louiscatorze.com

Je crie, donc je suis

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Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, supreme ruler of Le Château, sworn enemy of canine foe and scourge of Ocado delivery drivers.

  • T’es-tu déjà senti comme un sac plastique?

    If you have ever met a British person, you will know that we all have at least one massive plastic carrier bag in our house, filled with numerous smaller plastic carrier bags. It’s practically the law here in the UK to have one of these; any Brit claiming not to is either a liar or has never been shopping.

    We have such a bag in our dining room, where it sits collecting smaller plastic carrier bags until we have enough for a worthwhile trip to the supermarket to recycle them. One day, Cat Daddy went into the dining room to find the bag upended and its contents strewn across the floor. 

    Naturellement his first thought was … me?

    Sorry, what?

    Now, I admit that, sometimes, when looking for something, I pull everything out of a box or cupboard, and I may be slow at putting everything back again. But THIS? Come on. 

    I think we all know the identity of the guilty party. 

    Louis Catorze frequently sneaks into the dining room and, when we pass by, he either hides or darts out again, as if not wanting to be seen. We also hear noises in there – rustling, banging etc. – but, when we look, we can’t tell what’s out of place and what’s not. So we just leave it, assuming that it’s either Catorze or a poltergeist and knowing that we can’t really do much about either. 

    Obviously, one day, Catorze decided to take advantage of our inefficiency and went wild in there, leaving destruction and devastation in his wake. Cat Daddy picked up all the bags and stuffed them back into the large bag. He also said that Catorze was no longer allowed in the dining room but, given that the little sod has a Cloak of Invisibility, I don’t see how we can possibly stop him. 

    Here is Catorze, photographed at the precise moment that he realised we were powerless against him:

    He’s smiling, isn’t he?

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Manger comme un Roi le matin (Partie 5)

    The flimsy, gossamer-thin silver lining of both of us being at home during Louis Catorze’s food bullying is that the impact is halved. However, when it’s just one of us home alone, that person really does feel the full force of it. 

    Whilst I successfully escape and spend my day with the comparatively cushy task of teaching teenagers, poor Cat Daddy is trapped with a screaming, creepy-staring, gorging cat. This was just one of the messages that he sent me last week (with the Unrepeatable Expletive blanked out for decency): 

    That evening’s Boys’ Club saw Catorze uncharacteristically drained and sleeping through much of the usual sport and rock music video viewing. 

    Cat Daddy, the next day: “I think he’s knackered because he stayed awake all day to get more food. He’s exhausted himself through greediness.”

    Is this even a thing? Oh dear God. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Je ne désire que la tranquillité et le repos 

    The first of Louis Catorze’s birthday flotilla parties took place on Saturday. Sadly, having worn himself out from screaming all morning, the birthday boy let us down by sleeping through most of it, and his guests barely saw him.

    He liked my party dress.
    Catorzian emblem on the apple pie.

    Although it wasn’t blazing sunshine by any means, we were still able to sit outside for a few precious hours.

    When the outdoor sofa is deployed, we know that CST – Catorzian Summer Time – is here. The little sod LOVES the outdoor sofa. However, should anyone join him on it, he’s an absolute pest. For the two hours that I last attempted to sit and read on the outdoor sofa, I was subjected to the following: 

    • Headbutting and nuzzling of my book 
    • Chewing of the ribbon bookmark 
    • Clawing of my arms 
    • Whining like a dying dog … oh dear God, the whining …

    As a result I managed to read a grand total of four (4) pages of my book. Yes, in two hours. And, naturellement, when I put the book down, Catorze decided that he no longer wanted my attention. 

    We have another [checks notes] three months of this. I’m not sure how we will cope, although at least we will be away for two weeks of it.

    Absolute bastard cat.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Ta maman ne danse pas 

    I have decided that, rather than ignoring my Oura ring’s passive-aggressive messages telling me to move my lazy arse, I probably ought to start taking some notice. Otherwise there’s not much point in having a fitness tracker. 

    I have started dancing to try and achieve my step target, either when I come home after school or in the morning when I know it’s going to be a sedentary day. There’s no technique as such, just bouncing around to dance classics from the 90s and the early 2000s. 

    Unfortunately Louis Catorze is not a fan of this at all. 

    The last time I did it, he approached me, rearing up on his hind legs and screaming himself witless. So I decided to, erm, pick him up and dance with him in my arms. 

    He didn’t hate it. But he didn’t love it, either. When I put him back down again, he pitter-pattered off into the hallway and watched from afar, his face a mixture of disdain and sad resignation. 

    Unfortunately I pinged my ankle fifteen minutes in. I’m not super-happy about this but it’s great news for Catorze as he probably won’t have to put up with my dancing again, at least not for a while. It wouldn’t surprised me to learn that he’d summoned the powers of darkness to make this happen. 

    Here he is, making his feelings clear. Disapproval from a distance is still disapproval, non? 

    “You’re embarrassing yourself, salope.”

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Manger comme un Roi le matin (Partie 4)

    Louis Catorze has figured out that, if he creepy-stares for food during my workout, I won’t respond. Now, before you all start piping up in his defence, this is the way it has to be. If I interrupt him things to give him even one tiny morsel, it will condemn me to a fate of having to it forever more. 

    So the little sod has decided to up the stakes by actually sabotaging the workout. 

    Here he is, settling on the mat to stop me from lying on it: 

    Just make yourself comfortable.
    Yes, his new-found gluttony is making him look wonderfully glossy. No, this does not help me in the slightest. 

    Note that he doesn’t scream. The passive-aggressiveness of this, as opposed to the downright aggressive-aggressiveness of screaming, is what makes this so effective.

    He may be old, but he knows what he wants. It would almost be admirable, if it weren’t so annoying.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Arrête de hurler à chaudes larmes

    Cat Daddy and I went to Manchester at the weekend, to watch the football. And it seems that Mancunians are cat people, too: 

    No thanks. We get enough of that at home.

    Despite the weekend being non-stop action, we didn’t realise quite how comparatively peaceful was until we stepped back through the door of Le Château, and the screaming started. 

    These are just a few brief snapshots of what we had to endure upon our return: 

    Screaming is important, but washing is important too.
    Still screaming. Good grief.

    There was plenty more, but it wouldn’t have been fair to subject you to it all. And it wasn’t just the duration or the volume, although both of those were pretty bad. It was also the variety of tone that got under our skin, ranging from “normal” screaming and multi-layered, throaty trills to a horrific, witchy rasp.

    Blue the Smoke Bengal’s mamma has often described Louis Catorze  as “loud” and “chatty”. But, apparently, when she fed him on Sunday morning, his screaming had been “murderous”. And when something is described as “murderous”, that usually isn’t a brilliant sign.

    We wouldn’t mind quite so much if we were able to understand why he screams. But, after twelve years of putting up with his shit living with him, we still don’t know. 

    Cat Daddy: “I really pity [our summer holiday chat-sitteur].”

    OH GOD, OUR SUMMER HOLIDAY CHAT-SITTEUR. Holy hell. She is going to be stuck with the little sod for two whole weeks. 

    Are we doing a morally wrong thing by not warning her about how bad the screaming has become, a bit like selling a house with massive subsidence/damp/poltergeist problems and not declaring them to the estate agent? 

    Or dare we hope that, by the time our holiday rolls around, Catorze will inexplicably decide to behave? 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Vivre sa vie à fond

    If you had to describe your ideal life, what would it look like?

    Free food, free board, the best private healthcare, and being able to do what I liked, with nobody calling me out on my shit behaviour.

    Oh, wait …

    The Dark Master says he’s worth it.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Tu me dis, j’oublie; tu m’enseignes, je me souviens; tu m’impliques, j’apprends

    What do you do to be involved in the community?

    Cat Daddy told me the other day that he had “important neighbourhood news which would permanently change the way we live our lives”. I thought it was going to be about the car parking in our street, or the accursèd number 65 bus which randomly terminates mid-route and boots everyone out in some undesirable location, but Cat Daddy said it was worse than that: Family Next Door will be getting TWO KITTENS. 

    Thrilling news. No, really.

    Cat Daddy: “Louis Catorze’s life will be RUINED.”

    Me: “He’ll be fine. He lived with Blue the Smoke Bengal two doors away and he was fine.”

    Him: “But that’s because Next Door was like a demilitarised No Man’s Land in between. Now it’s not.”

    Me: “He can handle himself.”

    Him: “What if they bully him? He’s never had to deal with a nasty neighbourhood bully cat before.”

    Me: “Erm, that’s because he’s it.”

    [Silence, tumbleweed, crickets.]

    True story, Mesdames et Messieurs: Catorze may be small but he has never shied away from a fight. He once beat up a larger cat so badly that Cat Daddy had to intervene to help the other cat.

    I like to think that Catorze, as the elder statesman of the TW8 cat community, might do his civic duty and become a mentor to the young newcomers. But what is his leadership style? And on which of the following iconic teachers will he model himself?  

    No. (Photo from screenrant.com.)
    Unlikely. (Photo from nzherald.co.nz.)
    Bingo. (Photo from thetelegraph.co.uk.)

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • On partage tant en jouant  

    An Amazon parcel arrived at Le Château the other day. 

    Me: “Is that for me?”

    Cat Daddy: “No, it’s for Louis.”

    Me: “It is not.”

    Him: “Yes, it is. I bought it for him.”

    Me: “You bought him a present?”

    Him, on the defensive: “Yes! What’s wrong with that? Can’t I buy my cat a present if I want?”

    I was quite unsettled by this highly atypical turn of events, especially as Cat Daddy is always complaining about Louis Catorze’s shit cluttering up the house, but I decided to just go along with it. 

    The present is a set of silvervine sticks. You’re likely to have heard of them if you’re a cat person but, if not, they’re a hallucinogenic drug for cats, akin to catnip. So it seems that Cat Daddy just wanted to watch his boy get stoned and have a good laugh about it. 

    Anyway, as if to spite his papa, Catorze isn’t remotely interested in his new toys. He absolutely couldn’t give a shite. So now we’re stuck with five silvervine sticks that will never be used, and Cat Daddy declares that he will never buy Catorze a present again. No, not even if he makes his seventeenth birthday. 

    Here is Catorze, displaying his utter indifference: 

    “Meh.”

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Où est l’orage?  

    List the people whom you admire and to whom you look for advice.

    I don’t have a list. But, if I did, and BBC Weather were on it, they would be firmly crossed off. With opaque permanent marker.

    Mon Dieu: would you believe that the day-long thunderbolts and lightning forecast for Sunday didn’t happen? 

    The weather forecast that I showed in my last post was pretty damning, non? Well, it turns out that it was all lies. Most of the morning was cloudy but not unpleasant – in fact, in many ways, better than being too hot. And, during the afternoon, we even had sun and a few blue sky moments. There was no rain. Not a single drop.

    Cat Daddy is absolutely livid that it was so far off what was promised, and we can’t believe that we called off the party for this. No doubt our friends all think we’re massive idiots for calling off, although they’ve been too polite to say.

    The only positive in this situation is that Catorze had no idea we were throwing him a party. And, had he known, he still wouldn’t have given a shit.

    When your party plans go awry, a nap on a hi-vis cycling jacket is always fun.

    To cheer ourselves up, we have been trying to reschedule. But it’s proving to be quite difficult getting all the original invitees together on the same day. So it looks as if we will have to host a series of parties throughout the summer, with a constant flow of different guests, just like the flotilla from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. And, should the weather turn against us, we will be able to accommodate the smaller groups indoors. 

    The first crew of Catorze’s Sixteenth Birthday Flotilla will be welcomed in a couple of weeks’ time. We will keep you updated about the others. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • La fête reportée 

    Thank you so much to everyone who sent birthday wishes to Louis Catorze.

    There’s nothing quite like a good old scream when you receive a birthday card.
    We gave him a catnip plant for his birthday. He was moderately interested for about a minute and a half.

    Cat Daddy and I made the decision to postpone the Sweet Sixteen party due to the weather. They haven’t just predicted a few showers; it’s an apocalyptic thunderstorm all day, with lightning forecast at 1pm, exactly the time that we had planned to ask everyone to arrive. And, regretfully, we just aren’t able to host that many people for an indoors-only fête. 

    No.

    I don’t know much about the Bible, but I’m pretty sure there’s at least one story about God sending thunderbolts and lightning to lay his vengeance upon some unholy abomination. And, this weekend, Catorze is that unholy abomination. 

    I know. Imagine that. 

    Anyway, the little sod had a lovely birthday, spending the morning racing around the house knocking things over, the afternoon sleeping on a hi-vis cycling jacket (because the freezer bag has been confiscated) and the evening gadding about outside. He even managed to escape out at The Front to charge up under the Beltane full moon: 

    Yes, that shapeless lump on the pavement is him. Yes, he’s rolling where dogs have probably shat.

    We are trying to reschedule the party for sometime in the summer. With half of our guests available for the first proposed date, the other half preferring the second and a small, awkward minority (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) not able to make either, it looks as if we might end up planning multiple parties. 

    Since Catorze loves visitors – he’s one of the few people for whom “the more, the merrier” really applies – I wouldn’t put it past him to have planned this on purpose.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Un anniversaire: un bonheur en plus

    Louis Catorze is sixteen today. And, a few days ago, the lucky boy received a whole side of hot-smoked salmon as a birthday present, from one of his wonderful pilgrims.

    They underlined the instruction on the delivery note. TWICE.

    I was initially against the idea of Catorze having extraneous food whilst being treated for hyperthyroidism. However, since he’s been doing much better on the medication, we have decided that we might allow him a few small pieces of hot-smoked salmon, just this once.

    I know that I have said this before, but never in my life did I think he would live this long. Whatever evil power universal force is keeping him going, we are both grateful and astonished. 

    Cat Daddy, after a few glasses of Pinot: “He thinks it’s all about him. He has no idea about God or the universe.”

    Erm, that’s because he thinks he IS both God and the universe.

    Bon anniversaire, little sod. Here’s to another year of the Sun King lighting up our lives.

    In his happy place atop the outdoor sofa.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Il n’y a plus de rat dans mon jardin 

    Matilda from across the park is ready for Beltane.

    It’s Beltane soon and, this year, it coincides with a full moon. These magical big hitters together usually spell trouble in terms of feline madness, and this year is no exception.

    Rodan climbed next door’s tree and was seen (and heard) massively upsetting a magpie. The humans suspect he was trying to go for the nest, and the disturbance was so bad that they had to resort to the hose.

    I would’ve gone for “It must be some other black cat”, but never mind.

    Meanwhile, Louis Catorze has caught Le Rat. And it’s an absolute giant, a third his size.

    Cat Daddy, later: “It didn’t look that big when we saw it the first time. Obviously it’s had time to grow.” Ugh.

    I was so shocked that I screamed when I found it. I’ve had to deal with dead prey a zillion times so I ought to be used to this by now but, after a completely fallow year last year, we didn’t think Catorze would do it again. The fact that we WANTED him to do it, too, cemented the idea in our minds that he absolutely wouldn’t, just to spite us. 

    My scream was loud enough to draw Cat Daddy. Unfortunately it was also loud enough to draw Catorze who, somehow, managed to arrive first at the scene, even though he was upstairs and Cat Daddy wasn’t. And, sure enough, when the little sod saw that I really didn’t want him to approach the rat, that was exactly what he did. 

    I had dreadful visions of him grabbing it between his jaws, racing upstairs and hiding it in some mystery place, but luckily he then heard Cat Daddy’s voice behind him, decided that his papa was more appealing than a stinking rat corpse, and pitter-pattered off towards him instead. 

    As ever, because I worry about people not believing me when I say how big Catorze’s kills are, I take photos of them with a pound coin for scale. This time was no exception. One person later commented, when I shared the photo, on how tiny the coin seemed alongside the gargantuan rodent. Another said that they almost didn’t spot the coin, because it was so dwarfed by the rat.

    My sister: “I’m pretty sure some people have really small dogs that size.” Saint Jésus.

    For a few horrifying moments we thought we were out of plastic bags, but Cat Daddy eventually found an Ocado one. I transferred the monster (the rat, not Catorze) into the bag before setting off on that familiar, well-worn route to the park bin. Naturellement, being a gloriously sunny day, the park was full of fellow townsfolk enjoying the sights of the sun, the lush, green plants … and me, desperately stuffing a suspicious package into the bin. 

    (Yes, I had to use some force to stuff it in. The rat was so enormous that the package didn’t slide conveniently through the hole, as I had hoped.) 

    At least the Sweet Sixteen party will be a (relatively) ratless zone. But … has our introduction of wet food reignited Catorze’s desire for proper flesh?

    Here he is, pictured not long after the grim discovery. I don’t know what that is on his chin but, if I think too hard about, it I might never want him near me again. 

    That first white bit is his fang. The second could be a drop of rat juice.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • L’amour se dit avec des mots … et des émojis 

    What are your favourite emojis?

    Obviously the black cat emoji 🐈‍⬛ is one of my favourites. And, yes, I am still absolutely enraged that they only introduced it in 2020, whilst the ginger cat, and the weird yellow cat face that looks more like a gerbil, were in existence for years prior to that. 

    However, I actually only use the black cat emoji very rarely. This is partly because I’m not that sure whether Louis Catorze even is a cat. But it’s mostly because the others serve us well in communicating his nonsense to others, especially since we don’t know how to even articulate the stupid shit that he does. 

    To describe him, we often use these: 😈 🧛‍♂️ 👻 🎃 

    And, to describe our feelings towards his bullshit behaviour, we often use these: 🤣😳😱🤦‍♀️😢😖😫🤯😡😬🤢🤮🤷‍♀️

    (Obviously our responses are not limited to just these; Catorze is skilled at eliciting infinite emotions from us, most of them negative.) 

    Here he is, having the cheek to look weary and resigned at OUR behaviour, when it’s very much the other way around: 

    Is there a “monofanged vampire” emoji?

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com