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1621
Angel Cat by Jerome K. Jerome

Cats do have a conscience: it tells them when to look innocent.

According to Jerome’s friend Jephson, alongside Nonconformists cats are the only creatures in this world with a functioning conscience. ‘You might almost think they had a soul.’

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1622
Typical Cat! by P. G. Wodehouse

When a cat comes into your life, resistance is futile.

Aspiring author Elizabeth had been needing a little bit of good luck, and finding a stray black cat she named ‘Joseph’ seemed like a good omen.

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1623
Cain and Abel by Clay Lane

Smarting for his outraged ‘rights’, Cain lost his reason — but not God’s pity and love.

Abel and his brother Cain were the sons of Adam and Eve. Theirs is a universal tale of what long-nursed envy and a sense of outraged ‘rights’ can lead us to do; but it is also an allegory of the deteriorating relationship between Judah and the ten tribes of northern Israel in the 8th century BC.

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1624
Daniel in the Lions’ Den by Clay Lane

The King who condemned him to the den of lions felt far worse about it than Daniel did.

Nebuchadnezzar II was King of Babylon (near to modern Baghdad) in the 6th century BC. Many Jews lived there, after Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians 587 BC.

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1625
Belshazzar’s Feast by Clay Lane

Prince Belshazzar’s disrespectful behaviour left him facing the original ‘writing on the wall’.

Belshazzar was a prince in Babylon (near what is now Baghdad, Iraq) in the 6th century BC. While his father King Nabonidus was away, Belshazzar had the government of the Empire in his father’s stead.

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1626
Mrs Bold’s Thunderclap by Anthony Trollope

There comes a point in some relationships when words just aren’t enough.

In the gardens of the Rectory at Ullathorne, the ambitious Mr Slope, chaplain to the Bishop of Barchester, declares his ‘love’ for wealthy widow Mrs Bold.

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© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 30 NS

May 17 OS

Loan Words : Match these words to the language they come from, whether Old Norse, Malay or Welsh.
Evidence : Join these ideas together to form a single sentence, using the relative pronoun ‘who’.
Fatal Vow : Robert Pierrepont called heaven to witness that he would never pick a side in the Civil War.
Lost and Found : What would you in these difficult situations?
They Might Not Need Me : Read these lines of verse out aloud.
The Turn : Ben Jonson tells us how we should measure a life well lived.
Music Video : Julius Benedict, Piano Concerto in E flat: II. Andante,
The Character of George Washington : Thomas Jefferson recalls the virtues (and a few faults) of the first US President.
Amen to That : John Bright declared it was time stop fighting wars around the world for ‘British interests’.
Arena : Use these nouns in sentences of at least ten words in length.
Q & A :
Deep Harmony : In the midst of the US Civil War, a simple melody briefly brought the warring factions together.
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