While most Westerners are familiar with the 12 astrological signs of the zodiac that correspond with constellations and when a person is born in a given year, the Chinese zodiac is different, cycling through one sign per year, over a cycle of 12 years. The animal signs follow the same order every dozen years: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (also translated as Ram and Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.
But if there's a Rat and a Dog, where's the Cat in all of this? Well, if one goes by the Chinese zodiac, there isn't one. But the Vietnamese people, despite being inspired by the Chinese lunar calendar, actually have a Cat in place of the Rabbit. That's right; this year is also the Year of the Cat.
Just as I will never eat a crab sandwich as good as the one I devoured at a pub in Seahouses in Northumberland after a long walk in filthy weather, no grilled chicken with rice and tomatoes will ever live up to those that were served to a dripping wet me (I’d been swimming) on an old boat in the middle of a lake in Turkey a whole lifetime ago. I eat knafeh, oozing sugar syrup and soft white cheese, whenever I see it. But I’ve never tasted any so delicious as the slice I hungrily forked up beneath the fluorescent strip lights of a Ramallah sweet shop in 2005, my reward for days of hard work.
But it is human nature to want to try and replicate perfection, though we know full well this will lead inevitably only to disappointment.
That devilishly clever murder mystery author Anthony Horowitz has finally got his comeuppance — he’s the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a vile theatre critic, and the police have the goods to put him away for life.