Month: Mar 2018

Le plastique défigure le monde

~ iamthesunking ~ 11 Comments

Cat Daddy is waging a war on plastic, after finding out just how much of it ends up in seas and landfill. He doesn’t have quite such a problem with the hard plastic that can be recycled, such as bottles, although he is pretty cross with Easter eggs for all their unnecessary packaging and relative lack of chocolate. The main target of his rage is the floppy, filmy plastic that our local council used to recycle but now won’t.

I have been clobbered by Cat Daddy for buying from mail-order companies whose goods arrive in bubble wrap. I have also been clobbered for my use of ladies’ sanitary items because of their plastic content, although Cat Daddy has helpfully reminded me that I “probably won’t need them for much longer”. Even Louis Catorze didn’t escape a clobbering for his Acana Pacifica, which comes in one of those non-recyclable foil-plastic hybrid things.

“Can’t we just give him canned cat food?” asked Cat Daddy. Given that at least 50% of last year’s Le Blog was about trying to make Catorze consume things that he didn’t want to consume, I’d say that were a firm NON. Cat food tins seem to be the most environmentally-friendly option by far but, if your selfish, awkward crotte of a cat won’t eat wet food, there’s not much you can do … apart from put pressure on the supplier to find alternative packaging. Or find a supplier who is doing it properly and just hope and pray that the aforementioned selfish, awkward crotte will eat their food instead.

The makers of Acana Pacifica say this about their packaging:

“At present, our packaging is not recyclable in most areas. While there are lots of recycled bags, none of them are appropriate for our products. This is due to the fact that we do not use chemical preservatives, so our bags need to form a complete barrier to protect your pet’s food from the outside environment.

We would prefer to reduce our impact on the environment, but the technology just doesn’t yet exist for a product like ours. That will change as more and more pressure is placed on packaging producers, and we will continue to explore these opportunities.”

This doesn’t really help us much, but at least they replied promptly. I have sent similar enquiries to many other companies and have discovered that they fall into one of two camps: those who are happy to answer your questions and those who really don’t want to at all.

Lily’s Kitchen, par contre, claim that their dry pet food packaging is fully compostable. (And, yes, I wish I had found that out BEFORE I reordered the massive sack of Acana Pacifica which will last the little sod a good 6+ months.) In terms of quality of ingredients Lily’s Kitchen seems to tick the same boxes as Acana Pacifica, so I am going to give it a try when his existing food runs down.

Changing the food of a cat who doesn’t like food is a bigger pain in the derrière than one can possibly imagine. But worth a shot, oui?

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Une vision de la beauté

~ iamthesunking ~ 19 Comments

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When my local beauty salon closed down due to dodgy unlicensed dealings, I found a local freelance beautician who visits clients’ houses for treatments. Monday was her first visit to Le Château and, thanks to Louis Catorze, it is likely to be her last.

Because she is a woman and not a man, I imagined that we would have minimal Catorze disturbance and be left in peace. Pas du tout. When she arrived he pitter-pattered after us, screaming, then knocked her waxing strips onto the floor and rolled all over them. During my eyebrow shaping he lay on my stomach with his head on my chest, staring unblinkingly at the beautician as she carried out the treatment.

Now, as most women – and an increasing number of men – will be aware, having the hairs on your face ripped off isn’t the greatest fun. So having a purring cat lying on you throughout the experience is rather pleasant and comforting. However, from the point of view of beautician carrying out the treatment, being stared down by a vampire-toothed devil-beast when you’re trying to work is utterly terrifying.

When she finished my eyebrows and began my shoulder massage, the screaming resumed. Catorze jumped on and off the bed, pitter-pattered in and out of the room, delicately picked his way up my legs and back down again, all the while screaming himself senseless. I was about to call time on the massage as the beautician was laughing so much that she wasn’t able to apply pressure properly, and, just as she said, “He’s wondering what’s happening to you!” the screaming stopped.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Maybe he thought I had killed you? And, now that he knows you are ok, he’s happy again?” As the conversation continued, the little sod seemed to feel more at ease and he went back to the unnerving silent glaring.

“Erm, so I expect your clients’ pets do this sort of thing all the time, don’t they?” I asked hopefully, praying that this sort of thing might be normal.

Apparently it’s not.

So, the big question: will she be back? Or would she sooner accept a job tweezing Donald Trump’s nose hair than set foot here again?

L’homme au masque de fer

~ iamthesunking ~ 3 Comments

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*SPOILER ALERT: THIS BLOG ENTRY REVEALS THE ENDING OF “THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK”*

Someone once told me that my naming of Louis Catorze had “forever ruined French history for her”. So what better way to empathise with her concerns, and to give le royal nod to the recent Oscar winners, than to watch a historically-questionable Hollywood adaptation of an acclaimed Alexandre Dumas novel, giggling like a little child every time Louis XIV is mentioned?

The Sun King is played by a man from Los Angeles, D’Artagnan is from Dublin, and two of the three musketeers are from Illinois and the Isle of Wight. But, as someone who has convinced half the world that my cat from a North London rescue is a French monarch, I practically invented the suspension of disbelief. So this was no problem to me.

The similarities between Louis XIV and Louis Catorze are staggering, the main one being that both are tyrannical despots who live in luxury as the peasants, who are forced to fund their lavish lifestyles, languish in poverty. And the single, minor difference is that Louis XIV, according to musketeer Athos, “is cold and cruel, and cares only for himself” … which is not strictly true of our little sod as he also cares for Cat Daddy and male friends/neighbours/tradesmen/trick or treaters/Ocado delivery drivers.

The end of the film shows the human Louis clapped in irons and locked up in the dankest, most squalid part of the Bastille prison, which is not a million miles from what Cat Daddy has threatened when Louis Catorze has woken us in the night with his whining/scampering/rodent-bringing/bubble-wrap-popping. And the positive and uplifting conclusion of the film, apparently showing the Sun King bringing prosperity and peace to the citizens of France, was actually down to the actions of his (much nicer) impostor twin brother, Philippe.

Cat Daddy: “You see? I think we ended up with the wrong cat. I want to adopt Philippe. There has to be a Philippe out there for us.”

Maybe, but not quite yet … after all, the human Louis reigned for over 72 years.

What’s that in cat years?

Les merveilles de l’hiver

~ iamthesunking ~ 6 Comments

There are many fun things that can be done in the snow, but I don’t suppose schlepping to the vet to pick up Louis Catorze’s Broadline is one of them.

Cat Daddy came with me but he wasn’t the best company, complaining all the way about Catorze and his inconvenient, money-haemorrhaging connerie. And, because the walk took us a few minutes longer than usual due to slipping and sliding on the ice and snow, that meant I had to listen to more complaining.

When we got there and were told how much it was, Cat Daddy swept his contactless card across the scanner thing but it was declined.

Vet: “I’m afraid you can only use contactless for payments under £30.”
Cat Daddy. “Oh. Did you not say it was £14?”
Vet: “Erm, no. £44.”

Silence, tumbleweed, crickets. And, after we had paid and left, Cat Daddy complained about Catorze and his money-haemorrhaging connerie all the way home again. Sa Majesté, meanwhile, had been out enjoying some snow play and hadn’t even noticed we had gone.

It’s a good thing we have Le Royal Sick Fund. And it’s a good thing we love the little sod.

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