Shocking News! Lebanon vs Israel in fight for Falafel!

This is really serious stuff - I heard it on the BBC, so it must be true - read all about it here.

Yes, these two countries are both trying to claim Falafel as their own. He's a fine specimen, granted, but who'd have thought that one small rodent could spark an international incident like this! And as he's a Syrian hamster, I don't think either Lebanon or Israel has much of a claim anyway ...

Yet another new look Falafel

We all know about Falafel's mysteriously vanishing plumes (see top image) but just when he was coming to terms with his lack of trailing apparel, yet another metamorphose was afoot ... the fact that he is out of focus isn't part of the cause for concern, by the way...


I was so concerned about this latest development - that he was looking very scruffy, and was turning ginger - that I contacted a breeder (of hamsters) who has looked after him in the past. Sometimes you can tell, even in an email, that the other person is larffing their socks off as they write, and this was a case in point. I was told that people who show off their hamsters in public have to retire sables early because of the dreaded gingering, and not to worry, that it happens to all of them starting at the tail end. I was instructed to admire 'his coat of many colours'. He seems bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (if you can ever describe a hamster as bushy-tailed)as ever.

I also feel I should point out that there's nothing wrong with turning ginger. In fact I regularly sit there with a henna-flavoured cowpat on my head to make myself turn ginger.

It's just that I hadn't expected a hamster to show these autumnal tendencies!