Caturday Art and taking a blogging break!

I have decided that because it's coming up to the beginning of February and that means winter weather here in the northern hemisphere, I'm taking a winter Mini-Break with Mini-Me and Mini-Tux on a Mini-Island in the sun! I did specifically ask at the travel agent for a quiet resort with uninterrupted sea views!!! So here we are with our bags, bucket, spade and factor 30 hoping the tsunami doesn't hit for a couple of weeks!

We are taking a wee break from blogging BUT you can still follow me @austin_towers on Instagram or my facebook page where there are lots of fun pictures ...... well, sometimes ;-)

We are joining Athena and Marie in their blog hop today.

An InLinkz Link-up

Austinization and the Sunday Selfie!

First of all a big thanks to everyone who came by yesterday and tried to guess how many changes The Staff made in order to Austinize the tuxie cartoon! Here are the pics again, just in case you didn't bother manage to make it here!

There were nine including the background and counting the eyes and eyebrows as two and the paws separately ! So:

Changed eye colour

Added two white eyebrows

Three white paws

Moustache adjustment

Nose re-arrangment

A slightly titivated tux

Background colour

The first one to definitely say nine was Flynn. So well done to you, buddy!! :) Layla from Cat Wisdom 101 and Savannah from Savannah's Paw Tracks also came up with the same number as did Cathy Keisha! However, I reckon many of you found them all but counted the paws as one! So everyone is a winner unless you didn't notice the titivated tux! MOL That was easily missed! ;-)

Right, so moving on! It's Sunday Selfie time with The Cat on my Head our esteemed hosts.

Today I submit a "thoughtful and reflective" pose

Though The Staff says it's more "mean and moody"!

Hmmmmmm!

Click on the badge below to join in

To Austinize ......!

...... or not to Austinize! That is the question!

Here is an original bog-standard surprised looking tuxie pic that The Staff downloaded from a stockphoto site

It looks quite a lot like me, yes?

But not quite!

 Here it is "Austinized"

(don't look too closely mol)

It was done entirely in the local DIY photoshop!

My tuxie bits aren't right, but I was starting to look like I'd fallen into a pot of white Dulux gloss, so I issued a dultimatum - i.e. if you adulterate ma tum anymore I will bite your hand off :-)

See if you can count how many changes have been made?! 

We are joining once again with Athena and Marie in the Caturday Art blog hop

An InLinkz Link-up

2-4-1 Sunday Selfie with Limericks!

The top of my head is so black and so sleek!

I caught a glimpse of it only last week!

I stood high on my toes,

And squashed up my nose!

I've a very flexi physique!

❉

Sunday Selfies are joyous and fun??

You must think I'm dim-witted and dumb!

I look at The Staff!

"You're 'aving a larf!"

If only I had me a gun!

Just kidding!!! I love it really! :-)

Please join in the Sunday selfie blog hop hosted by Kitties Blue. Click on the badge below.

A Life in the Day of Austin Towers!

Hello everyone :-) Today CATachresis presents one of our famous blockbuster films for your viewing and enjoyment. We feel, that as the Oscars are imminent, we could possibly be in the running for a win in the category Best Tuxedo in a Leading Role.

Having said that, the content of the film is what you might call a compilation and was hastily put together. But this is because the Staff was twiddling her opposable thumbs and starting to size me up for the leading role in her long running soap opera A View to a Pill! So I had to use all my feline wiles to try and divert her from inflicting on me a severe indignity. The worm turned, you might say!

Here I am looking for a way of escape!
 White stuff on the grass courtesy of Welsh weather
All other arctic embellishments courtesy of PhotoCat

I hope this will entitle us to join with Athena and Marie in the Caturday Art blog hop!

As it turns out, even though I prevailed, I had no editorial rights over what made the final cut in A Life in the Day, so I am scuppered anyway! And I do have a feeling that the epic blockbuster A View to a Pill is most likely still lurking somewhere in pre-production!

The music is one of The Staff's teenage faves - Take Five by Dave Brubeck - which dates her genesis to sometime in the seventeenth century! It does end rather abruptly as the Vee app on iPhone is not quite as sophisticated as iMovie on the Mac - or at least the incompetent editor hasn't found the audio fade out button!

            

scuppered - to deliberately sink a ship OR maybe be hit with a cup!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Plots and Ructions!

I am not quite sure what a coup (pronounced coo) is!! I thought it was the noise a dove makes, but I can't see anything with feathers! - sorry for mentioning avians, da Tabbies!!!  

Anyways, the Minis are having a summit. Summit, in this context, I believe, is not so much to do with tops of mountains as "torking abaht summit or uvver!" (channeling Cockney cabbie:)  And they are certainly doing that! I am a little consternated  - but don't worry, the vet gave me something and I'm feeling better now ;-) However, what the Minis are up to is anyone's guess? I will keep you posted .... if, of course, I've not been dethroned or usurped or worse!

A couple of folk commented on the word "ruction" used a couple of posts ago. Such a satisfactory word, don't you think! I looked in the thesaurus and there were some equally satisfactory synonyms:

• disturbance, noise, racket, din, commotion, fuss, pother, uproar, furore, hue and cry, rumpus, ruckus, fracas; alterCATion, quarrel; (ructions) an outcry, trouble, informal to-do, carry-on, hullabaloo, hoo-ha, ballyhoo, stink; Brit. informal row, kerfuffle; N. Amer. informal foofaraw.

Personally I've never heard of foofaraw! But floof-a-roar and a rum puss, now that's more like it! 

rumpus, from rum - weird, bizarre, peculiar and puss - cat (Brit. informal) 

e.g. Mini-Me is a rumpus!!!!! ;-)

Sunday Selfie with a type of dagger!

So, I set up the camera and I did a nice pose - you know, the butter-wouldn't-melt one - and pressed the button!

My question is how did it get all mushed up and tatty looking in between me doing the business and it appearing here?  I put my question to the editor/Staff/TAT/pollical person and she said she thought it looked a bit boring and so added a dag .... dagger .... dagger O'type effect in PicMonkey! Huh? How can anything to do with handsome tuxie mancats be boring? I think the woman is crazed, a menace, a danger to shipping! Also her obsession with photo editing is getting out of control! She needs help or an intervention or something! Anyway who is this Dag R. O'Type???? 

Despite suffering such indignity I am allowing my tatty pic to be entered into the Sunday Selfie blog hop hosted by our good friends Kitties Blue. Just click on the badge below.

Dagger O'Type (from the french daguerreotype) - a type of Irish daguerr dagger

pollical - something to do with politics? OR lots of hot guys called Cal :-)

Caturday Art!

We (and by "we" I mean "she") was playing around with the SuperPhoto app on her phone. She said she "stylised" me and then afterwards "framed" me in PicMonkey! I feel a bit violated if truth be told! MOL But it is kind of cool!

Here is the original. I'm giving her "The Look"!

Just lately The Staff aka TAT's laptop which she bought from the late and great Mr Jobs has decided to throw a wobbly and is working to rule which means it's not working and keeps freezing especially on photo editing websites! If we totally disappear it will be because the universe and Mr Jobs have been successful in their attempt to prohibit our blogging and associated internet activities. This would, of course, be a calamity, though not sure for whom?! I mean, less internet, more napping!!!

The eagle eyed among you identified Mini-Tux in the last blog post as possibly coming from Mollie and Alfie's Etsy shop! Well he did! You can get yourself (and maybe even your human) cartooned! Go visit their shop :)

I have a weird feeling that he and Mini-Me are already ganging up and there will be ructions in the weeks to come! I feel it in my furs!

We are joining in the Caturday Art Blog Hop hosted by Athena and Marie

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday Selfie on a Monday with a Mini-Tux!

I am flummoxed as to who this vertically challenged guest is, so am investigating! The results of my forensic analysis will probably be published in the next edition of The Towers Times which has been at the printers since last April! 

In other news, NUCAT is planning some major union (in)action this year and all kitty grievances should be submitted by midnight August 31st BST in order to be rigorously ignored by the committee before the end of the year.

We hope we are not too late to join the Kitties Blue in their Sunday Selfie blog hop.

Click on their badge below.

Have a great week everyone!

Welcoming 2016!

Adapted from Instagram #2015bestnine

Today's the day we start to use the new 2016 CB weekly planner which has a star of the cats' blogosphere featuring every week.

Guess who's the star of the first week?

It's my pal Cody from Cat Chat with Caren and Cody!

Modesty forbids that yours truly should boast that he is included in this illustrious line up around about the end of May ...... like week commencing the 22nd  ...... though, of course, I haven't actually looked! ;-)

Thank you to everyone who went to the trouble of sending Christmas cards (e-cards and snail mail) and even gifts. This was most unexpected as we didn't send out very many this year at all, but rather we wanted to use the dosh saved to help worthy causes. (Truth be told, The Staff was suffused by languorousness - not sure if that's a word, but it will be from now on. The OED has been informed!)

But we do want to wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2016 full of treats and scritches and belly rubs. And we pray for humans to wake up and smell the catnip! 

We are linking with Athena and Marie for their Caturday Art blog hop

An InLinkz Link-up