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Here’s Cake the resident cat at Books Actually, posing patiently for another smitten fan.

Although we start hyperventilating with bibliophibian lust whenever we visit Kinokuniya, we are especially fond of Books Actually because it’s in a quaint neighborhood (Tiong Bahru Estate), it carries vintage books including ancient Penguins,

the proprietor publishes local authors in good-looking editions,

it has a wide selection of vintage collectibles including eyeglasses from the 60s and 70s, and at least two cats live on the premises.

Thanks to our brilliant friend James for introducing us to Cake and co.

Who needs an office at work when you’ve got a home office like this? National Geographic Society’s Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis called on architect and designer Travis Price to construct his very own personal at-home workspace in Washington, DC. Price’s architecture and design firm Travis Price Architects took on the task of creating this unconventionally visionary design for the multifaceted scholar.

Innovative Home Office in My Modern Metropolis

As usual the best roles for animals for 2011 went to dogs. The only noteworthy feline was Daniel Craig’s temporary bedmate in The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, and it was a short role. (That cat’s outcome had better be a product of the prosthetics department, or David Fincher will find himself reliving the murders in Seven.) There hasn’t been a meaty role for cat actors since The Long Goodbye, Harry and Tonto, and Cat’s Eye—terrible movie, but a starring role. Our species hasn’t gotten the kind of break birds (The Birds), sharks (Jaws), pigs (Babe), penguins (March of the Emperor), and especially dogs have received. Usually we are relegated to playing villains in James Bond movies and their spoofs. But that is a topic for another column.

2011 was a banner year for apes, horses, and especially dogs. Caesar was the star of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but since he was played by the human Andy Serkis he’s not in the running. The war horse in War Horse is beautiful enough to make you suspect an inter-species romance. But dogs were the dominant species in the movies circa 2011. On TV there’s Isis the Earl’s dog in Downton Abbey, whose wellbeing is more important to us than whether Mary marries Matthew. On the big screen notable canines included Snowy in Tintin—animated, the whippet in 50/50—upstaged by Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Uggie the Jack Russell terrier in Water for Elephants.

We have narrowed the field to three finalists for the Best Performance by an Animal Oscar.

Animal Actors in our column Emotional Weather Report, Pet Life edition, today in the Philippine Star.

On the plane we were seated three rows behind the singer Engelbert Humperdick, who was traveling with his entourage. Our mother would’ve gotten a kick out of that; we’re always disappointed when the musician on the plane is not Anthony Kiedis. The flight to Singabore was exactly on time, and we had an interesting chat with the purser about the pusakal her kids adopted. The ideal flight: we fell asleep on takeoff, woke up for the meal, went back to sleep, then read a story by Somerset Maugham. We’re reading his Ashenden stories—brilliant. Ashenden, based on Maugham’s experience with British intelligence, was the first modern spy fiction series. We recognize him as a fellow over-thinker.

“Ashenden suffered from that distressing malady known as train fever: an hour before his train was due he began to have apprehensions lest he should miss it; he was impatient with the porters who would never bring his luggage down from his room in time and he could not understand why the hotel bus cut it so fine; a block in the street would drive him to frenzy and the languid movements of the station porters infuriate him. The whole world seemed in a horrid plot to delay him; people got in his way as he passed through the barriers; others, a long string of them, were at the ticket-office getting tickets for other trains than his and they counted their change with exasperating care; his luggage took an interminable time to register; and then if he was travelling with friends they would go to buy newspapers, or would take a walk along the platform, and he was certain they would be left behind…”

It took us 10 minutes to get out of Changi Airport—would’ve been faster if we had longer legs. The driver spotted us immediately; 20 minutes later we were at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia. Nice room, excellent view, bathtub by the window. One complaint: the bathrobes are for people six feet tall, they sweep the floor like a cape. On this trip we will pretend to be Ashenden on a mission to recruit an agent.

Now to find a channel that’s showing Law and Order or CSI. We suspect that the real reason we travel is to watch Law and Order or CSI in hotels.

Update: No Law and Order or CSI?? We had to make do with the second season of The Walking Dead. Mmm meaty.

We present this letter in its complete form, unedited.

Hi Auntie Janey!

1. Just like what I said, I just began coming out, and I’m still having a hard time dealing with it. You see, for that long, I’ve managed to be discreet of who I am, so I act “strange” (the kind when you see a guy on the street and you know that there’s something iffy about him). So what I did was to start being me, without having to stereotype myself as being gay or straight. Somehow, it worked, because I became happy and just being care free most of the time, without minding if someone would snicker behind my back saying “sabi sayo bakla eh!”. Well it happened, and that part, is the worst. Is that how straight people look at us, as if we’ve done something wrong? They acted strange as well, maybe they don’t know how to talk to someone who looks and acts straight but is gay. Hell I’m confused. Not with myself but on what to do with those kind of people.
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“Family picture” and “Martin Scorsese”: two concepts that do not usually appear in the same sentence unless the family is the Mob. We read somewhere that Martin Scorsese made a General Patronage movie after his wife pointed out that their little daughter couldn’t see any of his work. This is a kid-friendly movie all right, in glorious 3D, but it’s still about Scorsese’s passions: film, film history, and film preservation. Bravo.

Hugo is so lovely we could ignore the five well-to-do matrons sitting behind us who talked all throughout the movie (“Is that Kevin Kline?” “No it isn’t.” “Yes it is.” “Is that man in Star Wars?”) Shushing would not work, turning around and staring at them would not work, and we just knew that saying “Please be quiet” would achieve the opposite result. Fortunately our love of Hugo overrode our aversion to the “We are entitled to flout the very rules of etiquette we keep cackling about because we are old and it’ll look like you’re oppressing us” brigade. Also it gives us an excuse to watch Hugo again.