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When I was growing up, we loved our cats. That goes without saying. But we didn’t pamper them to the same degree that we do now. This is partly due to having fewer resources at the time, but also different attitudes; cats were simply our pets, and we did our best to make sure they were looked after, but we didn’t debase ourselves or compromise our own wellbeing or financial security on their behalf. These days, of course, it’s different. 

Cat care in the 1980s was super-straightforward: in addition to food (of which there were probably only about four brands) and water (which was always placed next to the food – none of this separation nonsense), all you needed were a flea collar or flea powder, a brush, a cat bed and maybe a few toys. That was it.

My first cat, Misha, had his likes and dislikes in terms of food – although his diet was supplemented by ferocious hunting and by the ability to open the fridge – but he wasn’t keen on rabbit-flavoured Whiskas. He still ate it, but he didn’t scoff it down with enthusiasm. When my mum discovered this, she simply stopped buying the rabbit variant, and that was the end of that. 

The idea of any cat, especially one like Misha, going on hunger strike because they didn’t like their food, was utterly laughable. (I was going to add a line here about Louis Catorze and his food ridiculousness, but you know all about it already.)

Ironically, despite disliking rabbit-flavoured cat food, Misha would hunt rabbits like a stealthy ninja, eating every part of them apart from the gall bladder and the little fluffy tail. Figure that one out. 

Misha’s favourite party trick, however, was eating pieces of string. If he ever got hold of string, he would take one end in his mouth, then chew until the piece grew smaller and smaller and the other end slowly disappeared into his mouth. (Imagine the spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp and you’ll know exactly what I mean.) Instead of keeping him away from all string-like objects, like normal people, my sisters and I thought it was hilarious to give him more string and watch him eat it. Misha would happily oblige every time because, y’know, he just REALLY LIKED STRING. 

Astonishingly, Misha never required a vet visit because of the string. He barely had any ailments throughout his life apart from, erm, a wound from an air gun pellet (which, at the time, my mum told me was a “bee sting” – I only found out the truth about eighteen months ago), but intestinal stringage was never one of them. Figure THAT one out, too! 

Louis Catorze has a fondness for rubber bands in the same way that Misha liked string. I warn all chat-sitteurs to be careful with their hair bands, and any rubber bands that enter Le Château are counted in at the end of every day like sharp tools in a prison workshop. If I suspected that he had eaten one, or even been in the same room with one, I would be whisking him off to the vet faster than I could blink. 

We now have a huge array of cat paraphernalia that wasn’t available to us in the 1980s: cat trees, hypoallergenic food, comedy Hallowe’en cat beds shaped like coffins (or, as Catorze calls them, “beds”), those weird bowls that slow down their eating, Feliway, red dot laser pointers, scent-swapping, cat psychologists … I could go on. All these are relatively recent inventions, and the likes of Misha managed to do just fine without. Catorze, however, is welcome to take his pick, no questions asked.

The 1980s weren’t THAT long ago. How have we gone from that, to worshipping cats as the kings/gods/autocratic dictators that they now consider themselves to be? I can think of no other explanation other than that the little sods have worn us down over time, and now we have been reduced to this state of servility. 

It’s both tragic and embarrassing. 

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