Back in 2014, those halcyon days when it was still relatively surprising for a mainstream politician to make overtly bigoted comments in a public forum, Edward McMillan-Scott, a former Liberal Democrat MEP, and 'respected voice on the international stage' (the bold opening gambit of McMillan-Scott's own website), referred to the Board of Deputies as 'a frightful bag of disputatious Jews'.
Ever one for trying to look on the bright side (particularly when things look monumentally bleak, as they do here) I decided to mollify myself by taking this as an opportunity to get reacquainted with the joy of collective nouns. So I spent some time poring over Schott’s Original Miscellany, and the brilliant Oxford Dictionaries website, and I've selected some of my favourites to share with you here.
I think all of these are preferable to ‘A Bag of Disputatious Jews’ by quite some margin.
A Wisdom of Wombats
A Turmoil of Porpoises
A Prickle of Hedgehogs 
A Piteousness of Doves
A Pitying of Turtle Doves
I find the dove ones almost heartbreakingly lovely.
A Lamentation of Swans
A Fluther of Jellyfish
A Squad of Squid
Surely not. A squad? Of squid? A squid squad? Sometimes the stars just align in our favour I guess. I think I would give anything in the world to have been in the Squid Squad meeting. It must have been nearly lunchtime. On Pizza Thursday. When there's only ever a limited number of pepperoni ones, and after that it's just rubbery mozzarella or Veggie Supreme, which we all know has an inexplicably high ratio of sweetcorn to everything else. Squid... Squad did you say? Ummm. Great. Yep, love it. All those in favour? Let's go.
An Ostentation of Peacocks.
A Knob of Wildfowl
hehe
A Plump of Wildfowl.
That one's alright too, I suppose. But it's no Knob of Wildfowl, let's be honest.
A Puddling of Mallards
An Escargatoire of Snails
Apparently the alternative is A Walk of Snails, which just seems cruel to me.
Although not as cruel as A Club of Seals
Nobody tell him.
A Pandemonium of Parrots
A Crash of Rhinos
An Unkindness of Ravens
A Parliament of Owls
A Streak of Tigers
A Scourge of Mosquitoes
Yeah! Hear that mozzies? The OED called you a scourge! That'll teach you to gnaw at my limbs, feet, and (with astonishing consistency) my bum, every single day of every single summer of my life. Yeah.
A Mischief of Mice
A Charm of Magpies
A Watch of Nightingales
Does this have anything to do with Florence Nightingale? I’d love to know if it does... But apparently not enough to get off my arse to look it up. Or, even more troublingly, to stay on my arse and look it up.
A Dazzle of Zebras
A Mustering of Storks
This one made me laugh because it reminded me of the time that my grandma told my sister and me that she would have bought us Christmas gifts 'but I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm.'
Harsh but fair.
A Flutter of Butterflies
A Glaring of Cats 
A Peep of Chickens
A Gang of Turkeys
An Army of Caterpillars
Well then. That's my nightmares sorted for the next week.
I’m not sure sure which element of this picture I find funnier: the original meme (v good) or Sandra’s thorough explanation and thoroughly damning review. Either way, I'd say her use of ellipses alone is worth far more than a mere five likes. Also, we could all stand to take a leaf from Carol's book: a curious and gracious soul, open of both heart and mind.
And it’s not just animals! Some of the collective nouns for people are truly excellent too:
A Drunkenship of Cobblers
An Eloquence of Lawyers
A Hastiness of Cooks
A Superfluity of Nuns (!)
A Poverty of Pipers
All things considered, Mr. McMillan-Scott, I think we can all agree that you could have done better.
I mean, a Fluther of Jellyfish! Perhaps you ought to think about upping your game. In every sense, really.
The Cameo
My guest this week is Jacob Sharpe - a juggler, an artist, and a force of nature.
What’s your job title/profession?
Circus Artist
What would you love for people to know about your work?
That it is as deep as a religion and as friendly as your favorite book.
What do you wish people would stop asking about your work?
Nothing. I love it when people ask questions about my work! I'm not picky in such situations.
What made you/helped you to choose what you do?
Each new experience on stage so far has been a good one!
What’s your perfect breakfast/lunch for a workday? (What do you actually have for breakfast/lunch?)
Breakfast is coffee with lots of cream, two scrambled eggs, German dense pumpernickel bread, toasted with sliced cheddar on, cherry tomatoes on the side, and a bowl of kefir or Swedish fil-mjolk with quick oats mixed in and unsweetened applesauce on. Lunch is also coffee, then a lot of boiled small potatoes, with cheddar and a mayonnaise-mustard sauce on the side. Actually when I'm home that's breakfast and lunch every day.
What’s your perfect time to wake up? (When do you actually wake up?)
8. Usually around 8.
What’s your alarm sound?
I don't use alarms, and when I do set one because I have a schedule, I tend to wake up ahead of it.
Do you have a set morning routine?
Not besides the contents of my breakfast.
Do you have a dedicated/preferred writing / training space? If so, what does it look like?
Yes! Well ideally but actually at the moment I train all over town in different places. But one day I should have a big room in my house like a squash court, with a dance floor, some mats, and a sauna nearby.
Preferred tools of the trade? / Essential work items?
Well, my juggling things. A water bottle.
What are your work hours like? Do you try and create a routine for yourself or is that impossible given the nature of your work?
I train twice a day, for 2 hours each time. I guess ideally it's morning and afternoon, but recently it's become quite variable. When I have a show I skip a training.
When you’re on the road, what are the first 5-10 things that go in your bag?
Clothes, juggling things*, computer… Nothing surprising I'm afraid.
*Diabolo(s), balls (Russian type, which means a plastic shell with sand in), clubs, and a big ball.
I think if anyone were to rifle through this bag at an airport, Jacob might have underestimated their capacity for surprise.
Do you work with fixed goals in mind or take it day by day depending on what comes up?
I always have the same goals, and my training has a set structure that doesn't change. I do skip stuff regularly because I'm too tired; the technique I can't do yet I push hard on good trainings and then often need to skip to recover properly.
What inspires you?
Doing shows is always inspirational, what happens there is always the ground I’m working from when I'm training. Then when I'm in a training period the training itself is very inspiring, and it pushes me to go back on stage. So I guess I kind of find myself inspirational, hehe. Circus is a kind of justified narcissism...
What’s your favourite thing about your work?
That it is so healthy; my training is my exercise, and my brain work, and I think it might keep me young very astonishingly long.
Least favourite?
Nothing, I really have nothing to complain about, I feel very lucky to have this job.
What do you do to get through days when you just don’t feel like it?
I just don't do it, then that feels quite good. Well, also there are tough days, but usually the days are tough for other reasons, and training makes the difficulties bearable.
Do you have a go-to treat to get you out of a slump?
More training! Hmm, but a really tough life slump then it's maybe a cigarette.
Go-to work snack/sustenance?
These days I don't snack I just eat at meals. Though I tend to do an early and a late dinner.
This is coming from a man who I once saw eat a full meal at Shake Shack (cheeseburger, fries, milkshake), and then go right back up to order the same again when he was finished.
What’s your favourite part of the day?
When I'm training, or when I'm on stage.
Least favourite?
Hmm. The hard times often come after a long nap, but it can be any time really. Except not during training -that's always nice. I can get very tired with how hard i push myself, and very emotionally drained, and sometimes I get quite deep down scared in a horrible way… so that's my least favorite, but it's not tied to any time. In a day that runs smoothly, all the parts seem nice.
How you define a good/successful day?
One that feels delicious.
What’s been your favourite failure? One that you learnt a lot from, or one that you can look back and say ‘well I got through THAT, I’m unstoppable!’
I think trying out solo street shows again. I went back to Boston and did 50 or so shows there and in Edinburgh in the summer of 2015, and it was incredibly terrifying and difficult, and at the end I was over it and understood that I don't need to work on the street. It was a great unlearning of hard lessons that don't apply to me anymore, so it's wonderful to think back on it. A concrete, self-imposed hardship that really set me free at the end of it.
Any hot tips for the old work-life-balance conundrum?
All life is work. The work lets you live, and the living lets you go back to work. But actually it's all work. I think so anyhow.
Do you have any hobbies/passions outside of work?
Learning German, making friends everywhere, eating the same thing every day when I can, seducing the world...
These are the pictures I have chosen to represent Jacob seducing the world:
If so, how do you make time for them? Where do they fit into your day/week?
Hmm. I guess I just covered all my non work activities, so they just fill all the other time.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone who wants to do what you do?
If it's gonna work then they don't need advice because they're gonna do it on their own.
What’s the best piece of advice someone’s ever given you? (Or worst!)
I don't know if it's advice, but my friend Olle said 'It's ok' about a few things, and I believed him, and that was very useful.
What’s your top tip for getting shit done?
Wait until you can't stand not doing it. I don't know, sometimes I think it's everything around you that opens up the paths for you to work hard.
Watch Jacob's phenomenal performances (with significantly varied beard levels) here:
Follow him on Instagram @jacobshhharpe.
Some Music
Today is the first day of December, so this week's playlist is themed accordingly.
It's wintry rather than Christmassy, so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself for resisting the siren-song of carols for all of one day. However, if you think this restraint can last beyond next week then you have wildly miscalculated my love of ambient sleigh bells and descant harmonies.
A Poem
The Rain Stick
by Seamus Heaney.
Upend the rain stick and what happens next
Is a music that you never would have known
To listen for. In a cactus stalk
Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash
Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe
Being played by water, you shake it again lightly
And diminuendo runs through all its scales
Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes
A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,
Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;
Then glitter-drizzle, almost breaths of air.
Upend the stick again. What happens next
Is undiminished for having happened once,
Twice, ten, a thousand times before.
Who cares if all the music that transpires
Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?
You are like a rich man entering heaven
Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again.
This poem is from The Spirit Level, published by Faber & Faber (1996).
It's absolutely bucketing down outside right now, so I switched this poem in at the last minute, just to cheer myself up. And it worked! 
Links!
If you're on Instagram, and find yourself in the market for a daily jolt of quiet happiness, I urge you to follow @drawings_for_my_grandchildren - a 75-year-old South Korean grandfather who uses his account as a storytelling tool to share his pictures, drawn by hand for his beloved grandsons, who live on two different continents.
If you're not on Instagram, you can watch his story in this video.
The Gifts Of Reading Are Many, by Robert Macfarlane.
All the proceeds from this staggeringly beautiful essay will be given to MOAS - a charity that rescues refugees in the Mediterranean.
If you have any kids in your life, I think this is an excellent source for gift ideas: 13 Children’s Books That Encourage Kindness Towards Others.On a less/more serious note, now that it's December I can finally get back to my two favourite places on the internet:
1. The Definitive Ranking Of All Of The Turtlenecks In Love Actually.
2. I Rewatched Love Actually and Am Here to Ruin It for All of You.
Let joy be unconfined!
Having reflected on the unsettling gender dynamics of Love Actually (not to mention its unsettling reliance on the turtleneck industry) check out Default Man - a mini computer game that humorously presents the pitfalls of our male-manufactured world. Default Man was made by the creative team at Penguin, and is based on the ideas of male stereotypes explored in Grayson Perry’s latest book The Descent of Man.
Having played Default Man (it took 3 minutes, tops) I re-read this fantastic article, by Amrou Al-Kadhi, about how much more willing we are to congratulate men for subverting gender norms than women. I love what Amrou has to say about renewing their own intentions, as a male queer performer who seeks to celebrate femininity, to help combat the issue.
Amrou is an upcoming Katch-Up guest, so let's all revel in their keen insights here, before I bog them down with questions about ideal breakfasts.
I find this video of Elizabeth Taylor putting on her makeup absolutely hypnotic.
Equally mesmerising is this video of Charlotte Tilbury giving Sali Hughes an Elizabeth Taylor-style makeover. For me, this is the ideal make up video: two beauty experts joyfully paying tribute to a woman who was the very embodiment of gloriously high-femme, high maintenance beauty. Magnificent.
Watching someone put their make-up on is one of my greatest pleasures. I love the sanguine ritual of it, the staunch, purposeful self-care, and the way it looks like renewal and resolve can be found in a compact that snaps shut with a satisfying click. Sadly when it comes to my own makeup routine, my enthusiasm is often dimmed by a series of immediate smudges. Amrou wrote brilliantly about how the emotional labours of women that so often go uncelebrated, but I can't help but notice that they’re the one sponsored by MAC, and I'm the one whose first attempt at liquid eyeliner usually turns me into a Pierrot. There's no justice in this life.
Or maybe it's just a unintentional homage to my cheery younger self, who knows.
The Katch-Up's header illustration is by the ever-brilliant Tamsin Baker, who also did all the illustrations/animations/sorcery for my website.
Finally, here's one more glaring cat...
... as a reminder that Ben, my long-limbed partner, is running the Boston Marathon to raise money for kids with cancer. (Specifically for the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology program at MassGeneral Hospital for Children). At this moment, he needs $50 more to get him over the first $1000 mark. Can you help?
Here's the link if your answer is YES! Or a less shouty 'yes', in kind, quiet lowercase.
And that's it! See you next week!
Love,
Katya