Making the Cat Laugh

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Lynne Truss. Making the Cat Laugh

Contents

Single Bananas

News Stories That Captured My Imagination

The Single Woman Considers Going Out but Doesn’t Fancy the Hassle

The Trials of Celibacy Explored with Surprising Frankness

The Single Woman Stays at Home and Goes Quietly Mad

The Only Event of Any Importance That Ever Happened to Me

Reflections on Culture

Crackers Already

The Arnolds Feign Death Until the Wagners, Sensing Awkwardness, are Compelled to Leave …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

Отрывок из книги

LYNNE TRUSS

Making the Cat Laugh

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So if I tend to avoid dinner parties, it is not because I am afraid the couples will canoodle in front of me, but because the couplesome strangers Derek and Jo need only exchange a private hostile glance over the sage derby and I start to panic on their behalf. It is not happy, this Derek-and-Jo; it will split up; its Derek-and-Jo kiddies will suffer. I turn into a kind of Cassandra, prophesying the sooner-or-later catastrophe of Derek-and-Jo with a forlorn certainty, usually even before they have reached the front gate and started arguing.

It is a heavy burden: to see the inevitable with such clarity. ‘See the cracks!’ I moan inwardly (after some ritual ‘who’s driving?’ fracas after pudding). ‘Oh, woe! Hear the marital fabric split and rend, stitch by stitch verily from top to bottom! Weep, ye marrieds! Weep!’ It is an odd way to behave in a Crouch End dining room, but of course nobody listens anyway. Or if they do, they probably put it down to personal disappointment.

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