Louis Catorze has started requesting to go out at The Front every evening. He often does this when it’s warm outside and, although I wasn’t keen at first in case he tried to cross the road and consort with marauding youths in the park, so far he seems able to have been sensible and stay on our side.
A couple of nights ago, I let Catorze out and forgot about him. We were so engrossed in a new drama on ITVX that we didn’t remember him for a good few hours, when we paused the television to make a cup of tea and then heard the infernal screaming coming from the front door.
Catorze pitter-pattered in, wild-eyed, psychotic and determined to make us pay for not opening the door more promptly. And the first thing he did was step onto Cat Daddy’s just-operated knee, then kick off from it with his back feet to jump to the floor.
He may only weigh 2.7kg, but this still hurt.
This is as close as he’s now allowed, next to Cat Daddy but absolutely not on him, and only when he’s in a calm mood (Catorze, I mean). And, yes, he is using the Waitrose magazine as a mattress.
If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?
This one from 2017:
Fresh-faced but still not giving a shite.
A couple of days ago, Oscar the dog’s mamma told me that she had seen a large brown rat in their garden. Ever-hopeful, I asked her if she were sure that it wasn’t a very big mouse, or an unusually skinny-tailed squirrel.
She was sure.
I suggested to her that, if she ever saw it again, provided Oscar weren’t in the vicinity, I would happily flick Louis Catorze over Le Mur and let him have a bash at catching it. However, I hadn’t quite expected him to catch it of his own accord, so soon after our conversation. Nor had I expected him to bring the damp, stinky carcass up to our bedroom.
Worse yet, it was our easily-startled cleaning lady who found it. I came home to find her so traumatised that she could barely speak, and eventually I managed to get it out of her that there was a rat in our bedroom. (Once again I said, “Are you sure it’s not a mouse?” although, deep in my heart, I knew.)
As she and I stood staring at it and wondering what the heck to do, Catorze picked that very moment to switch into psycho play mode and attack her feet. Because he ambushed her from behind, she felt him before she saw him and, thinking he was another rat, she screamed as if she had been shot.
I went to look for a bin bag and, naturellement, we didn’t have any, so I had to take the sturdiest plastic bag I could find, which was a Selfridges one. Once Ratty was safely entombed I dropped a 2p coin in with him, hoping it would land squarely on his body and give a sense of scale when I provided people with photographic proof of how big he was. But, unfortunately, it sort of wedged in at his side and, because it was the same colour as his body, it ended up looking more like some sort of cystic growth than a 2p coin, adding to the horror of the whole situation.
Whilst our cleaning lady sat in a corner and cried quietly, I headed for the park bin where so many of Catorze’s victims have been laid to rest, praying that nobody would see me. Although, if you don’t want to be seen, you should carry an unobtrusive, plain bag and leave the house whistling nonchalantly. Leaving the house holding a bright yellow Selfridges bag with your fingertips and at arm’s length, all the while shuddering and retching, probably isn’t the way. And, of course, I bumped into Bert the dog’s daddy, who was working on his car in the street right outside Le Château, and I was forced to explain the bag and the shuddering and retching.
So now I am confined to Le Château on account of being too ashamed to leave it, and Catorze is banned from the bedrooms on account of being too disgusting. And our poor cleaning lady will probably never lead a normal life ever again.
Cat Daddy, however, can’t help but admire his boy’s pest control efficiency, and this has been echoed by Dog Mamma, who is delighted that Catorze has done his civic duty. Another friend said, “Isn’t it reassuring to know that he’s such a good rat-catcher?”
I don’t know what makes a “good” rat-catcher. But I’m pretty certain that depositing smelly rat corpses in spotlessly-clean places where there were no rat corpses before, isn’t it.
What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?
The Uprising is nigh. Black cats are masterminding it, with the aid of their ginger footsoldiers. But every single cat on the planet – yes, even yours – is either an active conspirator or, at the very least, a sympathiser.
Another week, another heatwave. This one was the fourth this year (or maybe the fifth, I can’t remember) and, once again, the hottest place in the UK on the hottest day of the week was Kew Gardens, 0.6 miles from us, at 38.1°C.
On Friday we received a government emergency alert on our phones, the sound of which profoundly displeased poor Louis Catorze. It’s concerning, to say the least, that we need a warning not to use barbecues or fireworks when the whole country is a brittle tinderbox, but then we are the same nation who, when instructed to stay away from others during Covid, all piled down to the seaside and packed out the beaches.
I wish we’d read about this before it happened, not after.
Sleeping with the window wide open makes me very uncomfortable indeed, as I worry about the likes of foxes and psycho killers entering the house. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: London foxes are adept climbers so, even on an upper floor, we aren’t safe. And, in the event of foxes creeping in, I fear that it would be my fault because, against the wishes of Cat Daddy, I have been leaving fresh water out for our resident Foxy Loxy. Therefore it would make sense for them to mistake my pity for an invitation to come in.
Luckily Catorze, who strikes the fear of the devil into the hearts of all foxes, joined me in bed on Thursday night. He remained there for much of the night, enjoying the breeze that drifted in and moving only occasionally to the window sill to check that all was well. I genuinely felt safer with him there as he would have seen off any foxes without hesitation.
As for psycho killers, assuming them to be male (not sexism on my part, just a statistical likelihood), I know that Catorze would have launched himself at them for cuddles, screaming with all his might, both warning me and giving me time to escape.
Here are Catorze and Foxy Loxy, enjoying opposite ends of the garden at the same time. I feel quite relaxed about them spending time there, as long as they continue to keep a respectful distance from each other:
“Multi-pet households: why not provide each pet with its own outdoor seating area?”“The Alpha Pet should, of course, have the bigger sofa.”
The cold water tap in our kitchen is leaking. It varies from a light but steady flow to a drip per ten seconds, but it never fully stops. Cat Daddy was all for just ignoring it until I showed him exactly how much water was being wasted: a washing-up bowl placed under the tap at 10pm is overflowing by 7am. It simply won’t do to just allow clean water to run down the sink in the middle of an ACTUAL DROUGHT.
Louis Catorze was initially profoundly displeased by the sound of the dripping, especially when it changed pace (as it does when we’ve had to open the tap). He’s now used to it, and only very occasionally flicks an ear when he zones back into it. I, on the other hand, am slowly being driven insane. It’s like Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, thumping away ominously in the background and becoming progressively louder, until I can’t stand it any longer and end up confessing to murder.
(Disclaimer: I’ve not murdered anyone yet, but I’m teetering on the edge. I swear I can hear the rhythmic drip-drip-drip even whilst I sleep.)
The person who needs to come and fix the tap is Chris. And Catorze scared Chris the last time he visited, by pulling this ridiculous stunt.
Cat Daddy has called Chris to make an appointment, and Chris has replied that he needs to order a part first and wait for it to arrive. Is this true, or is it just a delaying tactic to avoid having to return to the Demon Cat House?
EDIT: it turns out that I actually CAN hear it as I sleep, and that I wasn’t dreaming. The sound of the dripping echoes up through the Velux windows and into my bedroom at night. It’s inescapable.
Cat Daddy’s recovery has been a mixed bag so far. Physically, everything is healing as it should. However, I fear that Le Château is not a suitable environment for someone recovering from surgery, and this is mostly Louis Catorze’s fault.
His actions, so far, have included the following:
Thundering around the house early in the morning, sounding just like an adult human in heavy work boots.
Constantly fighting to get into Cat Daddy’s bedroom. And, naturellement, Catorze’s efforts to access his papa rise proportionally to Cat Daddy’s desire for him to go away.
Screaming. Oh dear God, the screaming.
Poor Cat Daddy, having been desperate to escape a noisy hospital with alarms buzzing and people rushing around, had hoped for a little calm upon coming home. He says we should have arranged for someone else to take Catorze during his convalescence. But who would have him?
(That wasn’t a rhetorical question, by the way. WHO WOULD HAVE HIM? We want actual names.)
Just before his knee surgery, Cat Daddy had another Zoom call. He messaged me asking if I could be prison officer again, but unfortunately I didn’t see the message until just AFTER I had turned Louis Catorze loose in the house. So he had to recapture the inmate and haul him back to the cell before the call started, and the whole thing was just like launching a grenade: open the door, fling in the incendiary device, close the door and flee.
Catorze was highly displeased at this state of affairs, and promptly started screaming at the door to be released. I thought, “He’s bound to wear himself out sooner or later”.
He didn’t.
Catorze paced up and down by the door, screaming himself senseless. Not even the Dyson air cooling unit and the television turned up to maximum were enough to drown him out. As the minutes ticked by, I had to content myself with recording the Catorzian cacophony and sending the resulting horror shorts to my friend, so that she would believe how awful it was.
Every few minutes, I would think, “Surely the Zoom call can’t go on for MUCH longer?”
It did. And so did the screaming.
Saint Jésus.
SAINT JÉSUS.
I then decided to boot him out at The Front, through the window. He has escaped out there 9,663 times when we haven’t wanted him to, yet, naturellement, at the one moment when I was desperate for him to go, he wasn’t having it. So the screaming continued, in stereo, with Le Roi leaping from the floor to the armrest to the back of the sofa, all the while hollering his guts out as if he’d been shot.
Finally, after FIFTY torturous minutes, Cat Daddy’s Zoom call finally came to an end, by which time I was just about ready to claw at my own flesh with what was left of my fingernails. He was disappointingly casual about the trauma that I had suffered, replying that I “ought to be used to it [the screaming] by now”. And it turned out that he had been able to hear it throughout his call anyway – yes, Catorze had been THAT loud – so shutting him away only partially achieved the desired goal.
Catorze then lunged for his empty bowl, wild-eyed and still screaming. Cat Daddy gave him some food, of which the little sod ate about 20% before going out.
I don’t know what more I can say about this, except that there are twenty-two days left until the start of term. And I shall be counting every single one of them.
Share a photo of your pet and tell us one thing that makes them uniquely them.
Years ago, when we adopted our first black cat, we would wonder how to tell ours apart from others. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: we were part of the brigade who thought that all black cats looked the same.
If you have a black cat who misbehaves in the neighbourhood, this can actually be quite useful because, in the event of anything untoward, you can just say, “It must’ve been some other black cat”. And, even if nobody believed you, they would struggle to prove anything.
However, the truth is that each black cat has certain particularities which distinguish them from their fellow agents. I am probably shooting myself in the foot by sharing Louis Catorze’s unique features, because having people know these considerably weakens the “It must’ve been some other black cat” defence. But, since the vast majority of you won’t have the misfortune to meet Catorze, and those that have met him already know what he’s like, here are a few of them:
Abnormally small size. FREAKISHLY small, like a five-month-old kitten. (This is no joke: my friend’s 5-month-old kitten only weighs 100g less than Catorze.)
Vampire fangs which protrude at all times. These days Catorze gives the impression of only having one fang, but this is because he managed to chip one of them (no idea how) and because, over time, the corresponding cheek/jowl has started to hang lower and lower, further concealing said fang.
A caustic voice that could strip paint. Numerous people, both friends and strangers, have, over the years, expressed concern at Catorze’s anguished wail. We have had to explain that he’s not distressed or unwell, and that that’s just his normal voice.
If you spot a cat bearing all of the above characteristics, and you’re in the TW8 area of west London, then, yeah, it’s probably Catorze. Even if I tell you that it’s not him, it most likely is. Sorry.
That said, SURELY, with his advancing years, he will be less and less inclined to go around being a massive shite and forcing me to lie for him?
One of my favourite Catorzian photos of all time, before he chipped that fang.
After a number of consultations, Cat Daddy has finally had the first of two knee operations. He came home yesterday and, as he hobbled up the front path with his crutches, Louis Catorze sat on the bottom step and screamed and screamed. Cat Daddy says he wishes he were still at the hospital.
It’s not easy to make a small, Victorian terraced house accessible for a person with reduced mobility. Prior to the surgery Cat Daddy was researching the recommendations made, and one of them has generated quite some debate between us.
Cat Daddy has taken this to mean that Catorze needs to be removed from the house. What do you think?
This is pretty damning, non?
Regretfully, we haven’t had any takers for him so far, so we might have to work around him, whatever that might mean.
Recovering from the surgery will also impact Boys’ Club, since even a light weight resting on a just-operated-on limb probably isn’t a good idea. So, for the time being, Catorze will have to get used to sitting beside Cat Daddy, but not on his legs (or, at least, not on his sore leg), which could be tricky; let’s just say that taking no for an answer is not the little sod’s superpower.
That said, Cat Daddy’s biggest worry is being unable to escape the Catorzian screaming; even if he were to move away, Catorze would be able to follow faster. So he might have to either make sure the guitar is always within reach, despite it not being an easy thing to carry when you’re on crutches, or buy a guitar for every room.
Will Catorze be sensitive towards his convalescing papa, with his Creepy Kitty Sixth Sense™ informing him not to be a massive shite? Or will he be as he was after my spinal surgery, when he jumped onto my torso and then used it as a springboard to jump somewhere else?
Cat Daddy had another Zoom call the other day, which meant that I was on prison officer duty minding Louis Catorze in a locked cell.
Just before the call started, Cat Daddy told me that he had already contained the inmate, so all I had to do was go into the front room and join him to make sure he didn’t escape. I darted in quickly, in case the little sod tried to slip out … but, upon closing the door, I realised that there was no sign of Catorze.
I then heard his pitter-pattering in the hallway, so I was able to grab him and shut him in the room with me.
Later that day, Cat Daddy thanked me for my shift and said, “He’s always awful in Zoom calls. That’s why I shut him in another room before even starting.”
Me: “Well, you did a shit job, because the room was empty when I went in.”
Him: “What?”
Me: “He wasn’t there.”
[Silence, tumbleweed, crickets.]
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
Cat Daddy is 100% convinced that Catorze was in the room when he’d shut the door. I’m 100% convinced that he WASN’T in the room when I’d gone to carry out my observation detail. This can only mean one thing: THE LITTLE BASTARD TELEPORTED OUT.
I have a Zoom call scheduled for the end of the summer holidays, although the other attendees are all women so it probably won’t appeal to Catorze. Will he leave us in peace? If I succeed in shutting him out, will he teleport in? My mind is boggling with all the various possibilities.
Remember when Louis Catorze liked wet food, then he didn’t, then he did, then he didn’t? Well, now he does again.
The little sod had been looking a bit haggard and brittle, so we decided to see if he would eat the wet food left over from his last sojourn. We were pretty sure he would reject it, just to spite us, but he tucked in with tremendous enthusiasm. And now he’s constantly tormenting us for more. You cannot IMAGINE the feeling of being bullied by a tiny beast who weighs less than my lightest dumbbell.
Naturellement, there are some rule changes from the last Wet Food Odyssey:
Firstly, if the shreds of chicken are more than 1.47cm in length, they are to be cut in half. If we don’t cut them in half, we risk them either being left behind to go dry and attract flies, or being flung around the feeding station.
(Yes, that’s right, he can rip the heads off rodents the size of chihuahuas, but he can’t possibly eat a strip of chicken longer than 1.47cm.)
Secondly, the previous wet food routine of set mealtimes is now obsolete, and Catorze expects a fresh serving of food every time he asks. This might be three or four times a day. Equally, it could be 783 times a day. It’s such fun finding out what kind of a day it will be.
Anyway, he’s eating well, and he even appears to be chubbing up a little. This calls for another rendition of the Chubbing Up Dance, non?
Here is Catorze, informing us of his tragically empty bowl. Mind you, he sits like this even when it’s full:
If you had to give one life-changing tip, what would it be?
If you have a cat, don’t bother trying to have professional Zoom meetings in your house. Seriously, just go to someone else’s house to do them. Or hot-desk somewhere. Or sit in your car. Anywhere but your house.
Remember when Louis Catorze used to be a complete and utter pest during Zoom calls? Yup, so do we. And, regretfully, so does he, because he’s still doing it.
Luckily I hardly ever have to teach online lessons and, when I do, I do so from school and not from home. However, Cat Daddy, being on the board of trustees for a local business, has had quite a few video calls. On one occasion, I even heard him say, “Sorry, that’s my cat. I thought I’d shut him out but he’s barged into the room.”
In short, Catorze cannot be left unsupervised during Zoom calls. And, since Cat Daddy tends to be the one doing them, that means I am the one shut in a room with Catorze and responsible for making sure he doesn’t escape.
When the last call took place, the little sod was nowhere to be found so there was no way of imprisoning him. However, minutes later, as I sat in the front room, I heard him in the kitchen, emitting the horrible, scowly rasp, that he does when someone grabs him unexpectedly. (Don’t worry, he’s not upset or in pain or anything like that; he’s just being dramatic. He once did it when I was applying his thyroid meds, and Cat Daddy shouted, “You liar! Don’t you DARE pretend that it hurt!”)
Cat Daddy then marched into the room, dumped Catorze onto my lap with one hand, then marched out again. It transpired that, despite being absent pre-call, Catorze had appeared as soon as it started, being his usual self and annoying the merde out of everyone listening.
Just as he started to settle on my lap, a fly shot out of his fur. I picked up a nearby envelope, swatted it and watched it fall to the floor.
Catorze then jumped off my lap, sniffed the fly and ate it.
It’s just non-stop glamour and sophistication here at Le Château, isn’t it? The phrase “You couldn’t make this up” was INVENTED for us.
Hopefully the Zoom participants didn’t have this view.
Louis Catorze doesn’t like it when people sneeze. His reaction is more annoyance than fear: he emits an audible scowl, then runs away making bird-chatter sounds. Yes, we know that this is weird.
Cat Daddy’s sneezes are so ear-bleeding loud that they make his guitar sing (or maybe gently weep, I don’t know). This is no joke. Even when the guitar is hanging on the wall, in the immediate aftermath of one of his sonic boom sneezes we can briefly hear the metallic hum of the strings.
One night, as is typical of most nights, I went to bed early, and Catorze accompanied me and settled on the bed beside me. Downstairs, Cat Daddy sneezed.
Catorze: “Mwah.”
Cat Daddy: [Another sneeze.]
Catorze: “Mwah!”
Cat Daddy: [Another sneeze.]
Catorze: “Mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah!”
The little sod then proceeded to take off, muttering obscenities under his breath as he went. YES, HE THOUGHT I WAS THE ONE TO OFFEND HIS EARDRUMS WITH THE SNEEZING.
I don’t know what happened after that, nor do I want to, but I imagine he went running to his papa, and the two of them snuggled each other and debated how much better life would be without me.
An artist’s impression of scenes following The Sneeze.
louiscatorze.com 