Dog bites parrot?

IN 1990 David Edgar joined in the revisionist stampede of left-wing playwrights and produced The Shape of the Table, a premature and unconvincing conversation-piece on post-Communist Europe. There is nothing premature about his new, and equally topical, piece, Pentecost, which follows in the shattered aftermath of that false dawn. It is the richest text to arrive on the English stage since Stoppard's Arcadia; and a drama on the politics of language that ranks with Friel's Translations.

Today is the 28th of October. Mathematically, 28 is a perfect number, equal to the sum of its divisors: 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28. The first four perfect numbers are 6, 28, 496 and 8,128, but some ancient religions consider 28 to be the most perfect of all, as it is the number of letters in the Arabic and Phoenician alphabets. It is also: The number of days in three out of four Februaries.

There are some experiences that people are almost obliged to write about.

CAN your parrot talk? Can your parrot act? Does your parrot want to be as big as Madonna only not as slutty? Then take your parrot to London's Mermaid Theatre at 10.30am on Wednesday 19 October to audition for, yes, Treasure Island. Birds of various feathers will be flocking together to see if they can charm Roy Marsden, aka Long John Silver, who will be there to assess his potential partners for stage presence, and, if I were him, bowel control.

Beast is back. Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre has returned to the Midlands Arts Centre with another 'Rumours' series.

The object I've chosen is an incredibly fine, plaited mat, donated by the family of Robert Louis Stevenson (above) after his death in Samoa in 1894. It is made out of freycenetia leaf, edged with sugar cane cuticle and decorated with bright red and green Fijian parrot feathers.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

Parrots and exotic birds have been stolen in a spate of raids in south London last week which police believe may be linked.

Merci, merci, thanks a million, I thank you]' One expected Grappelli to get a rousing reception just for still being alive, but the standing ovation at the end of this concert came as a thoroughly deserved tribute to genius. Although the whole evening floated on a cloud of sentimental goodwill, no special allowances had to be made for his performance. Grappelli at 86 years of age is, in essential respects, the same as ever.

ALEX has been the subject of numerous studies, writes William Hartston. His communicating, conceptual, cognitive and problem-solving abilities have all been the subject of academic papers. Alex is a parrot and his current interest, as reported in 'Numerical Competence in an African Gray Parrot (Psittacus erithacus)' by Irene M Pepperberg (Comparative Psychology, 1994, No 1), is counting.

Burglars took a 15-year-old bi-lingual parrot that speaks English and Gujurati in a raid on a house in Leicester.

One of the most striking specimens we have in the museum is that of the dodo. We display more than 4,000 specimens but this one is unique because it is a model and not stuffed - no real specimens exist in the world any more. The external appearance is only known from the accounts of mariners, a few sketches and some paintings by the Dutch artist, Roelandt Savery

WORRIED about your command of current events? Laid up with a dicky fan belt on the hard shoulder of the information highway? Worry no more: here it is, Captain Moonlight's Catch-Up Service, my free and exclusive news digest of the week's more interesting news . . . Taxi driver Trevor Rowe discovered that a passenger had left an urn containing the ashes of a relative in his boot. 'It's the strangest article of lost property I've ever handed in,' said Trevor . . . Psychic Margaret Collier correctly predicted the score between England and Denmark after receiving, she said, a message from Sir Matt Busby. Margaret, of Westgate on Sea, chats with Sir Matt daily. 'He began speaking through me, using my voice. To be quite honest, his name didn't ring a bell at first,' she said . . . German soldiers have been ordered to shout 'bang-bang' on exercise to save money on bullets . . . Chefs in Bradford will try to smash the record for the world's longest kebab, currently 2,066ft 11in . . . Parrot-otti, an African grey parrot which sings 'Nessun Dorma', has been stolen from a pet shop in Paignton. If you see a loose parrot, try him with a burst and see if he responds . . . and, of course, Bilbo the neutered tomcat, mistaken for a lion in Winchmore Hill. 'He's not ferocious at all,' said his owner. 'He once brought a sponge cake through the cat flap, but that's been about it.' There were, though, eight sightings. The Captain says take care out there, N21.