Whoever said “Truth is stranger than fiction” certainly knew what they were talking about (and had probably met Louis Catorze). So, when Cat Daddy came back from the bar and told me that he’d seen a memorial on the wall paying homage to a previous pub cat, I believed him. I also believed him when he said that the cat was called, erm, Craig David. (Non-Brits: ask your slightly older British friends.)
Craig David was a stray who turned up one day at the Free Trade Inn in Newcastle and never left. He soon became an iconic feature of the pub, and customers would often find him asleep on a bar stool or on top of the jukebox. There was quite an outpouring of grief from the community when he passed away after four years of living his best life at the pub, and the staff decided to pay tribute with a commemorative blue plaque on the wall:
They even sell Craig David t-shirts – and, yes, we bought one:
I sometimes think of what we should do to honour Catorze when he is no longer here. But, since the little sod was forged in the raging fires of The Underworld, he will probably outlast every single one of us. And, just as Earth implodes, he will hop onto a spacecraft and return to his home planet, having accomplished his mission here.
Speaking of hellfires, later today we will be heading back to the inferno that is London, having had a relatively lucky escape here in that tiny strip of England that wasn’t in the Red Zone. Cat Daddy tried to cheer himself up by Googling places hotter than London, only to feel worse when he discovered that Seville, Cairo and Addis Ababa are all COOLER.
Much has been made of animals in the heat, with advice involving extra water and fans but, unbelievably, this is one area where I trust Catorze to do the right thing for himself, however insane it may seem to me. After all, he has ninety-nine problems but a heat-related illness ain’t one.
As ever, there is online panic, with people on my local neighbourhood forum telling cat owners to keep cats indoors. However, I disagree. Unlike dogs, who would blindly follow their owners across hot lava if they had to (and even if they didn’t have to), cats won’t do things that they don’t want to do. Also, if cats are used to going outside and they enjoy it, keeping them in would drive them round the bend; we would be able to hear Catorze’s screaming even from up here. So we have just told our neighbours to feed him smaller portions, keep an closer eye on the levels of his one water glass, and let him do as he wants. (He doesn’t need extra water glasses; trust me, he won’t drink from them. And, when the fan is switched on, his ears flick back and he moves away.)
Incidentally, our chat-sitteur reported that Sa Maj was the perfect angel during our absence, with no pukes, no rats and no 3am parkour. For heaven’s sake.
jesuisleroisoleil 
Yes – tonight the PBS Newshour pointed out that part of France was headed for 107. It really is terrible…for the humans and the animals, and I think it was in London – the airport runways melted.
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Yes, I think Luton airport suspended all flights!
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🙂 Gotta love him!
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Someone’s got to! 🤣🤣🤣
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Domestic cats are descended from desert cats so perhaps a little heat won’t bother them too much. I feel sorry for the homeless ones who go through winters in a freezing climate.
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Aww, me too! We don’t really have them in our area but my sister does. 😢
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At our other home in West Virginia, a cat lady with something like 14 cats died. The story I heard was that her son just threw all the cats outside. Fortunately, the people on the other side of the alley from us are feeding them and another man nearby opened his garage for them so they would have shelter.
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Good grief, what an arsehole. At least the rest of you are all kind and thoughtful!
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Yes. I think most people are good but the bad ones cause a disproportionate amount of problems.
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He obviously doesn’t feel that his sitter is a member of the family. 🙂
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Maybe not, but he absolutely loves her! 🤣
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Love this story about Craig David and yes, I would buy that t-shirt too… 🙂
Ok, 3:20 and too hot to sleep… how can I fall asleep, please?
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What temperature is it there?
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The area where I live, de Kempen (the Campine), is one of the hottest and driest places in Belgium. We’ll probably hitting the 40ºC mark today.
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40°C! Oh my! Are you a nation that has air conditioning? We don’t in the U.K. which is why this is so painful for us.
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Craig David is just gorgeous, I would have been sad, too, when he died. Miss Penny and I are not liking the heat (the highest I saw so far was 38 and the humidity is atrocious) but I am not yet turning on the air conditioning, it’d be creating more of the very problem it’d be trying to solve.
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I feel the same about air conditioning! I tried Googling “eco air conditioning units” but I imagine that’s the same as looking for fat-free butter or sugar-free sugar!
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😆😆😆
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Even if climate change is a concerning issue, I do hope Earth won’t implode in a near future.
🙂
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If it does, it’ll be his fault.
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