Magic Graffi's CAT-GPT

Hi All, I have a highly topical subject for you today, AI, which you humans call Artificial Intelligence.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, everything seems to be AI these days. This is true even in the world of children’s books, where we’re told on social media platforms that AI stories can be written in fifteen minutes and that they sell like hot cakes too. Really?

As is often the case with you humans, you’re just not on the right page here at all. Think about it. When you, your friends, and / or your family go into a bookshop, or online, to buy a book, do you start off by looking for AI books? No, of course you don’t, because why would you want to buy something that’s not even real? Sometimes it even says on the package that it’s ‘ARTIFICIAL intelligence’, so not real intelligence! And, to add to this, have you ever heard of a children’s book author – or any author for that matter – called Arty Intel? I certainly haven’t.

Talking of authors, evidently, one of the first things you want to discover when looking for a book is the name of the author. And then you want to find out whether she / he has written other books as well? But, even if you have this background information, you may still not be aware that you’ve missed out something really important about intelligence. ARTIFICIAL intelligence is what it says it is – artificial. This is not particularly surprising really as you humans invented it, and you’ve only been around for about 300’000 years!

But this leads us on to REAL intelligence, which we could call ‘True-AI’. And what is this type of AI? ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. Logical, isn’t it? Now, you’ll not be surprised to learn that this is something particularly powerful when it comes to us cats, particularly so when you think that we’ve been around for between 10 to 12 million years! And, when you put me, Magic Graffi, and True-AI together, what do you get? It’s Cat-GPT of course! Why? Because, when my magic is activated, it becomes GPT – a Generator of Powerful Transformations!

So, to come back to True-AI, I want to make something absolutely clear. It is me, Magic Graffi, who, working with Serge, has written this and many other blogs, not to mention all of the Magic Graffi books too. And, as such, I want to assure you of two things:

1.  I’ll never allow any human AI books to be published under my or Serge’s name.

2.  You should understand that this would not be possible anyway as all of my stories have some connection to, or connections with, true stories linked to me and / or to Serge’s and his family, so they can’t be invented, or be artificial in anyway.

I hope that this’ll make you feel happy, knowing that my funny stories are in most cases even funnier, because they are not artificial.

Yours,

Graffi, Cat-GPT

www.magicgraffi.com

Copy by Serge Cantsper

Illustration by @flowoolgarbarrington

Magic Graffi's thoughts about the word disgruntled

Copyright 2024 - Serge Cantsper. Illustration by @flowoolgarbarrington

Hi All,

I’ve got something surprising to talk to you about today. To explain . . .

A short while ago I started writing a new chapter in Book 4 and, after only a few paragraphs, something really surprising crossed my mind. Something that I’ve never thought about, nor even considered before.

After contemplating this conundrum carefully, I came to the conclusion that, because there’s something I just don’t understand, I’d ask you for your thoughts to help me find a solution to my problem. (Just so you know, there’s a possible upside here, which is that perhaps together we may be able to come up with a new adjective! You never know!)

Now, you’ll know from my books how much I enjoy playing with words, so you’ll certainly agree that this won’t work properly if I don’t fully understand the word with which I’m playing. To explain . . . My problem is with the word ‘disgruntled’ which I’ve used in the chapter to describe a recent incident to do with the local Donkey family – I call them the Donks.

Just so you know, the family is composed of, Honky Donk (the father, who appears in Book 3); the children, Wonky Donk and Dinky Donk. (The latter is a real bad ass – ass as in donkey of course!); and their decidedly patient mum, Debby Donk. In summer, they all live in the field just across the road from home, and Honky Donk does a lot of loud hee hawing – or honking, as I call it – early in the mornings, which at best can be really rather boring, necessitating a real paws-in-the-ears moment when one’s trying to have a quiet and peaceful lie-in.

So, to come back to the problem word, ‘dis-gruntled’, which I’ve hyphenated here deliberately . . . What I do know overall is that, as the prefix to a word, ‘dis’ has some sort of a negative inference. For example, disliked, disappeared, or disabled. This latter sadly applies to my friend Jeep, the three-legged tortoise. (As you’ll remember from Book 3, this is the reason why Serge had special wheels made for him, to help him get around more easily, and to dance too!)

From these examples, we understand that it's the rest of the word that follows the ‘dis’ – in this case ‘gruntled’ – that makes clear what the opposite of the dis-word is all about. Well, given this fact, have another quick think about the word ‘dis-gruntled’. Does ‘gruntled’ mean anything to you? In all your life, have you ever even heard the word ‘gruntled’ on its own, or of anything or anyone being described as, ‘gruntled’? I’m sure your answer is no, and so, to follow the ‘dis’ logic, let’s take this a step further . . .

If disgruntled donkeys are unhappy, donks, then gruntled donkeys, presumably, are happy! Right? Because, if not, sorry, but I just don’t get it at all.

So, if you have the answer to this conundrum, do please tell me, and perhaps another day, with this agreed adjective, you’ll be able to call me Gruntled Graffi! If so, I’ll get a new T-shirt printed to match!

Yours,

Graffi

www.magicgraffi.com

Copy by Serge Cantsper

Illustration by @flowoolgarbarrington

Magic Graffi's Intergalactic Chocolate Easter Bunnies!

Hi All,

As you will understand in a moment, this blog has been written recently and over several days.

After the yummy breakfast that Florence gave me earlier this morning, I decided to go and spend some time in Serge’s office to work on a chapter that I’m planning for Book 4. Sitting near the window, which looks out onto our garden – this corner is my special work space here – an idea about bunnies flashed through my mind. And, just as it did, I saw a young one whiz across the lawn. (How about this for the power of imagination!)

Anyway, once my thespian thoughts had been distracted, and as it was a beautiful spring morning, I decided to go outside, and for the first time this year, have a catnap in the sun on my favourite branch in our fig tree. I’m not quite sure why, but seeing the bunny made me think of Easter. Strange for me, as I’m an Easter egg, not bunny person really. However, when I saw the bunny run across the lawn again – this time in the opposite direction – it gave me the idea of doing something special to make this coming Easter a funny bunny moment for the family.

With this in mind, I said to myself out loud, but very quietly, ‘Hey Iris.’ And in no time at all, Iris said,  ‘Howdy, doody, Graffi. Howz you doin?’ (To learn about Iris, IRIS, magicoms / MCMs, etc – all of which are things are to do with a special IRIS communications platform for creatures that have magic powers – you need to read the beginning of Book 2.)

So, after a brief exchange with Iris, I asked her if she would send a magicom to Marmalade, who I’d met not too long ago. (You’ll find out all about her in Book 4 once it’s published.) But to give you an idea, she’s an absolutely extraordinary, small cat who is – no kidding – an expert in LEC – Light, Energy and Colours. The message that I asked Iris to send her was, ‘Hi Marmalade. Please can we meet up here at home, sometime soon? Yours, Graffi.’ And in no time at all, I got the following reply, via Iris: ‘With pleasure, Graffi. Would tomorrow do?’ And obviously, I said, yes.

With this organised, I decided to go and see the head honcho rabbit, who lives with his family and friends in the field next door. His name is Roman and I’m sure you’ll not be surprised to hear that, with a name like Roman the rabbit, he has the tendency to be rather pleased with himself. However, before I went across the field to talk to him, I popped back into the house to ask Hiccup if he’d like to come with me. Being such an enthusiast, in an instant he was out of his basket and rushing down the passage – ears flapping – to the door which was open to the garden. And guess what? Just as he put his paws on the grass, he was stopped in his tracks by a young bunny dashing past, right in front of his nose.

Well, you know how spaniels are, and immediately he took off like a rocket to chase it. Needless to say, before long, he brought it back to me in his mouth, its fur all covered in slobber. Excuse the pun, but it was obvious that the poor creature was not feeling a happy bunny, and I could tell that Hiccup’s intention was to present it to Roman, which I thought was a great idea.

As we were walking out into the field, I realised that Hiccup’s mouth was fuller than I’d thought. In fact, it turned out that he was carrying two bunnies in it! This made for a very complicated discussion with him on the way, to the extent that I don’t even know how to write down here what he said as it was so hard to understand. Anyway, once we arrived at Roman’s burrow and, after I’d tapped my paw firmly on the ground several times in front of it, Roman poked his nose out of the hole. Looking very surprised when he saw us, not to mention the two little heads protruding from of Hiccup’s muzzle as well, Roman was about to say something, when Hiccup opened his mouth and the bunnies fell to the ground in front of him. Of course, this caught him on the hop. (One can’t resist a pun like this here, can one!) And, before he could say anything, I made sure I got a few words in.

‘Hello, Roman. Good to see you and I’ve come here to ask you a question.’ (Looking at him, I could see that this made him feel ill at ease, and I was sure that he was thinking that I was going to be cross with him about the bunnies in our garden.) My question is: ‘As Easter is going to be here soon, I wondered if I could borrow these two bunnies and use them as a surprise for the family on Easter day?’ Unable to resist the temptation, Roman pounced on the two bunnies, while at the same time saying, yes to me. To which I replied, ‘Thank you and is it OK if I pop over tomorrow afternoon to discuss the matter further with you.’ ‘Of course,’ he replied, looking angrily at the young bunnies.

The next morning, right on time, I had the pleasure of welcoming Marmalade at our front door. And after she’d had some warm milk that Florence gave her as a treat, the two of us went outside and leant against the warm garden wall to discuss ideas for a funny bunny, Easter surprise for the family. We had lots of fun laughing about different ideas and finally we agreed on a multi-magic plan. After this, early in the afternoon, Marmalade, Hiccup and I went to visit Roman to given him an outline of the surprise, which was as follows:

Early on Easter day, with Hiccup’s help, Marmalade and I would put three, quite large, empty plant pots in a line on the grass in front of our kitchen door. Later on, the two young rabbits would come and join us and each one would jump into a pot and hunker down low. Crouching in the third pot would be Marmalade, dressed up as a rabbit with false, extra-long ears. Once the three of them were in place, Hiccup would go indoors and encourage the family to come out into the garden. Then, when they were outside, and at whatever moment he felt was the right one, Hiccup would bark, and this would set off Marmalade’s magic. (She’d already made clear that she wasn’t going to tell anyone what would happen.) As everyone seemed happy with this, we went back home and very early on Easter Saturday morning, Hiccup and I practiced pot moving, which was not nearly as easy as we’d expected.

And what was the Easter Sunday, funny bunny surprise like? A real, multi-magic shock for all and one that not only was I able to watch outside with the family – but also participate in, but quite unnoticed. As planned, Hiccup barked, after which, a small, brownish cloud appeared out of nowhere over the garden. Moving lower and lower, it manoeuvred gently above the three pots, where it hovered. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, it started to rain chocolate and as it did so, the three rabbits, including Marmalade of course, jumped up and shouted, Happy Easter!

Just as they did so, my tail twitched and a bolt of sparkly blue light shot up into the cloud, which in turn, made it drop down onto their heads, after which, magically, it totally disappeared. The result was three sparkly, chocolate-faced bunnies with beaming smiles and furry chocolate ears. The three of them looked brilliant and the family was thrilled, although I have to admit that Marmalade gave me a gentle ticking off afterwards for messing up her make-up.

Thanks for reading Graffi

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