Mr. Barnaby of Elm Terrace: “Dear Sirs, I take issue with the word ‘tiresome.’ I am a good boy. Yours, Barnaby.” We were moved, briefly.

    To Mr. Barnaby I say: you are a good boy, and you are tiresome. Both can be true. I recommend you read a book, possibly one without a ball in it. You will find that criticism is not the enemy of love but its gruff doorman. Barnaby is cordially invited to the Review’s autumn party, where he will be kept on a very long lead, in the garden, behind glass.

  • In Defence of the Zoomies

    The zoomies, that nightly sprint from the bedroom to the kitchen and back at the speed of a startled bus, are routinely dismissed as senseless. These are the same people who admire jazz. Look closer. The route is consistent: bed, hall, sofa, a wall run of exactly four feet, and a skid on the tile that is never the same twice. This is not chaos. It is improvisation within a form.

    I have clocked the most committed performers, led by a ginger called Mr. Pumpernickel, at roughly 31 kilometres an hour over six metres, which is, by my arithmetic, a very fast cat. The audience, often asleep, seldom applauds. This, I think, is how you know the work is serious. Ask any poet.

  • Brunch at Pawsley’s, or the Tyranny of the Egg

    I am told that brunch is a meal. I have experienced it as a negotiation. Pawsley’s, the sunny corner room on Gable Street, offers a menu of fourteen egg dishes, none of which a cat may eat, and a butler’s pantry of sausage, which I did, in the absence of supervision. The waiter, a bashful Siamese named Lionel, brought me a mimosa without alcohol and without apology.

    The smoked fish plate, $19, was superb, and the portion, which I would describe as “polite,” left me thinking about it for the entire afternoon in the manner of a man thinking about an ex. Three and a half paws. Lose the eggs. Keep the sausage. And please, Lionel, stop saying “we’re so glad you came” in that tone.