... or why does Thursday meet the Cheshire Cat and not the UA of W Cat at the Bookies (page 338)?



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

No. I was confused by that as well.

Me too.



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Thinking about it a bit, does Thursday ever actually refer to him as the UAofW cat, or is that term only used in the chapter headings. I have afunny feeling he may always be the Cheshire cat to her, or just 'the cat'. Even he says 'Well, technically I'm the Unitary...' when she firsts meets him.

If not then she's suffering force of habit. Thursday has probably read Alice many times, and to be confronted witha name-change is difficult to get used to - a bit like the teachre at my school who got married and changed her name, three years afterwards I still got it wrong.



Post Edited (07-25-03 01:26)

PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

As far as I remember, I don't have TEA nor LIAGB with me at the moment, the Cheshire/UAofW Cat explains the name change to Thursday personally. That's why I wondered. Could be mistaken there, but apparantly I wasn't the only one to stumble over that.
Your remark about not getting used to a name change sounds plausible actually. But I'm still not really convinced. Gotta re-read the other books.



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

I agree with PSD about the name familiarity issue; although, I just noticed that in the footnotes on page 226, the Cat refers to himself as Cheshire.

looks like he's pretty fmailiar with 'Cheshire' too, then



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

He may have been overwhelmed by the proximity to Alice...

I think his TITLE is UA of W, but his name is Cheshire. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!

To be fair. People have been very stubborn in sticking to the old boundaries.
People in Bath (which is now in Avon) still insist they're in Somerset.
Folks in Humberside objected so much that it's now back to East Yorkshire and Rutland has also returned.

It takes along time for bureaucratic changes to become used in everyday speech.

Rob: Avon County Council was abolished in 1996 (see here and here) so Bath is now back in Somerset.

Naomi



Naomi

In the sections of the Jurisfiction Manual that are quoted elsewhere in Jasper's website he's also referred to as "the Cat formerly known as Cheshire".

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Naomi: Cheers. I did wonder after I'd written it. I was in Bath in 1991-92. Probably the same time as Humberside was abolished.

Yes, yes, yes but, the historic county to which Warrington belongs isn't Cheshire at all, but Lancashire. Warrington (and Widnes) were only part of Cheshire from 1974 to 1996. If the Cheshire Cat was to be renamed anything (and why should it, actually, since Cheshire has always existed?) it ought to have been the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport Cat, really.

Let's face it, it's a good gag, but not a logical one.

Incidentally, the County of Avon was liked about as much as its Blake's 7 namesake was; all the former constituents of it are customers of mine, and they barely speak to one another.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Might this be evidence for different boundaries (or a slightly more southerly location for Warrington) in Thursday's native Earth?

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

But Jon, if Warrington was part of Cheshire from 1974 to 1996, wouldn't the name change be appropriate since the books take place in the mid 1980s??

The B7 Avon was very well liked by the fans... just not so much by the other characters, that's all. (Well, I think both Blake and Vila got on with him in an offbeat sort of way. You know, in between having blazing rows with him.)

I asked Minsky what he thought of the Cat's title (for those who don't know Minsky, he is the leader of my gang of four cats and has been known to answer to "Chairman Miaow"), and he says that if he had to walk around with a blinking great long title like the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat, he'd be informally known as "Cheshire" too. Respect, he says, is a fine thing, but if you've got time to have a wash while someone is trying to address you by your formal title then it's getting a bit silly.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Thank you Minsky. It's always good to have an experts opinion on any matter.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAC _
But Warrington would still have been in Lancashire rather than Cheshire back when Lewis Carroll wrote about Alice's adventures and originally named him, so there seems no reason to associate him with that town... If the 1970s change had involved adding (most or all of) Cheshire to Warrington rather than vice versa then the renaming might make sense, but because (as Jon pointed out above...) that wasn't what happened* it doesn't seem to do so.
Some parts of the traditional County of Cheshire were transferred to other authorities during the 1974 reorganisation*, and if he'd been closely associated with one or another of those particular areas rather than with the county as a whole then he might have been renamed accordingly (as either the Greater Manchester Cat, the Merseyside Cat, or the West Yorkshire Cat) then, but as far as I'm aware he lacked any such local connections...

(* at least in our own Earth's history & geography...)

Kaz: That's not only plausible it's reminiscent of Alice's adventures... Remember how the name of the song that the White Knight sang to her was called one thing whereas the song itself was called something else?

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Even in Thursday's skewed universe I don't think any bits of Cheshire got transferred to West Yorkshire .....



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty