Someone is feeling très pleased with himself after a fabulous demi-finale. But, because he doesn’t want to upset the grieving England supporters by being too smug, he has chosen the modest, discreet pose that you see below, for today’s entry of Le Blog.

Louis Catorze’s last prediction was right, his beloved France are through to la finale, and he spent la demi-finale being cuddled by a group of French and Francophile cat ladies who came to drink crémant and watch the match with us. He would, of course, have preferred boys, and he did pop next door to look for some, but soon returned and was perfectly cordial and gentlemanly towards his guests.

Today sees the very last of l’Assiette de Prophétie and Catorze is, once again, representing his country. His opposite number is Graham Poll, an English referee who famously gave a Croatian player THREE yellow cards before finally issuing a red in the 2002 World Cup. Sa Majesté hopes that, somehow, the use of Mr Poll’s picture will gently nudge the universe into righting the refereeing wrong that was done 16 years ago, preferably in the form of abundant Croatian sendings-off and a French win.

Prior to the prediction we had a situation d’urgence: NO JAMBON DE BAYONNE (apart from a few old scraps which we knew Sa Majesté would refuse). I wanted to slip him some supermarket prosciutto di Parma and hope he wouldn’t notice but Cat Daddy was having none of it and, luckily, when we went to the cheese shop, we were saved by its jambon sec de pays. Unfortunately we weren’t able to be so authentic with Croatia, and their food is a sliver of pâté (chosen by Cat Daddy) from the World Food aisle in Morrisons, which is perfectly nice but which is probably about as Croatian as La Marseillaise. I think he has done it on purpose to make his boy’s countrymen win.

1. Sa Majesté stuck his nose into the pâté, enough to leave an imprint, but did not consume any
2. Sa Majesté licked the jambon twice, but did not consume any
3. A butterfly came along and he pitter-pattered after it, screaming 

The one positive that has come from England’s loss is that it has gained la France some unexpected support. With the exception of one friend who called Catorze “smug” and declared that he would “never support France” (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), everyone wants to see the team that clobbered England in turn be clobbered in la finale. 

There’s nothing like a healthy bit of eye-for-an-eye vengeance to unite the country, n’est-ce pas?