A DATE WITH BUTTONS

Before April has finally flown, I need to tell you about my calendar opening for this month.

This calendar (the best I've ever had) was a New Year’s gift from my good friend Barb Nicolson who lives in Los Angeles with her friend Moz - or Mozilla for short - who is a small green and purple dragon with prominent black eyebrows.

Moz has travelled the world (with Barb) and been photographed (by Barb) in front of many famous landmarks from Graceland…


…to the Great Wall of China.


Barb’s The Adventures of Moz Calendar for 2007 shows Mozilla everywhere from London to Hong Kong as well as many famous locations within the USA such as Bryce Canyon...


...and the famous geyser, 'Old Faithful'!


Apart from posing for the obligatory tourist pictures, Moz’s real skill is getting himself photographed with other old geezers -- sorry, I mean Stars and Celebrities!

Indeed, the calendar features him with (to drop but a few names) Robert Redford, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis and Phil Collins as well as the ever-radiant Elaine Paige.

But best of all, is the month of April where Moz is shown chatting with our very own Buttons who (as can be seen from his website and blogspot) is also a world-traveller of great sophistication and culturally refinement!


What has yet to be told is the story behind this particular photo-shoot…

When this picture was snapped, Moz and Buttons were sitting on the mailbox of legendary fantasy/sci-fi writer, Ray Bradbury, in Beverley Hills.


And the reason that Moz posed with Ray's mailbox rather than with the man himself was down to his having heard about a catastrophe that had almost befallen Buttons a few months earlier.

On a previous visit to Ray, I introduced him to Buttons and took a picture of their meeting. Unfortunately, Ray slightly misunderstood and assumed that Buttons was coming to live with him!

An extremely awkward moment followed with Ray welcoming Buttons and suggesting that he might care to settle down among a large group of bears, dogs, cats and other assorted creatures currently residing on his sofa.

Of course, Button's politely thanked Ray for the offer, but explained that inter-galactic travel -- whilst well within the scope of his accomplishments -- was not quite what he was planning for the immediate future and that he needed to return to Britain because his friend, Bodge, would miss him.

Ray, naturally, was very understanding about all this...

However, Buttons blabbed the story to Moz who told Barb and, when they joined me on my next visit, they decided not to take any unnecessary chances!