There's actually been a bit of a flurry of activity with the long running cats project over the last few weeks and I'm off to Belgium next week to present Cat Fancy Club as part of Alter Nature: The Unnatural Animal at Z33 in Hasselt on 17.02.2011 at 19h00.

Prompted by the pressure of a public presentation I have finally been watching some of the footage we shot exactly a year ago with Leslie Lyons on one of her research visits to the UK. Leslie is a Professor at University of California-Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, located in the Center for Companion Animal Health (CCAH), her research focuses on the genetics of the domestic cat and the development of genetic tools and resources that assist gene mapping in the cat and other companion animals.

Much of her time is spent travelling around the world meeting different cat breeders and talking to them about their pets, not to mention taking the occasional buccal swab! Last January we spent a very hectic two days together visiting a really fascinating group of breeders and Professor Tim Gruffydd-Jones at The Feline Centre, University of Bristol (seen opposite with Leslie). It's been great watching the footage finally and I must thank Matt Jones @ Illumina for managing to get it into a format I could watch on my Mac ... now I just have to edit it.