Bonjour! It’s Nancy here – from the soon-to-be world famous pop group Nancy and the Meerkats!
After our first record “Put Your Paws Up” became a massive hit, we’re off on a huge tour of the UK!
We haven’t quite made it to stadium status yet – some of the venues are more Weeny than Wembley – but I’m going to be letting you know what’s been going on each day in my journal for Fun Kids!
We’re actually coming to the end of our tour now! I’ll tell you what, being such a big success has had some amazing benefits!
Like earlier, we were offered some very special showbiz treatment – our very-own rider!
We could ask for whatever we liked and the venue would get it for us! You see they want to keep their headline artist happy – especially a divine diva dog like moi!
So I asked for three packets of pup cakes, and two bottles of pop each, and a TV, and a DVD player, and the internet so we could play Digital Diva Dogs, and laptops for… everyone! Oh, I nearly forgot, and a big poster of Dustin Beaver! And some lovely fuzzy blankies!
Well, that’s what we were supposed to get anyway, and I was so excited to enjoying all our rider treats, but when we got there it wasn’t quite what we had in mind! Instead of all our lovely stuff, they delivered four hundred tinned cans of Meaty Woof!
According to the paperwork, someone had cancelled our order and put in this new one – signed K.P.! Well, we all know who that is! It’s that calculating cat Kitty Perry trying to upset us again!
And what am I supposed to do with four hundred useless tins?
Well, Big Joe didn’t think they were quite as useless as I did. Apparently, tins help food stay fresh for ages – years even!
He was telling us that putting food into sealed containers is something that’s been done for centuries. It was a British merchant called Peter Durand who came up with the idea of using tins in 1810 – and the patent was granted by none other than King George III of England!
What is patenting?
A patent protects inventions.
How they are work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. It means that no-one can copy, make, sell or import your invention without your permission.
Although the tin opener wasn’t invented for until years later so until then you had to use a chisel to get in!
The good news is I came up with a great idea to put our tins to use – by donating them to charity! Charities often like to receive tinned food because it lasts for a long time.
There must be loads of poor pets who are starving and, I mean, most dogs love Meaty Woof… I’m just, you know, more of a cupcake kind of girl!
Listen to this episode of Nancy and the Meerkats below…
And if you want to get really creative, make sure you check out how to protect your cracking ideas! Click here to find out more!
Nancy and the Meerkats is supported by the Intellectual Property Office.
Click here to find out more!