So a very weird thing just happened...

Yeah. Here's the email I just sent...

Dear [photo printing company],

Perhaps you can shed some light on what is undoubtedly the weirdest thing to happen to me so far in 2016 (it's only February, so I do hold out some hope for better things to come).

A friend of ours recently visited Uxbridge, which is quite a long way from where we all live in the south of Wales. Whilst there, she went into a charity shop where she happened to see a photograph in a frame that she thought my other half would quite like, because it had two cats in it that look 'a bit like yours'.

On presenting the photograph to my partner (now back in good 'ol Cymru), he was slightly astonished to find that not only did the cats look a bit like ours, they looked exactly like ours and were, in fact, our cats sat on our decking in our back garden in October of last year in a photograph which I took with my own fair hands and a Canon DSLR.

                                                         

As a frequent photographer, I'm not unused to my work showing up in odd places on the internet; I put some of my photos on Flickr under a creative commons license for this reason. But this photo isn't on my [list of social media sites]. The only place it exists online is in my [photo printing company] account, where I used it as a part of a slightly jokey 2016 calendar I had printed as Christmas presents back in December.  

Now I only know of 5 physical print copies of this photograph, being the 5 calendars I ordered, one of which is in front of me right now. The rest are currently residing with my Granny, my Mother-in-Law, the breeder of the two said cats in the picture and (hang on to your hat...) the very friend who presented us with the photograph in the frame that kicked off my current bewilderment.

As far as I am aware, I have not upset any of them enough in recent days that they would travel over 150 miles from their respective homes to deposit an unwanted Christmas present in a charity shop in Uxbridge… in any case, the feedback I got was that they all quite liked it.

So, Mr or Miss [photo printing company]. Here is the question which I hope you can help me with: how did that image, which exists nowhere else online, with the exact same crop as on the calendar, on the exact same paper, end up in a photo frame in a charity shop a goodly distance from any of the copies which I am aware of in print?

Now before you panic, I’m not angry, not upset, not even disappointed, just interested in the reasons behind this crazy random happenstance which made me laugh for a good hour and a half. We have formulated some theories and would like to know which is right!

Yours confusedly,

Dr Duckie (the human), CJ (the grey one) and Calamity (the ginger one)

Finished!

Here's a few little pics of the finished furby. 

His ears and tail are made of leather scraps. 

The body was covered with black jersey fabric to let the thing move freely, then silk scraps were attached with a mixed method of sewing and glue. 

The faceplate was painted using acrylics. The 'rivets' are just punched pieces of cardboard. 

The cage was made for me by Atèlier Fabry-Perot. Find them at www.yourlaser.co.uk or on Facebook. 

Ear ear!

I'm planning on giving my furby a total makeover, so I need the ears off. 

This proved difficult! They're rubbery and glued on really tight. 

The way I ended up doing it was to slice the ear very carefully with a craft knife. 

Then I pulled both sides apart and peeled the ear off of the hard plastic inner. 

I used a combo of pulling and slicing with the craft knife, and my ears were off. Huzzah! 

I think the outer plastic would probably come off of the inner if I wanted. I'm happy with things as they are for my modding. 

Enough destruction, had better think about reassembly...

Furby Skinning for Fun and Profit

Wanna get your furby undressed? If you're over 18 and/or have parental permission, here's a step-by-step guide. 

I got to the end of this with a fully functional furby. I take no responsibility for you trashing yours in the process! Just make sure you go slow and think before you cut. 

First thing is to get the little blighter out of the box. This dude is a 2012 furby. I do not know what the guts of a boom look like. 

I'd avoid looking too closely at its cold, dead eyes... 

I'd also avoid reading the instructions!  

I'm more than ready. 

First thing is to open the battery compartment. This is easy, cross head screwdriver, undo the two screws, done.

Leave your patient fully anaesthetised (ie, batteries out) for the whole process. 

See those screws around the edge? Undo all of 'em, then take off the hexagonal piece of blue plastic. 

First blood! 

Now you can start pulling away the fur. Go. Carefully. There are a couple of things to do to ensure your furby is nekkid *and* functional. First, unloop the ribbon holding on the tail switch. 

Next, have a look at the front. There's a piece of belly padding with a wire leading into it: this looks to be the front touch sensor. Cut along the bottom of the belly padding where it joins the fur (the same seam the feet are stitched into) to avoid breaking this wire. It is sewn into the face clip at the top. I snipped the net fabric as close to the face clip as possible so the belly pad came totally free from the pelt. 

Around the face, there is a plastic retaining circle that the fur is stitched to. There are two screws holding this which need to be removed. 

The ring is held in by flimsy plastic clips. I was able to get two out intact, but the rest I had to cut off. I may need to use some glue in reassembly, but it shouldn't be a big deal. 

Once the face is free, you can go ahead and take off the rest of the pelt. If you want to keep the pelt intact, you will need to remove the ears first. As I'm planning on recovering mine, I simply cut the fabric up each side to the ears. 

There is another plastic clip around the base of the ear that the pelt is stitched to. I chose to leave this in place and snip at the stitching. 

Here is your nekkid furby! 

Next time, I'll be removing those big, rubbery ears... 

 

The Care and Dissection of Furbies

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any device can be improved 100% by the simple process of steampunking it up a bit. 

After making my friendly totem, Percy the sort-of perching owlthing, I thought it time to see if a little animatronic wizzardry couldn't be introduced. 

So after a bit of pondering (I'm not an electronics whizz by any standards), I decided to return to the days of my good and acquire a fuzzy friend. £20 later (hooray for Amazon), my patient had arrived... 

 

Tea, screwdrivers and a pot for the bits? Let's crack forth!