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Je crie, donc je suis

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Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, supreme ruler of Le Château, sworn enemy of canine foe and scourge of Ocado delivery drivers.

  • Ils sont parmi nous

    I have a subscription for Louis Catorze’s Orijen, and I imagined that this would be pretty foolproof in terms of never running out. The next delivery arrives well before the previous lot has run out, and that’s how it works, non?

    Ahem.

    Pets Corner emailed to tell me that there were stock issues, but stupidly I didn’t read the message properly and I thought they were just letting me know that it had been despatched. Cat Daddy alerted me to the fact that we were down to our last packet, and the timing couldn’t have been worse: right after Catorze’s steroid shot, when he’s always extra hungry. 

    After the replacement delivery from, erm, Jurassic Bark, also failed to arrive on time, and not even Amaz*n were able to fulfil until days after we would have run out, Cat Daddy saved the day by tracking down some 1.8kg packs of Orijen at Pets at Home. But I also went to the new, independent pet shop which has just opened nearby, as I wanted the small 340g packs which Pets at Home don’t sell. 

    When I walked in, there was a lady deep in conversation on the phone, holding a puppy under one arm. I have no idea of his breed, but he was but he was terrier-like, with light brown and white fur. I later found out that his name was Cosmo. He didn’t bother asking mine. 

    Because it was raining, I had my hood up. And, when I realised that the lady would probably be a while longer on the phone, I pulled my hood down whilst waiting. I have huge, voluminous hair which fits under a tight-fitting hood, yet floofs up and out when the hood is removed, suddenly making my head look twelve times its previous size, like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. The floofing is obviously quite a regular occurrence for me, and nobody around me really notices or cares. However, Cosmo did notice. And he was not happy.

    After an audible “Huh?” at my transformation, which, to him, must have seemed like a Men In Black-style mutation of bursting tendrils, Cosmo started growling.

    Me: “Aww. Don’t be scared, little doggy.”

    Cosmo: “GRRRRR! GRRRRR!”

    At that point the lady decided that she’d better end her phone call to avert this potential crisis. To add further insult to existing insult, she told me that they didn’t stock Orijen: “We used to have it, but it wasn’t very popular because it’s so expensive.”

    Great.

    I scooted out of the pet shop before Cosmo leapt out of the lady’s arms to attack the shapeshifting alien with the exploding head. And now I can never go back there again, Orijen or no Orijen. 

    No doubt, in the next few weeks, all the failed deliveries will come at once, and we will have a GLUT of Orijen but nowhere to store it. 

    Catorze knows this, and says it’s our problème.

    At least the little sod approves of my Hallowe’en manicure.

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

  • La fille qui criait au loup 

    What’s something most people don’t know about you?

    Sometimes bad things happen that are actually NOT my cat’s fault. Now, please hear me out.

    We’ve always known, haven’t we, that, if you cry wolf too many times, nobody will believe you in the event of a real emergency? 

    There is a toothy black cat who has been causing havoc in the neighbourhood, and one of our local friends naturally asked if it were Louis Catorze. Despite the fact that the appearance and the annoyingness of the cat, and the part of the neighbourhood in question (the next street) all point to Catorze, it’s not him. But whether anyone believes me is another matter. 

    This is the Ring Doorbell screen shot that the victim neighbour posed on social media:

    Oh my.

    I can see that this isn’t Catorze. But the “All Black Cats Look The Same” brigade, of which Cat Daddy is a proud member, may take some convincing. 

    When I read further down in the post and found out the nature of the disturbance, it turned out that the offending Chat Noir had broken into a house through an open window and fathered kittens with the resident indoor – and obviously unneutered – cat. (And, despite the mamma being white and the papa being black, the kittens have turned out as follows: 1 x all-black, 1 x all-white, 1 x mostly-white with a couple of faint black splodges on the head, and 1 x, erm, GINGER.)

    It’s not often that I say, “Merci à Dieu” in response to someone not being responsible enough to neuter their cats, but the very thin silver lining is that it cannot possibly be Catorze, whose money bags were emptied of all loose change years ago. Plus I don’t think girls are his thing, if you get what I mean. 

    Meanwhile, folks, neuter your cats. And close your windows to keep marauding Chats Noirs out. It’s not an either-or thing. (Well, in this case it was a neither-nor thing, but hopefully a few passive-aggressive, judgemental replies to the neighbour on social media will fix that.)

    “Don’t blame moi. I was here the whole time.”

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

  • Ni manger, ni vivre (Partie 13)

    We have had to start shutting Louis Catorze, or ourselves, in the front room during meal times, so that we can eat without being headbutted and screamed at. I have complained to many fellow cat freaks about this, and I have been met with little-to-no sympathy on account of the fact that their cats have all been doing this for years. 

    Friend 1: “Oh yes, I have to do that with my cat.” [She then went on to talk about something else.] 

    Friend 2: “Oh yes, we’ve ALWAYS had to do that with our cats. [She also went on to talk about something else.] 

    Friend 3: “You’re lucky you’ve only just started having to do this. You managed to get away with it for all those years.”

    Well, thank you. 

    The only friend who has had a shred of sympathy is Cat-Disliking Friend, although his help has been in the form of suggesting horrible-tasting things that I can give to Catorze to teach him a lesson. His latest suggestion was painting scraps of food with that stuff that you apply to your nails to stop biting them. “If it’s fit for human consumption then it must be ok for cats, right?” Ahem. 

    What a cirque de merde this is. At least Cat-Disliking Friend is enjoying himself in his science laboratory*, cackling away as he magics up another batch of cat poison.

    *I’m not joking: he’s a science teacher, so he has an actual laboratory at his disposal. 

    Bastard cat.

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

  • 愛猫

    If Louis Catorze weren’t French, I am certain that he would be Japanese. This is not only because his alien eyes are straight out of a Manga storybook, but also because the Japanese love cats: dressing up as them, having street festivals dedicated to them, the whole works.

    Most of us who claim to love cats probably don’t go quite that far … although this is only because we didn’t think of it until now.

    Catorze.
    Manga Catorze.

    Every October there is a festival in Tokyo called the Bake Neko, which means “supernatural cat”; attendees wear cat costumes (including bell collars/bracelets) and make-up, watch street performances, tell ghost stories and eat spooky and/or catty seasonal treats. Everything about it sounds beyond my wildest dreams and, if you like the sound of it, too, have a look here for more information.

    Regretfully the disparity with my school holidays means that I am unlikely to ever attend – unless, of course, I chuck in my job. Catorze is even less likely to attend, although I was very excited when I thought one source said “Bring a feline” and this promptly turned to mild disappointment upon discovering that, in fact, it said “Bring a feline attitude”.

    Is Catorze a bake neko in (not a very good) disguise? Incredibly, no, because it turns out that, in order to be one, one must meet a minimum weight requirement of 3.5kg (?). But I don’t doubt that he’s capable of being the puppet master, pulling the strings of his larger comrades in the east, despite being oceans away.

    The large ginge on the right is having WAY too much fun. And something very odd is happening to the one just left of centre.

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

  • Le Roi des Méchants 

    What principles define how you live?

    “Just when they think you can’t possibly be more of a bastard, prove them wrong.” Such a Catorzian way to be, and Louis Catorze lives up to this every single day. 

    The little sod always sleeps next to me at night. Then, one night, he didn’t. 

    I didn’t think much of it, and just assumed he was off gadding about somewhere. (Yes, I know that it’s autumn, and that Catorze is an old gentleman who should be taking it easy, but nobody appears to have told him either of these things.)

    Then I shuffled downstairs, still only 36% awake, to be met with this sight which booted me into full wakefulness in an instant:

    Noooo.

    Bastard cat had pulled down the mattress cover, which was drying on the radiator, and fashioned some sort of bed/nest from it. And I imagine he had been there all night. 

    Cat Daddy, when I showed him the photo: “What an absolute ****. Why would he do this when he already has loads of places where he can sleep?”

    Me: “I know. I don’t get it, either.”

    [We both hear the telltale sound of Catorzian feet pitter-pattering in.]

    Me: “Speak of the devil.”

    Cat Daddy, whilst looking down and sort of muttering from the side of his mouth: “Speak of the ****, more like.”

    It’s annoying when Cat Daddy actually has a point. 

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

  • Ni manger, ni vivre (Partie 12)

    I have just had to eat my dinner* with my plate balanced on my left knee, and with my right leg repeatedly kicking away a screaming cat. 

    *It was chicken fajitas topped with sour cream and cheese, merci for asking.

    Every time I kicked, he came back for more. Despite only being the size of Chucky, Louis Catorze had the resilience of Michael Myers, the guile of Hannibal Lecter and the volume of, erm, Leatherface’s chainsaw. 

    Naturellement, because I wanted the torment to be over, I bolted down my dinner as quickly as possible, and was finished long before Cat Daddy. Catorze then settled on my lap and left his papa to finish his meal in peace. The little sod didn’t utter so much as a squeak. 

    Me: “Why isn’t he screaming at you?”

    Cat Daddy: “Because this is MY dinner. He only wants YOUR food, because you’re the one who gave him salmon off YOUR plate.”

    I see. 

    This is never going to end, is it? 

    Bastard cat.

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

  • Les petits pieds du bonheur

    One of my friends has just been over for our annual cemetery visit and horror fest. (I’m not joking: this is actually what we do together, every October, and it’s become a much-loved tradition.)

    Because she has chat-sat Louis Catorze in the past, he knows her well and loves her visits, so I fully expected him to show off in front of her. But I didn’t think things would take THIS kind of turn, despite the fact that embarrassing behaviour is quite the Catorzian trademark.

    Obviously there was the usual screaming. But, when we settled down to watch the first of our horror films, the little sod jumped up onto the coffee table where my friend was resting her feet, and deployed that all-too-familiar Hork Hork sound, along with accompanying funky chicken head movements pointed straight at her feet. 

    I was just about to tell her not to be concerned because Catorze often Hork Horks, only for it to be a false alarm. Fortunately, however, my friend was blessed with more foresight than I and chose to move her feet away. Just as she did so, the little sod puked all over the coffee table and on the ruinously-expensive Harris tweed cushion upon which he was perched, RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR GUEST.

    My friend is a cat person so she wasn’t fazed by this in the slightest, despite the fact that Catorze had been aiming for her feet and had done everything possible to give her a ringside seat for this horror show. I, however, want to take a walk into a wooded area and die of embarrassment. Imagine the shame of your cat trying deliberately to puke on your friend’s feet … and being incompetent enough to miss. 

    Cat Daddy: “That’s it: we’re never having friends round again. Or we’re rehoming him. One or the other.”

    I’ll let you know when he’s decided which option he’s chosen.

    Absolute bastard cat.

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

  • Les chats de recherche

    *WARNING: CONTAINS TALK OF DEATH AND GENERAL CREEPINESS.*

    A few days ago, Cat Daddy was watching television in the kitchen when Louis Catorze raced past him and clattered out through the cat flap. It turned out that there was a much larger (but then all cats are much larger than Catorze) tuxedo cat in the garden, and Sa Maj wasn’t happy about this. After staring at each other for a few seconds, the impinger turned tail and ran.

    The weird thing was that Catorze hadn’t been sitting with Cat Daddy in the kitchen, so he couldn’t possibly have seen the impinger. In fact, not even Cat Daddy, with the higher eye line, had been able to see him without standing up. Catorze had run from the direction of the living room at the front of the house so, somehow, all the way from there, he had sensed that the perimeters of his Château had been breached.

    We’ve had two cars since we’ve lived with Catorze, and he knew the sound of each. He even knows the sound of Cat Daddy’s KEYS.

    I think that this heightened sense of creepy kitty sixth sense, not to mention his extra sensitivity to the full moon, would make him an ideal cadaver cat – if, indeed, he would agree to work for a living.

    If, like me, you watch so many serial killer films and documentaries that the police would have something to say about your Prime Video account, you will know about cadaver DOGS. These clever doggies are used to sniff out whether a dead body has been in a particular place, and they are so good at their job that they can detect this both from surfaces and from the air.

    In the US, they don’t even call them “dogs”; they call them “K9 officers”. I guess “K9 officer number 283” sounds better than “Woofy Boi-Boi” when it comes to writing up reports of what happened.

    My thoughts naturally turned to whether cadaver cats could ever be a thing – after all, they are just as perceptive as dogs. I think Catorze would be an excellent cadaver cat; all those big, strapping policemen to cuddle, plus sniffing out death is right up his rue.

    But how he might tell us of the presence of a body?

    Would he creepy-stare at us? Or at the spot itself, as if looking at a ghost? And could we rely on him to only do the creepy death-stare when there was a genuine need, and not at random, inopportune moments just to freak us out?

    If you are too scared to know what The Sign might look like, look away now.

    “How will we know if he’s found anything? OH. RIGHT.”

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

  • Woah-ohh White Betty

    A few nights ago, I had to turf a very indignant Louis Catorze off my lap to answer the door. It was a lady that I’d never seen before. 

    Lady: “Hello, I live at number sixty-three [or whatever number it was – I was so mortified at being caught out in my pyjamas at 8pm that I missed some of the detail]. I don’t suppose you’re missing a cat, are you?”

    My brain: “Oh shit. What’s he done this time.”

    My mouth: “No, I’m not. My cat’s right here.”

    I pointed down to the space on the floor where Catorze would ordinarily be, in the event of someone knocking at the door. Naturellement, the one time that I actually wanted him to appear, he didn’t. Yet somehow I refrained from dragging the lady into the house, screaming, “See? It must have been some other black cat! You can’t prove anything!”

    Lady again: “It’s a white Persian cat, with a name tag that says “Betty”. She has a phone number on her collar but the last few numbers have rubbed off.”

    My brain: “THANK GOD.”

    My mouth: “No, that’s not my cat. But she lives in the third or fourth house from the end of the street, the one with the blue door. And her Cat Daddy is called [name of neighbour who lives with Betty].”

    Cat Daddy: “You could put her picture next to Louis’s and ask your followers to vote for the prettiest.” Erm, no thanks.

    That is the scary thing about us cat freaks, Mesdames et Messieurs: we may never have spoken to you and you may not even know who we are but, if you have a cat, we know your name and where you live. Our subversive network spreads deep and wide, like the French Resistance during World War II.

    Catorze and Betty have never crossed paths – at least, not when we’ve been watching him. When he’s alone and unsupervised out at The Front, who knows what he does? But, as he has a dislike of long-haired cats, I don’t imagine the encounter would go well, plus Betty is something of a bruiser, having been witnessed fighting with Catus Interruptus on one occasion. 

    That said, it would be quite funny to see two such diametrically-opposed cats facing off: an angelic white Persian with a pink diamanté collar, and a scraggy, black devil-cat with fangs.

    What a good thing it is that we have the AI Bot, to turn our visions into almost-reality: 

    Catorze is the one on the left.

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

  • À l’Ouest, rien de nouveau

    Discovery Plus, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

    One of those ways is Ghost Town Terror, a series about a family who buy an abandoned pioneer ranch in Montana. They find a mummified cat in the crawl space under one of the buildings and, from that moment onwards, in addition to the human apparitions and voices that they were already experiencing, they are plagued by the sounds of feline hissing. So they are forced to call in the paranormal investigators.

    The investigators’ research revealed the following information, which I quote word for word:

    “In Irish folklore there’s something called a Cat Sidhe which is believed to be a type of demon who takes the form of a black cat. And it’s thought to steal souls.”

    Well, this doesn’t sound too promising. Let’s hope the cat doesn’t also have fangs, because OH MY GOODNESS, WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT:

    A black, fanged, demonic cat. Imagine that.

    “Shocked but not surprised” probably ought to be the inscription on my tombstone.

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

  • Chuchoter à l’oreille du diable

    You’ve always known that Louis Catorze is a creepy little sod.

    However, I’m about to show you an example of kitty creepiness that is common among all of them. ALL OF THEM. They may not always demonstrate it but it’s there, lying dormant until it suddenly breaks through the surface at a moment when you are home alone and feeling especially jumpy.

    This is what Catorze’s ears look like when he’s sleeping normally. The Catorzian default/baseline position, if you will:

    Nothing to see here …

    And this is what they looked like sometime later, when Cat Daddy arrived home and was parking the car:

    But plenty to hear, apparently.

    Cat Daddy, later: “But I parked on the other side of the road. He can’t have heard or known.”

    Oh, but he did.

    Does your cat ever greet you when you walk through the front door, having seemingly arrived there in suspiciously quick time? If so, they knew that you were coming long before your key went into your door. They’re all at it.

    He heard his daddy coming back long before I did.

    I know: it’s creepy as hell. But, since they’re in our houses and won’t be moving out anytime soon, what can we do about it?

    Bonus photo of Catorze’s cat-auntie Zelva, who can differentiate between sets of KEYS. She runs to either the back door or the front, depending on which keys she hears my mum pick up.

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

  • Qui l’a fait?

    Which topics would you like to be more informed about?

    Our vet recently posted this on social media, and I want to know more:

    Clearly there was An Incident that triggered this post, and I am overjoyed to be able to say, with absolute sincerity, that it was nothing to do with my cat this time. But who was it? And what happened?

    Was the guilty party a leadless dog or a carrierless cat? One of each? Or even a dog, a cat and a marauding, psychotic hamster? I am now eyeing every dog-walker, and every random cat that I see, with suspicion. (Not so much hamsters, as we don’t tend to see that many out and about in TW8.)

    Would it be too much to ask* the vet for names? Or, better yet, for a short clip of the waiting room CCTV? 

    *I, erm, have already asked for both of the above. They haven’t replied.

    I suspect that Louis Catorze knows something. But he ain’t telling.

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

  • Ni manger, ni vivre (Partie 11)

    An aborted attempt at seizing my lamb and olive stew.

    Saint Jésus, Marie et Joseph, et le petit âne: Louis Catorze just went for a piece of smoked Comté on our cheese board, RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. Furthermore I’m ashamed to admit that this happened right in front of Cat Daddy and me, and we were too slow to stop it.

    No, we weren’t drunk. Well, ok, Cat Daddy was a bit, but I had no excuse. We were so deeply engrossed in the television that it took us a good ten seconds to notice that we were under attack. Ten seconds may not sound like long, but it was plenty of time for Catorze to lick the slab of cheese all over.

    Cat Daddy: “Louis! Oh my God, what a ****!”

    He grabbed Catorze, plucked him off the cheese board with one hand like one of those fairground claw machines, then took a knife and cut away what he believed to be the cat-spitty area of cheese.

    I told him there was no way on earth of knowing which bits were cat-spitty and which weren’t, so we might as well throw the whole lot away. Cat Daddy then tossed the cut-away piece of cheese to Catorze, who, having established that he had ruined it for us, decided that his work was done and that he no longer wanted it.

    What is happening? What evil force is making my once-unmotivated-by-food cat suddenly turn into such a scavenging shite?

    Here he is, feigning innocence and pretending to be a nice cat who doesn’t steal food. We all know the truth.

    Liar.

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

  • Le cheval ondin 

    When Cat Daddy and I went to Scotland, we bought this piece of art:

    My lovely horse.

    It’s a kelpie, which is a mythical, water-dwelling ghost horse, rumoured to lure unwary people to a watery death. Not very pleasant, I know, but there are worse animals who do worse things to people. Don’t ask me how I know this. 

    The piece is made completely from upcycled materials; the frame is made of wood, and the kelpie and the sea foam are a thin sheet of metal shaded with coffee powder (yes, really). When we bought it, the kelpie’s head was flat and flush with the rest of the metal sheet but, in the few weeks that we’ve had it, the head has started to curve round.

    Perhaps it’s coming alive and is creepily turning to face the light?

    Or … not: 

    My bastard cat.

    Louis Catorze’s behaviour has been appalling lately and is deteriorating by the day, so this is no surprise. And this was just one time, in front of us. I can’t imagine how many times he probably does this when we’re not around. 

    So that’s another entry for our list of Nice Things Ruined By Cats. How long will it be until the kelpie’s snout is completely snapped off? Will it even last through the the Spooky Season?

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