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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.

  • Je crie, donc je suis (Partie 3)

    My mum came to stay with us last week, for a few days. Her cat, Zelva, rarely meows, something which my brain cannot even begin to fathom, so it was quite a contrast for her to spend time with a cat who is the exact opposite and never shuts up. 

    When my mum arrived, Louis Catorze was outside, snoozing in a shady spot. When she went outside to say hello to him, he screamed hello back.

    Her: “Aww. It’s so nice to hear him speak. Zelva hardly ever does.”

    Me: “Be careful what you wish for.”

    As expected, the initial hello-scream then broke the seal, triggering an unstoppable torrent of screaming. And it went on. And on. AND ON. 

    Astonishingly, my mum thought it was cute. Even when Catorze went quiet, she couldn’t resist giving him little squeezes as he lay between us on the sofa, knowing that he vocalises when stroked. Although in Rest Mode, Catorze loved the attention and let out a little chirp with every touch. 

    When Catorze’s Night Mode was activated, it was as if he’d taken amphetamines. Watching people getting ready for bed was the most exciting thing in the world, despite him not usually being interested. And, between the hours of 6:20am and 6:40am, he went back and forth between my room and my mum’s, screaming and screaming. (Cat Daddy, however, was left to sleep peacefully and remained completely oblivious of all the drama.)

    My mum wasn’t even annoyed by the screaming. In fact, not only did she engage with it by replying to Catorze and cuddling him, but she gave him a get-out by claiming that she was awake anyway. Even if true, this was not the point. The point was the PRINCIPLE of being screamed at, over and over again, from 6:20am onwards, when it could have been avoided.

    Oh, and, when I went downstairs and checked Catorze’s bowl, he had plenty of food, so he wasn’t screaming with hunger. We suspect he just wanted attention, but it’s more likely that we will never find out the exact reason. 

    By the time my mum went home, I expected her to be heartily sick of Catorze’s noise. But, instead, she said she would happily live with such a screamy cat. No, we don’t understand it, either, but we’re here if she ever fancies a cat swap.

    Taking a brief break from screaming.

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

  • Faire la grasse matinée

    Louis Catorze didn’t come to be fed yesterday morning, which is highly unusual for him. I went about my usual morning routine, expectantly looking out for his up-tail sailing past and listening out for his voice, but there was no sign of him. 

    Catorze doesn’t tend to wander far, and we have learned from experience that, if he goes missing, we should give it at least three days before we start to worry. However, wandering into a searingly-hot greenhouse during a heatwave is exactly the sort of thing he would do; in the back of my mind was the displeasing vision of him on a neighbour’s premises, having dried up into a brittle crisp in an outbuilding somewhere. 

    I messaged Cat Daddy from work and asked him to send me proof of Catorzian life. And it didn’t take long. I probably should have looked here first:

    Ha!

    Catorze was never missing; the little sod had overslept because he and Cat Daddy had stayed up late together to watch Scotland v Brazil. 

    And, naturellement, upon finding his boy, Cat Daddy then opened the awning so that Catorze would be protected from the sun.

    Here he is again, having just had his SECOND ice cube massage of the day. You won’t be surprised to know that he’s now started to scream, headbutting and claw us when he wants them: 

    Absolutely drenched yet loving it.

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

  • Les armées vertes 

    Which languages do you speak, and how does that impact your life?

    Louis Catorze is a highly-skilled polyglot, able to communicate with humans, dogs, foxes, squirrels and birds. However, they don’t usually want to hear what he has to say, so it impacts his life by gaining him enemies. This isn’t great.

    One day, I was lucky enough to be able to witness this communication in action, although I don’t believe that anything good was being said by either party.

    I follow a writer and influencer on Instagram who specialises in female hormones, and recently she recommended spending the first half hour of the morning without your phone and, instead, going outside and getting a few minutes of sunlight. Apparently early morning sun in your face helps to regulate your sleep-wake cycle, something which has really gone to merde lately due to the heat.

    I decided to give this a try one morning and, naturellement, it resulted in one of those classic “Dammit, I wish I had my phone on me” moments. This would have been INCREDIBLE to capture on video because nobody will believe that it actually happened, but tant pis. 

    I settled on the outdoor sofa with a blanket and was soon joined by Catorze. It was beautifully peaceful out there … until a parakeet landed on one of the telegraph wires overhead and stared, dead-eyed, at Catorze, who was on my lap. 

    Then the screeching started. 

    If you live in London, you will know what a God-awful thing it is to hear the parakeets screeching. The little bastards start before sunrise and stop whenever they want (or not at all). However, this time, Catorze decided to reply back to the feathered aggressor. And, at one point, they were actually alternating sounds, as if having a proper conversation: 

    “Screech!”

    “Mwah!” 

    “Screeeech!”

    “Mwah!”

    “SCREEEEEEECH!”

    “Mwah!”

    It really was as literal as that, with each avian utterance followed by a feline one. And, whilst Catorze’s mwahs remained gentle and low, the parakeet’s screeches rose progressively in volume and pitch, as if he were becoming angrier and angrier.

    If you’ve ever been in an argument with someone, only for them to mutter something after you thought YOU’D had the last word, this is exactly what it was like. The parakeet was the Last Worder and Catorze, the Post-Last-Word Mutterer determined to make him madder (and doing a fine job, I might add) by remaining irritatingly nonchalant and saying random shit when the argument was supposed to be over.

    And all of this took place with Catorze on my lap, therefore drawing me into the conflict whether or not I wanted to be involved. 

    I don’t know whether parakeets, like crows and magpies, remember the faces of those who have pissed them off. I’m really not in the mood for all-out war with the parakeets, so let’s hope that this one will only remember Catorze and forget that I was ever there. 

    For all those who believe that cats only mwah at humans, have a look at the video below. THERE IS MWAHHING. 

    Bird flapping, cat mwahhing.

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

  • Une chaleur infernale

    Merde: we have another heatwave this week, with severe weather warnings in London today and tomorrow. 

    What the absolute NOOOOO.
    Also: why do 30°C and 35°C warrant warnings but 37°C doesn’t?

    This week, Cat Daddy will be spending a whole day babysitting a two- and a five-year-old. I will be teaching teenagers and taking a group of them on a theatre trip. I don’t know which of us will have the worse time – I think probably him – but we are bracing ourselves for the most horrendous week of our lives. 

    Meanwhile, Louis Catorze will be snoozing in shady spots all day then, when we return home, enjoying ice cube massages. Despite heatwaves being bad news for black animals covered in fur, his week will be far from the most horrendous of his life. In fact, he will have a blast. 

    Something about this arrangement doesn’t quite seem fair, yet here we are. And I bet you have a similar sort of deal with your furry overlords, don’t you? 

    It’s all right for some.

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

  • L’été de nos seize ans

    My favourite Catorzian summer photo.

    Cat Daddy, to Louis Catorze: “Why are you lazing around indoors when it’s such a beautiful day? Why aren’t you outside, enjoying your last summer?”

    Me: “What do you mean, “last summer”? You think he won’t have any more? Not even one?”

    Cat Daddy: “SEVENTEEN, though? Come on.”

    Why not? After all, we didn’t think sixteen were a possibility, yet here we are. And, aside from old man white hairs, extra neediness, and a lesser desire to scale the garden fence every evening, we aren’t really seeing any signs of his age. 

    Considering making the leap … then NOPING the hell out of it.

    Joyeux Solstice à tous. Hope you and your furry overlords/ladies have a wonderful weekend. 

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

  • L’eau seule est éternelle

    If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be and why?

    I’m not sure whether it’s a “skill” as such, but Louis Catorze would be master and commander of storms. He loves them so much that, as soon as he hears thunder or rainfall, he stops whatever he’s doing (which, usually, isn’t a lot) and runs outside.

    His favourite thing is sitting underneath the outdoor table and listening to the rain fall around him. And his second favourite thing is jumping onto the table and licking up the pooled rainwater. 

    Yes, that black lump is him.

    A few days ago, I saw him atop the table having a good old drink. This was absolutely nothing unusual. But, after he’d finished, he came indoors and had an equally good old drink from his indoor glass. 

    There was plenty of water in each place for him to have guzzled with gay abandon, without needing further water from the second place.

    So why did he do it? Does he require … a rainwater main course followed by a tap water pudding? 

    Main course: yum.
    “Would you like to see the dessert menu, Seigneur?”

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

  • El juego bonito

    The World Cup started last week. This is great for Cat Daddy and me, because it will be wall-to-wall football for the next month or so. It’s even better for Louis Catorze, because we’ve planned a couple of watch parties and MEN will be visiting us. 

    Apologies to all French people for this.

    Cat Daddy: “We should do a sweepstake. Nothing complicated, just split the top twelve teams randomly between the three of us.”

    Me: “The THREE of us? So Louis Catorze will also take part?”

    Him, as if addressing a very young, stupid child: “Yes. Why not?”

    Mesdames et Messieurs, you heard it here first: it was Cat Daddy’s idea, and not mine, to include our cat in a World Cup sweepstake. 

    Somehow, we didn’t quite get around to drawing teams, and we only realised when the opening ceremony started just ahead of the Mexico-South Africa game. 

    Me: “I might ask Google Gemini to allocate them for us. It’ll be a lot quicker than manually writing down names and cutting them out with scissors.”

    Cat Daddy: “Oh. Can AI do that?”

    Me: “Yes. Plus Google Gemini is one of the sponsors of the World Cup, so what could go wrong? 

    What could go wrong, indeed? 

    This was Google Gemini’s effort, following my instruction of “Split the twelve highest-ranking World Cup teams randomly between three people”: 

    My teams:

    • Brazil
    • Germany
    • Croatia
    • France

    Cat Daddy’s teams:

    • Argentina
    • Portugal
    • Morocco
    • England

    Catorze’s teams:

    • Spain
    • Netherlands
    • Belgium
    • Italy

    The eagle-eyed among us will have spotted that Italy are not taking part this year. 

    Cat Daddy: “Let’s just leave him with Italy, so that he’ll lose.”

    Wow. Sabotaging a cat’s chances of winning a prize? That’s a special level of low. 

    Although I always support France anyway, somehow I feel it’s more fitting for Catorze to have them in the sweepstake. So I might give France to him, whilst I complete my set with the next-highest in the ranking (apparently Colombia). 

    Anyway, the human winner’s prize will be a meal out, paid for by the other human. And Catorze, should he come top, will win a night sleeping next to Cat Daddy in the attic bedroom, something that he has always wanted but never been allowed (apart from that one time when Cat Daddy was a bit drunk and didn’t realise he’d let him in). 

    As this will, most likely, be Catorze’s last World Cup, I’m backing him to win. 

    You cat take the chat out of France …

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

  • “Non” est une phrase complète

    Write your guide to setting healthy boundaries in relationships.

    Louis Catorze has had a busy weekend, with the second of his birthday flotilla parties taking place. He wore himself out by screaming himself senseless at his guests but, luckily, they are cat people so they understood.

    At first, they described his screaming as “not that bad”. I’m not sure that they still felt this way by the time they left.

    As for healthy boundaries, I don’t think anyone who lives with a cat has the right to preach about them. Cats are all massively selfish narcissists who treat us like dirt. And we let it happen. 

    Here are just a few examples of Catorze’s behaviour: 

    • Ignoring us for much of the day, then deciding to be our friend again when we’re eating fish or cheese. 
    • Pretending to be my friend, then dropping me like a hot rock when a better person (usually a man – any man, not necessarily just Cat Daddy) comes along. 
    • Frenzied parkour across my bed at night. (He doesn’t actually want anything. This is just for fun.)
    • Headbutting and clawing when he wants attention. (Yes, sometimes he digs his claws into bare skin. Yes, it hurts.)
    • Screaming. Oh dear God, the screaming. (I realise that it’s becoming boring hearing me complain about this. And you’d think there’d be a ceiling – or “floor”? – in terms of how much it can deteriorate. But, every time I think we’ve reached the limit, it worsens in volume, frequency, duration and tone.)

    87% of his behaviour, at least, is the kind of stupid shit that nobody would accept in a million years if a human did it. Yet here we are, not just tolerating/enabling this treatment but also paying handsomely to keep the little bastard healthy and happy. 

    Is this like living under an autocratic dictatorship? Or, worse, is it more like a hostage situation? 

    Bastard cat.

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

  • Little Bastet

    What’s a cultural tradition from another country that you wish existed in yours?

    In Ancient Egypt, cats were worshipped as gods. I expect Louis Catorze wishes that the rest of the world would also OH NEVER MIND.

    “Worship moi. Ok, you can go now.”

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

  • Les empoisonneurs rayés

    Cat Daddy and I have just spent a few days in East Sussex, visiting my sister and her family. If you ever thought your cat was an insufferable pest when it came to food, you really ought to meet South Coast seagulls, whose food-bullying is like nothing on earth. 

    These evil, feathered demons think nothing of causing you physical pain if there’s even the slightest chance that you might surrender your last chip, scratching any exposed flesh that they can reach. They’re even known to deliberately target children because they’re smaller and more vulnerable, and they know what time and where the snack-laden school pick-ups take place.

    If you’re ever wondered what a baby seagull looks like, voilà. If you see one looking lost and distressed, IT’S A TRAP.

    My younger niece, aged seven, made the fatal mistake of holding her doughnut just a little too high in the air, whilst in the playground during our visit. She won’t be doing that again. 

    Anyway, one rather unfortunate discovery during our time away was that my tabby cat allergy, which I thought had gone away, is back. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: freakish though it sounds, it is possible to be allergic to cats of some colours but not others, and tabbies are my kryptonite. 

    Naturellement, this meant that Otis and Roux did everything felinely possible to cover me and my belongings in their fur. Otis woke me at some excruciating hour with his peculiar meow, sounding just like an affronted seagull, then slept on my stomach. As for Roux (whose voice also sounds like that of an affronted seagull), this is how I found her on our second night there:

    Might I add that she was on my side of the suitcase, leaving Cat Daddy’s clothes completely untouched.

    I have visited Otis and Roux in the past without triggering my allergic symptoms. Do allergies just disappear and reappear? Or could it be the fact that this visit took place during peak hay fever season, when my histamine hackles are already in a state of high alert, causing the problem to be so much worse?  

    Bastard poisoner.
    Bastard poisoner.

    As part of my quest to find out, I am planning a trip to Mothra in a couple of weeks’ time. It will be very interesting to note any responses, or lack thereof, as Mothra’s fur is very different from Otis and Roux, both in texture and in the type of tabbiness. 

    Mothra’s body is more mottled than striped. Also: Mothra wants sushi.

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

  • Ni manger, ni vivre (Partie 23) 

    Cat Daddy and I have just finished the last of Louis Catorze’s birthday hot-smoked salmon. And the whole débâcle drove Catorze absolutely insane from start to bitter end. Cathie, if you’re reading this, this is your fault. 

    First of all, there was the screaming. “But he screams all the time anyway.” Trust me, we know this. But, when hot-smoked salmon is involved, it’s so much worse than usual: louder, longer, more urgent, and with at least 738 utterances which we have never heard before.

    Then there was the disturbing flicking of his head from side to side, sniffing the air like a Jurassic Park velociraptor. Occasionally he would go to his plate and sniff it, to see if the irresistible aroma was coming from there. And, when he discovered that it wasn’t, he would turn to us, glare threateningly and let out the most agonised, ungodly wail. “Perhaps my loving êtres humains have put some salmon in my OF COURSE THEY HAVEN’T, THE SELFISH CONNARDS!”

    I also had to repeatedly wrestle him off the kitchen worktop, where the hot-smoked salmon had been placed. Yes, he only weighs 2.78kg, and I weigh considerably more. You would be surprised at how difficult it is to remove a small cat from a place when he doesn’t want to be removed, especially when said cat is able to summon, at will, the strength of ten angry grizzly bears. 

    Anyway, the hot-smoked salmon is now gone, and we won’t have to worry about the bullying and intimidation until the next time we want to eat it. But that’s just kicking the can down the road until the next time we eat it, isn’t it? The little sod is going to get us at some point. 

    Manifesting the next round of hot-smoked salmon.

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

  • Die Katze, die Mäuse fängt, ist gut, aber die Katze, die sie verscheucht, ist ebenso gut

    Share a proverb you think is completely wrong and make your case.

    The above proverb means, “The cat who frightens mice away is as good as the cat who eats them”. It’s not that I think this proverb is WRONG, as such. It’s more that I’m mystified as to how my family has ended up with cats who neither frighten nor eat mice but who, instead, bring them into the house and leave them to run riot. 

    Perhaps we ought to invent a new proverb, as follows: “Useless is the cat who brings mice into a place where there were previously none.”

    Otis and Roux: useless.
    Louis Catorze: equally useless.

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

  • Tu vas faire de moi un de ces gros chats domestiques, inutiles et contents

    What’s a moment in your life that felt like it was straight out of a film?

    Unbelievably, despite being witchy, I haven’t actually seen THAT many films or TV shows about witchy women. But I know that every single one of them ought to share a house with a black cat and, if that cat also happened to have vampire teeth, so much the better.

    Louis Catorze is getting his Hocus Pocus on.

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

  • 34°C à l’ombre

    It really wasn’t fun last week, having to endure searing heat whilst living in a small, terraced London house designed for temperate-to-cold weather. Even my Oura ring thought I was dying: 

    Yikes.

    It wasn’t easy for black animals covered in fur, either. But Louis Catorze managed to tolerate the raging hellfire, partly due to knowing all the cool places in which to hide (such as under the thick tarpaulin covering Cat Daddy’s bike), but mostly thanks to us skivvying around to ensure his wellbeing before our own. 

    This is what we did to make sure he was comfortable: 

    • Storing his Cool Cat Club canned wet food in the fridge, and serving it cold. No, he didn’t like fridge-cold food before. But he does now.
    • Placing ice cubes in his water. However, he is quite disconcerted by the sight and sound of them bobbing around on the surface, and prefers to wait until they are fully melted before drinking. So the onus is on us to know when he wants a drink, then go back in time and add the ice cubes fifteen minutes prior.
    • Ice cube massages. These are non-negotiable, and Catorze has just discovered that combining them with a fan is extra enjoyable, despite never liking the fan until now. 
    • Cushions on the outdoor sofa 24/7, so that he can sleep there all night and avoid the furnace-hot Château. 

    If you didn’t do any or all of the above for your cat, then what the hell is wrong with you? Get to it, inefficient humans! You still have time to organise yourself before the next heatwave.

    As soon as Cat Daddy’s guitar came out, Catorze was off outside. Yes, he chose a slow death by heatstroke over hearing even one chord of REM’s Everybody Hurts. 
    An ice cube AND the fan, y’say? Ouais! (And, just out of shot, there is an ice cube resting on his rump.)

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