Blue Brolly ComicsMcTAVISH BLOG NO. 7: JEWEL THEFT! but not by me in case the cops are reading this. (though it really is by me … ) is this title too long?
Posted on September 15, 2026
Home again, with the threat of Roger still hanging over my head. I must eliminate him. The easiest way to do that is to hire someone else to perform the snuffage. Which will require money I don’t have. But that is about to change. Because …
… I am going to steal The Jewels of Alba! Why not me? I deserve a lifetime of undeserved wealth! If it’s good enough for The Queen, it’s even better for me!
And it’s a fabulous opportunity, because only one dense obstacle stands between me and the Jewels: Duff Munro!
If I can’t find a way past Duff, well, I will have to question my entire existence. However … there is one unanticipated problem, a small hiccup in my Master Plan, in the form of that hairless cat who is trying to usurp my spot in the household. However, ‘Mr.’ Phibbs is too busy ironing ‘Sir’ Robin’s undies and making cucumber sandwiches for High Tea to cause any real problems.
And what is my Master Plan, you ask? Back off, I reply. I’m still working on it. I’ve come up with a lot of brilliant ideas, see? Too many to go through them all in detail. But I can now share with you a few of the best …
PLAN 1: A technologically sophisticated Star Trek style transporter.
PROS: Beam in, gather loot, beam out. Easy.
CONS: Relative lack of Star Trek style transporters in this timeline.
PLAN 2: Hypnotize Duff into stealing jewels for me.
PROS: Risk free. If anything goes wrong, Duff gets the blame.
CONS: Lack of hypnosis skills. Can Duff be hypnotized? Or is he in a constant state of … hmm … anyway … can he pull off the job without screwing up? Okay, scratch this idea.
PLAN 3: Cut a deal with Duff to steal jewels and split the profit.
PROS: See plan 2. Though Duff could rat on me. Which is actually a con.
CONS: Have to split proceeds with Duff. Dubious Duff reliability/competence. Maybe scratch this one, too.
I’m running out of ideas, damn it. But I will not give up. I know the layout of the library and museum inside out. I can … hmm …
PLAN 4: Slide under the door. Cats have no bones, right?
PROS: Low overhead costs. No skill of any kind required.
CONS: None come to mind.
Brief pause in the blog while I will give this a try! And now I’m back. Please do not look at the illustration on the right. Anyway, I’ve had plenty of ME time to cook up some more sizzling plans …
PLAN 5: Dig a tunnel into the museum from the library.
PROS: Just give me a minute. I’ll think of something.
CONS: Digging. Lots of digging. Way too much digging. To heck with this idea!
PLAN 6: High explosives.
PROS: Easier than digging. Good way to take out Duff and the front door at the same time.
CONS: Might attract unwanted attention. Might blow myself up. Okay. Another plan goes up in smoke …
Also, on a slightly different topic … what’s up with these illustrations?!! I hired that Donna Bowman (obviously a fake name) to make me look good. Instead, she blows me to smithereens and disintegrates me! She is most very definitely totally and completely NOT getting paid. Back to the blog …
PLAN 7: Ducks. Vern and Cody could be useful, for the first time ever. They fly through an open window and lay an egg on a display case. Duff would have to declare the museum an ‘Ecologically Sensitive Zone’ and keep everyone out.
PROS: Easy for me to sneak in with no one around.
CONS: Vern and Cody are both guys, damn it. And no girl duck wants anything to do with them. Also … perhaps a little overcomplicated …
PLAN 8: Pizza. Distract Duff with a free pizza and sneak inside!
PROS: Pizza is cheap.
CONS: None! This is plausible. This could work!
[BRIEF PAUSE WHILE I TRY IT OUT]
Okay. It’s two days later. I did three practice runs and … I ate the pizza before reaching the museum. Every time. Rats.
I could try giving Duff a free vegetable hamper. I wouldn’t eat that. And neither would Duff. Jello might work. Duff inexplicably loves it and I won’t eat it because it makes me break out in huge wobbly yellow blobs unknown to medical science. So. Plan 7 is still on the table.
And I got a million more of them, folks. But .. hey! Why am I telling YOU? You could steal my ideas and rob the museum yourselves! This blog is OVER!
CLAN MUNRO COMIC STRIP NO. 81: TWO CATS ARE BETTER THAN ONE?
Posted on April 17, 2026
Yes, indeed. Robin looks very happy to see that McTavish is back. No doubt he and Phibbs will get along brilliantly.
Stay tuned to find out …
CLAN MUNRO COMIC STRIP NO. 80: McTAVISH RETURNS
Posted on January 21, 2026
Yes, McTavish is home. Robin will be SO thrilled.
If you need help remembering why McTavish took off on the lam (we certainly did!) take a look at Clan Munro strips 46 through 55.
And for a refresher on some of the things he did while living on the edge, here is his blog posting on that subject.
CLAN MUNRO COMIC STRIP NO. 79: MUSEUM UNDER ATTACK? 2
Posted on December 16, 2025
Hans and Svend have appeared before, briefly. Though perhaps we saw too much of them in their first appearance.
The second time around, they rescued McTavish, much to his regret. There is clearly more to the boys than meets the eye, as you will find out later …
McTAVISH BLOG NO. 6: HOW I BECAME A MUSICAL GENIUS
Posted on July 2, 2025
[Editor’s note: many people (3 or less) have wondered how McTavish came to be a concert violinist. We asked him to explain … ]
Greetings! First off … I’m naturally gifted. But you already know that. You’ve seen many examples of my great skills in all sorts of things. Like … erm … like … sarcasm? Napping? Eating? Committing credit card fraud while doing all of the above?
But you’re already drifting off topic. So let’s go back to the very beginning. I was born into an RCMP family: the Rat, Cat and Mouse Patrol. The organization was totally useless, so it was disbanded. Mom lost her job and fell into hopeless catnip addiction. A familiar story.
How does this relate to music? You see, I was adopted by a roving fiddle player. Alas, there was little demand for roving fiddle players so he fell into a hopeless addiction to robbing gas stations. He was arrested by the RCMP. The real ones, with the red jackets and amusing hats and really big stupid pants.
I inherited the fiddler’s fiddle and took it with me when the cops gave me to the SPCA, where I spent my formative years amongst a colourful group of unwanted cats. Sadly, we were forced to go out and get jobs. Yuck. What a waste of time. Anyway …
My first position was shining shoes for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. I absorbed lots of musical knowledge until they fired me for selling all their shoes on Ebay. The unimaginative fools passed up the perfect chance to perform the highly under-rated Shoebert’s Shoeless Symphony.
The SPCA then sent me to Marvin’s Mainly Music, where I got to polish the violins and cellos and trumpets. And tubas. Perfect for curling up inside for a little nap. Until some foolish composer named Andy Webber picked it up and gave it a loud toot, thereby propelling me across the store and into a base fiddle, where I got tangled in the strings. The subsequent dislodgement sproinged me right across the room. And straight through a grand piano worth a few hundred grand. (Hey! Is that why it’s called a grand piano?) Marvin didn’t see the funny side …
So I should mention … since it’s the whole reason for this blog … that I practiced on the violin every day before Marvin unfairly fired me. I’d worked my way up to being … not very good. But I ‘borrowed’ a violin and kept practicing.
After the SPCA failed to flush me down the toilet for the third time, they made me busk on a corner near Newkirk College. Some guy with a big nose and stupid kilt was playing the bagpipes on my corner so I beat him up. Or tried to. He was more vicious than he looked. Anyway, the street is where I got really good. At playing the violin and cadging donuts to survive.
After the Newkirk cops sent me back to the SPCA, they sighed and said: “Oh, McTavish. What shall we do with you? You have no skills and no aptitude for anything but lying around. Which … hey! That makes you the perfect library cat. There’s an opening at Newkirk College! They have a new librarian. You guys have a lot in common. He likes music, too. Plays the bagpipes.”
Oh, crap. Well. Yeah. You guessed it. My first “official” meeting with Robin resulted in another short rumble. But we came to terms, since he realized that he had to keep me based on centuries-old Arcane Library Cat Legislation. I even got to move into his townhouse! Win win except for Robin.
So, none of this really explains how I got to play for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Let’s just say that I practiced a lot and … they’re not too bright. Plus they were desperately needy for a seventh violinist NOW. And you’ll never guess what they were performing …
CLAN MUNRO COMIC STRIP NO. 77: THE McTAVISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Posted on May 28, 2025
Yes, McTavish is still on the lam. He’s had a variety of unsuccessful jobs. Stand up comic. Short order cook. And all the disasters he wrote about in his latest blog post, which you can see here!
Most of all, though … McTavish plays the violin? Well enough to get a gig with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra? Who knew? We’re just as surprised as you are!
He is about to enlighten us, you’ll be thrilled to know, in a new blog, which he will be posting soon(ish).
CLAN MUNRO COMIC STRIP NO. 76: DON’T MESS WITH CACTI
Posted on April 10, 2025
Has Duff learned his lesson? Will he stick to more traditional security methods? Not likely …
If you didn’t see how this happened, please take a look right here!
CLAN MUNRO COMIC STRIP NO. 75: INNOVATIVE SECURITY
Posted on February 11, 2025
The long-awaited Jewels of Alba exhibition is finally open. The innovative security arrangements are getting mixed reviews …
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