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.

  • La télévision a chassé l’âme du foyer

    Our front room television never works first thing in the morning, with some unseen force appearing to have pulled cables loose. Now, I know that Louis Catorze may have previous when it comes to this kind of caper, but that was a long time ago and he’s calmed down since then, right? RIGHT? 

    I tried using Blu-Tac to secure the slippery wires but to no avail, so I suggested to Cat Daddy that perhaps they were faulty and we needed to buy some new ones. He refused, saying that some of them were quite new, and accused Catorze of causing the problem. 

    Non. Not Catorze. I don’t mean that in a Dot-Cotton-from-EastEnders “My Nick’s a good boy” kind of way*, but he just doesn’t have the energy or the inclination. Now that he’s an old man of fifteen and a half, surely he has better things to do than to arse around late at night with a bunch of wires? (And it would have to be late at night, since the little sod is under our supervision for pretty much the entire time that he’s in the house.) 

    *Younger, non-British followers: ask your older British friends. 

    Then Cat Daddy sent me this (the text is his, too). The shapeless shadow, circled, is Catorze: 

    “Mess It Up, y’say, Sir Mick? D’accord.”

    Oh dear. Is it too late to roll out the old “It must have been some other black cat” line? 

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

  • Ta voix sur la ligne me donne une étrange sensation

    What do you complain about the most?

    Louis Catorze is always complaining about something. Sadly, nobody knows what. 

    Yes, he even lodges aerial complaints, like this.

    His screaming is getting worse. Worse in volume, worse in frequency and worse in tone. The one thing that seems to shut him up is me picking up my phone to record it, which he’s absolutely doing on purpose to make you think I’m lying. 

    Cat Daddy: “Could you get his voice made into a ringtone? Maybe you could sell it on your blog with the other Louis Catorze merchandise.” (The way he says “the other Louis Catorze merchandise” makes it sound as if this is something I’ve planned to do. Believe me, it’s not.) 

    Me: “Who the hell would want that on their phone, never mind pay money for it?”

    Cat Daddy: “Someone somewhere might.”

    No, they wouldn’t. I’d make far more money getting one of my Year 11 Computer Science students to send out Catorze’s voice as a virus. Then I’d charge people a flat fee to have it removed, and a monthly subscription to keep it away.

    What do you think, Mesdames et Messieurs? Would you go for a Catorzian scream as your ringtone? 

    Perhaps it would make you super-efficient at work, as you’d be answering your phone very quickly every time? Or are you of the view that you like having functioning eardrums? 

    Sorry, wrong number.

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

  • Qui blâme la peinture blâme la nature

    Because Rodan and Mothra didn’t seem to be using their Mona Lisa cat scratcher and bed combo, my sister brought it downstairs with a view to photographing it for sale. 

    Naturellement that was when they decided that, actually, perhaps they would use it, after all: 

    What a piece of work.
    The Mothra Lisa.

    I predict that this new-found enthusiasm will last until my sister takes the darned thing back upstairs again, only to resume when she decides to pass it on. 

    Bastard cats. 

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

  • Quand la routine ronge

    Our cleaning lady was off last week, so we had a new lady take over just for one day. Due to a misunderstanding, she arrived an hour early and we weren’t ready at all. 

    Now, as a society, we have been conditioned to dislike latecomers. However, nothing sends me into a tailspin as much as someone arriving unexpectedly early, especially when there’s a ton of stuff that you were meant to do in preparation for their visit. We once had weekend guests arrive early when I was right in the middle of making up their beds. “It’s good to be early, isn’t it?” they breezily declared. 

    No, it’s not. Not like this. 

    Anyway, in my blind panic upon opening the door and discovering that it wasn’t my Evri delivery, I managed to step on Louis Catorze. He loves visitors – friends, neighbours, delivery drivers, tradesmen, trick-or-treaters – therefore, naturellement, he had to come to the door to see what was happening, and I just didn’t see him. So Nadia was greeted by me shrieking, “YOU’RE EARLY!” when she thought she was on time, plus a screaming, hissing cat adding to the general chaos and cacophony. 

    After a panic-tidy of the horrendous bulldozed mess that was Le Château, so that Nadia could actually see the surfaces and the floor, Cat Daddy and I sheltered in the living room to keep out of her way. Catorze, however, chose to remain wherever Nadia was, all the while screaming and screaming. 

    We then had a decision to make: leave him to torture poor Nadia with the screaming for another three hours, or confine him to the living room with us and suffer the screaming ourselves. 

    In the end we chose to take the bullet for Nadia. 

    Catorze, bouncing around the room: “Mwah! Mwah! Mwahhhh!”

    Cat Daddy: “[Unrepeatable Expletives.]”

    Catorze: “MWAHHHH!”

    Cat Daddy: “[Even worse Unrepeatable Expletives.]”

    Catorze: [Digs claws into Cat Daddy’s fingers.]

    Cat Daddy: “[Unrepeatable Expletives of the Worst Kind.]”

    And so it continued, until Cat Daddy put on a football podcast and Catorze was immediately soothed by the sound of complaining male voices. The little sod snapped out of his manic mood and just settled quietly, listening with great interest to Nottingham Forest’s injury and transfer updates. 

    Someday things will just be nice and normal here. Or … maybe this IS our normal? 

    Catorze might subscribe permanently to Forest Focus.

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

  • Le temps passé avec un chat n’est jamais perdu 

    What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

    To talk about a cat’s “leisure time” would suggest that the rest of their time is spent working. Of course it’s not. Louis Catorze wouldn’t know work if it kicked him up the arse. 

    So he doesn’t have “leisure time”; he just has “time”. And, right now, he seems to enjoy spending his time with us. Yes, even me. 

    The little sod follows us wherever we go. He’s next to me when I wake up in the morning, and after I leave for work he goes to Cat Daddy and screams for him to wake up. The evenings are his favourite time because we’re both around, and he’s so overstimulated by having a choice of laps that he goes from one to the other and back again, numerous times. (Cat Daddy once tried to count and gave up after ten.)

    Cat Daddy occasionally gets annoyed with Catorze’s neediness, especially when he steps on the remote control in his haste to snuggle his papa, switching off whatever we are watching on television. But then I remind Cat Daddy that our next cat could end up being some miserable shite who despises us*, and he realises how lucky we are to have one who doesn’t. 

    *If you’re wondering why we would choose a miserable shite for a pet, you can’t usually tell whether or not they’re a miserable shite when you view them at the rescue. And, once we’d chosen one, it would be embarrassing to then return it, saying, “They’re just too much of a miserable shite”.

    So we’re making the most of having an affectionate, cuddly lap cat, knowing that, this summer, when the urge for Rodent Duty takes over, we will hardly see Catorze. 

    And, no: Rodent Duty, whatever the name may suggest, still isn’t work.

    An old photo demonstrating that inability to catch rodents does not prevent one from conducting The Duty.

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

  • 12,7 minutes  

    A couple of mornings ago, when switching off my alarm, I dropped my phone under the bed. And, rather than go under the bed to try to rescue it, I decided, instead, that it would be a good idea to reach for it by sticking my arm between the wooden slats of the headboard.

    You know where this is going, don’t? 

    Yes, that’s right: my arm became firmly stuck. And, the more I wriggled and writhed, the more my arm started to swell, trapping me with ever-increasing permanence. 

    I couldn’t call Cat Daddy for help as he was asleep in the attic bedroom (and, in the unlikely event of him hearing me, he would have laughed and taken pictures instead of helping me). Nor could I use my phone to ring him, as it was still under the bed and I had disabled Siri some time ago. The only way of retrieving it would have been to use the other arm and risk getting that stuck, too. 

    The good news is that the cavalry did arrive to help me. The bad news is that it was in the form of Louis Catorze.

    Despite supposedly having excellent intuition, Catorze couldn’t figure out that I was genuinely stuck and not just lying around with my arm through the headboard for fun. Or (and this is more likely) maybe he did know, but he didn’t care because I was late serving breakfast and that was the biggest issue at hand. 

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: the cat who, for his whole life, has been ambivalent about food, decided that this was the time when food punctuality suddenly became very important. He also decided that he had to inform me of his epiphany. Which he did, very loudly, again and again, with a bit of headbutting thrown in for good measure.

    Eventually I did manage to free myself and, painful though it was, at least I didn’t lose any limbs, as poor James Franco did. 

    However, how different would that film have been, had he had a screaming black cat attacking him as he lay with his arm trapped under a rock? 

    Thanks, but I’d rather cut off a limb.

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

  • À trop parler, on en oublie de manger

    After stuffing his face whilst in the care of Blue the Smoke Bengal’s mamma, and looking distinctly meatier and better even though we were only away for two nights, Louis Catorze is back to eating bugger all again. 

    For the ten days or so leading up to our weekend away, I barely saw Catorze eat at all, to the point where I wondered whether he could even see his food. Then Cat Daddy and I had this exchange on WhatsApp: 

    Not blind, apparently.

    No chat-sitteur has ever commented on Catorze’s immense appetite before. I even asked Blue’s mamma to check that it was definitely him, and she could tell by his gut-wrenching screaming that it was. 

    Now he is, once again, picking hesitantly at his food. And, as if the pair of them are on some sort of synchronised practical joke, Blue is screaming for more food even after he’s been fed, something that he never does when I chat-sit him. 

    What on earth should we do about the pair of them, except perhaps arrange for me to become Blue’s permanent feeder and his mamma to come here and feed Catorze? 

    Just eat the food, dammit.
    Just be quiet, dammit.

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

  • Partage mon lit chaque fois qu’il fait gris

    Some time ago, Louis Catorze stopped coming up to bed with me. I simply assumed that he’d found a more fun thing to do at night – you know, harassing foxes, summoning demons, that kind of thing. So, now, when Cat Daddy comes up to bed long after I’ve gone to sleep, he brings Catorze up with him – if he can find him, that is.

    Most of the time I sleep through this. However, occasionally I’m semi-aware of my red lamp being switched off and a miniature cat being dumped onto my bed.

    And Catorze, once on my bed, often stays there all night, and is next to me when I wake up in the morning. I hope that this continues throughout the winter, because nothing comforts me more than knowing he’s there. (Mainly because I know he’s not up to mischief elsewhere in the neighbourhood.)

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

  • Ni manger, ni vivre (Partie 21)

    Part 21. I bet you thought that this sorry saga was in the past, didn’t you? Well, it’s not.

    Cat Daddy and I bought ourselves some hot-smoked salmon as a New Year treat. We took some to a friend’s house and ate it there, so that we could enjoy it in peace without being bullied and intimidated by Louis Catorze. And we decided to finish the last of it at home, on an especially cold day, when we knew that the little sod would be buried so deeply in his igloo that not even tear gas would shake him out. 

    It seems that we hugely underestimated the power of the hot-smoked salmon’s come-hither aroma. This was, after all, not only the food that Catorze stole from my plate, but the food that drove him to go on hunger strike for two days when I didn’t give him more. (Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: Catorze would rather starve to death slowly than be forced to eat his second choice of food, even if said food was perfectly acceptable to him prior to encountering his top choice.)

    Anyway, the hot-smoked salmon flushed Catorze out of his igloo with the speed and devastating efficacy of an atomic bomb. And, for the remainder of our meal, we were subjected to this: 

    Go away.

    And this: 

    Go away.

    And this:

    GO AWAY.

    Note that his bowl, in the background, was full. 

    Ordinarily, we would have no objection to sharing a few slivers of good fish with an ageing animal approaching the end of his life. But do we want to feed him nothing but hot-smoked salmon for the rest of his days? And, knowing him, he would probably then go on to live for another fifteen years, just to spite us.

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

  • Le projet du chat à l’infini

    Think back on your most memorable road trip.

    This road trip didn’t actually happen because the surplus cat was busted beforehand. But, had the little sod got away with it, it would have been a hell of an adventure. Can you picture this scenario: travelling to the vet in the car, opening up the transportation pod during the consultation and finding an extra cat in there?

    Louis Catorze’s ami Penfold had an appointment recently, so his human put him into his pod, then went to put on her coat. Imagine her surprise when she returned to find another cat in the pod with Penfold. 

    The other cat was Penfold’s sister Indie and not just some arbitrary cat off the street (although that would have been side-splittingly hilarious). But why? And, more to the point, HOW? 

    “This pod feels unusually heavy. WAIT … WHAT?”

    Perhaps your first thought was that the pod hadn’t been locked properly, allowing Indie in. But, if that were the case, how did she manage to lock it after herself, once in? 

    Anyway, Indie was unceremoniously turfed out, which was quite a challenge as Penfold was desperate to escape at the same time. And, eventually, the right number of cats made it to the vet. 

    However, now that we know that they can do this, should we all be checking for extra passengers prior to every vet visit? Or – and this is a deeply disturbing thought – once secured in the pod, are they able to CLONE THEMSELVES?

    Actual footage of Indie entering the pod.

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

  • L’aïeul orange 

    Cat Daddy and I have just spent the weekend with his sister and brother-in-law. Part of that involved sorting through boxes of their dad’s belongings, some of which dated back to before World War II. 

    Among the war memorabilia, the books and the letters, we found this photo: 

    The front.
    The back.

    We always knew that he was a Cat Man, but until now we had no idea that Louis Catorze’s Cat Grandpa had a cat called Lewis. Judging from this picture, it looks as if Lewis was a ginge, so Cat Grandpa clearly had a penchant for the naughty ones (which explains why he got on so well with Catorze). The thought of the war hero returning home to his orange cat makes our hearts glow. 

    So, however much he may protest, and whether he likes it or not, Cat Daddy has catness in his blood. Ha. 

    Meanwhile, back in TW8, Blue the Smoke Bengal’s mamma, who was feeding Catorze in our absence, reported that the little sod had a “big appetite” and ate “every scrap of food” served. This is the same cat who, when I dish up his Orijen, sniffs it, gives me the “And what the hell do you call THIS shit?” look, then walks away. 

    Here he is, about twenty minutes after our return, wailing pathetically at the food I’ve just given him – which is the EXACT SAME FOOD that he had during our absence:

    Apologies for the football commentary in the background.

    Please, someone, explain this beast?

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

  • Mission: implacable

    What is your mission?

    To annoy the merde out of as many people as possible, and to have a great time doing it.

    Mission almost accomplished. If he’s not yet reached you, there’s still time.

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

  • Le monde devant soi 

    Apart from the snow – which was only the lightest dusting, and it didn’t last – my one wish for 2026 was for Louis Catorze to stop escaping out at The Front every night. I wanted it so much that even lit a candle and whispered my wish to the spirits of the Wolf Moon at the start of the month. 

    No Official Winter Portrait, but perhaps Catorze’s pulsating fur cracks could become the latest one of those ASMR videos?

    The spirits listened, and they did as I asked. Catorze no longer escapes out at The Front every night. 

    He has started doing it in the morning instead. (Note: they did as I ASKED, not as I wanted.)

    Did someone say “bad moon rising”?

    Sometimes, when you complain about something, the universe delivers you a curveball which is worse, making you wonder if, perhaps, that first thing wasn’t so bad after all. When Catorze escaped at The Front at night, whilst massively annoying and inconvenient, at least I could hand the baton to Cat Daddy* if I tired of waiting up for the little sod. 

    *With varying levels of success, depending on alcohol consumed.

    However, when he does it in the morning, there’s more traffic, and the street is busier which means more people are available to be offended by the gut-churning screaming. There’s a good hour and a half between me leaving for work and Cat Daddy rising from his pit, which means Catorze is completely unsupervised. And, of course, it’s daylight, which means there is little-to-no chance of convincingly using the “It must have been some other black cat” lie excuse defence.

    The only solution to this is having to be extra vigilant when I open the front door in the mornings. I already find mornings a stressful rush, so having to add something else that my to-do list isn’t particularly welcome. But then, as I have said many times in the past, my convenience is irrelevant. It’s all about the Dark Master. 

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

  • Laissez les bons temps rouler

    What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

    At fifteen and a half, Louis Catorze has already lived a much longer life than anyone ever expected of him. However, it’s unlikely that he has any thoughts on it. In fact, I highly doubt that he even knows (or cares) what “living a long life” is. 

    Catorze’s journey through his senior years is no different from the way in which he pitter-pattered through his younger years: food, water, freedom to roam, the best medical care (perhaps administered a little more frequently than before, but that’s our problem, not his) and abundant love from everyone that he meets.

    If only we humans could be afforded the same as we age. 

    We’ve already found a retirement home for him. We are it.

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