louiscatorze.com

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.

  • Il n’existe pas un noir, mais des noirs

    I really miss cats. We haven’t been short of wildlife during our stay here, but the best part of my whole day is sitting on the sofa, drinking green tea with Louis Catorze on my lap. So it’s been very strange not being able to do that.

    We have been lucky enough to spend time with a sweet black Labrador called Sula. I’m not usually quite so keen on dogs but Sula was very well-behaved, friendly but without jumping or slobbering. And, since part of her home is a sculpture showroom, full of intricate, fragile works of art, jumping and slobbering wouldn’t be desirable characteristics at all. (Sula’s Dog Mamma is artist Lotte Glob: look here for more information about her magical work.)

    Sula was given a biscuit treat after this, as a reward for posing beautifully.

    Whenever I meet black animals, I always look for features that make them stand out from the rest of their … breed? kin? peers?, mainly to silence the “All Black Animals Look The Same” brigade (of which Cat Daddy is an active member). Sula has a distinctive broad stripe of fur down her back which lies in a completely different direction from the rest of her fur. It’s still black but a DIFFERENT black, if that makes any sense.

    Fifty shades of black.

    I asked whether Sula had any Rhodesian Ridgeback in her ancestry, surprising myself with my dog knowledge, which doesn’t usually extend far beyond “big ones”, “small ones”, “Police dogs” and “Andrex puppies”. She doesn’t. The spinal stripe is just a charming little quirk which makes her unique.

    We black cat owners always know our own cats, even from a distance. Catorze’s brother, Luther, had just one unique feature – a comically thin tail, like a pencil – but, even without this, I would still have known. I remember walking home from the shops one Sunday morning, and hearing that awful, guttural cat fight sound ringing through the street. Then, when I rounded a corner, I saw a ginger cat and a black cat firmly clamped together, screaming bloody murder and rolling over and over as one unit, in the middle of the road. (Not the pavement. THE ACTUAL ROAD, the bit where cars drive.)

    For a fleeting second I thought, “How embarrassing for those owners to have their cats make a spectacle of themselves so publicly, on a quiet Sunday morning.”

    Then I looked more closely at the black cat and glimpsed a flash of a pencil-thin tail. Oh dear. (Although I knew anyway, even before seeing the tail.)

    Luther, with the telltale tail.

    Catorze has a number of noteworthy features which I was going to list here, but I ought to keep a bit of my powder dry in case he causes trouble and I’m forced to haul out the old “It must have been some other black cat” argument. And the good thing is that, in our neighbourhood, there is at least one other black cat whom we could blame consider in the event of any Chat Noir misbehaviour. (Sorry if it ends up being yours.)

    Would you recognise your pet from a distance or among a crowd of other similar animals? And, if so, how?

    Vampire teeth? A voice that could strip paint? Erm … no, definitely not ours.

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

  • Quand les mouettes nous volent dans les plumes

    Cat Daddy and I are still having a magnificent time in this beautiful place, but I miss cats. And, yes, we have mooted the idea of bringing Louis Catorze with us the next time.

    One short walk for us. One giant litter tray for Catorze.

    Me: “But what about the journey up here? All that screaming?”

    Cat Daddy: “Maybe we could send him separately by DHL? They do a next-day service, don’t they?”

    Actually, the vision of the DHL courier beating us up here, and then having to entertain Catorze in our holiday let whilst waiting for us, is quite funny.

    We haven’t seen any cats during our whole time here, apart from a pair of kittens that we glimpsed through a window in a nearby craft village. I wanted to invite myself in and cuddle them, but then I thought that might be weird. That said, in the event of some random stranger knocking at our door and making the same request for Catorze, I would say yes and invite them to stay for dinner.

    In the absence of a cat, Cat Daddy appears to have adopted a pair of seagulls as his temporary holiday pets. He looks out for them every evening and even leaves out fish scraps for them.

    Me: “What are they called?”

    Him: “They’re black-backed gulls.”

    Me: “No, what are their actual names?”

    Him, without hesitation: “Bert and Freda.” (He pronounced Freda “fray-da”, rhyming with “trader”, which is unusual but I assume this is the Scottish pronunciation.)

    It’s interesting to note that, at home, Cat Daddy can’t abide large birds and only approves of small ones using our bird feeder. Maybe the holiday endorphins have made him a bit less grumpy, even if it’s just for a short while.

    This is Bert. Freda is more camera-shy.

    Catorze is still having a great time without us and, apart from his customary Zoom call disturbances and, erm, an incident with an undead mouse, he has largely been behaving himself. I have really missed him and I’m looking forward to seeing him when we return home this weekend. Only three more days until I get to scoop him up and give him a big squeeze (whilst he squirms to get away from me).

    Look at him, lounging around on the chat-sitteur’s bed like he’s King of the World:

    Not even giving the square root of a merde.

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

  • La propreté physique, la purété morale

    Someone has advertised their professional cleaning services on our local neighbourhood forum, including before and after shots of what they’ve been able to achieve.

    I stopped scrolling after a few because some of the “before” shots were truly stomach-churning. One of the less awful ones showed a carpet covered in mud, with a cat sitting beside it. And the person posting has used the iPhone markup tool to obscure the identity of the cat:

    They’re gonna need a thicker marker pen.

    I have questions:

    ⁃ Is it the same deal with cats as with kids, i.e. bad form to post their photos online without the parents’ (humans’) permission?

    ⁃ Did the cat make the mess? If my cat had done this to my house, I’d be naming and shaming the little weasel for all to see.

    ⁃ In the unlikely event that the cat didn’t make the mess, why photograph him next to it? That seems an odd thing to do.

    Unfortunately the original poster’s markup tool skills are not up to much because, although they’ve obscured the cat SOMEWHAT, they’ve left enough of him visible to tell us all that he’s a ginge with white paws. So now I’m going to be scouring the neighbourhood on the lookout for this carpet-muddying miscreant, and eyeing every ginger and white cat with suspicion.

    And, yes, I am relieved that it’s not a black cat, which would have made people wonder whether this were my house. Most who know me would know that this wasn’t, but the idea of Louis Catorze making a hideous mess in someone else’s house is not utterly ridiculous.

    Here is Catorze, relaxing in the knowledge that, for once, nobody thinks it’s him. Mind you, he’d be adopting this very same pose even if they did:

    “Blame moi. Don’t blame moi. Whatever.”

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

  • Cooped up

    If you could host a dinner and anyone you invited were sure to come, who would you invite?

    Louis Catorze doesn’t really have any friends, so his dinner party would be a quiet affair consisting of just him and Cat Daddy. I don’t suppose even I would be invited, although I would probably be expected to do the catering.

    Catorze’s cat-cousin Otis, however, would invite next door’s chickens. After all, they were kind enough to host him the other night, not just for dinner but for an overnight stay, so the correct protocol would be to return the gesture, non?

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: Otis has just returned home from an impromptu mini-break in next door’s chicken coop. Astonishingly, the chickens were unharmed; the neighbours have done a head-count and confirmed that they are all present and correct.

    Otis was also fine, although unusually tired. We don’t know what went on during those eighteen (!) lost hours, nor will we ever find out – after all, what happens in the coop stays in the coop. But the AI Bot has a few ideas.

    We would bet Le Château on number three:

    Maybe, but doesn’t explain the tiredness.
    Not beyond the realms of possibility.
    We have a winner.

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

  • Revoici la pluie

    Louis Catorze is having a ball in our absence, just as we thought he would. We are moderately offended at how disloyal he is, but at least we know we won’t be subjected to a post-holiday sulk upon our return.

    He has been spending a lot of time out in the rain. Our chat-sitteur was rather concerned about this; thinking he might be stuck outside (either a cat flap malfunction, or just being thick and forgetting how to come in), she even brought him indoors a couple of times, only to have him scream at her and run back out again. So I told her that he loves the rain, and that she should just leave him to it.

    Perhaps I should have mentioned all Catorze’s odd foibles in the House Document. However, not only would it have taken a long time to list all 28,074 of them, but nobody would believe us. “He loves sitting out in thunderstorms and getting drenched, then coming in, rolling the water off onto things/people and then going back out again to restart the process” just sounds idiotic (yet still isn’t the weirdest thing about him).

    The chat-sitteur told us that there had been “no mice yet – I guess because of the rain?”. Ahem. I couldn’t quite bring myself to mention this, so I just stayed quiet.

    She also reported that the little sod was “exceedingly cuddly”. Aww.

    Never stop being such a little freak, Catorze. (Except for the nocturnal parkour and singalong sessions. Maybe stop those.)

    We love him, despite everything.

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

  • Le tour des chats

    Cat Daddy and I are in our favourite place in the Scottish Highlands and, although we have barely started this holiday, we have already started thinking about the next one. I wonder how receptive he would be to a trip to Minneapolis around late June next year, to witness this absolute cracker of an event?

    This spectacle was one person’s simple idea: a man named John Edwards once took photos of local cats and posted them on social media, then decided that, if the area could have tours of historic buildings and suchlike, why not a cat tour? I like his thinking; historic buildings are great, but cats are better.

    Perhaps this is what our neighbourhood needs, too? We certainly have enough cats, and here are just a few of them:

    Cocoa the babysit cat and his sister, Chanel.
    Blue the Smoke Bengal (who is definitely a Smoke but probably not a Bengal).
    Pub cat Scully, who naps on bar chairs. Customers stand up rather than move her.
    Zelda, dramatic mouser and Scully’s usurper stepsister.
    Louis Catorze’s former partner-in-crime Ginger Impinger aka Dosti, and his sister, Cariad.
    Lemon the British Blue – who, since this photo was taken, has been neutered! So hopefully he’s now a bit happier than he looks here.
    Yeah, maybe just skip this part of the tour.

    Obviously these are not the only cats in TW8. However, just like the Minneapolis event, as well as the cats on the official tour route, “bonus cats” would be encouraged to take part. So, when other local cat freaks hear about the event, they would be able to display their furry overlords at the appropriate time, too.

    To obtain approval I would have to run the idea past That Neighbour, who is the PR and events guru around here. However, given the number of times Catorze has broken into his house, disturbed his peace, pissed off his dog and whatever else, I can’t see him agreeing to it.

    So, for now, the Cat Tour of TW8 will remain just a dream. That said, I am mentally designing the e-ticket, and the QR code will look something like this:

    Picture from Redbubble.com.

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

  • Rien n’est permanent sauf le changement

    We have a new Prime Minister and a new government. They are by no means flawless, but we were at such a low that we would have happily accepted anyone. (Well, maybe not Donald Trump or Nigel Farage. Or Marine Le Pen. Anyone but those three.)

    One of the perks of being Prime Minister is the chance to share a house with Larry the cat. Larry has lived at 10, Downing Street since 2011 and is the one constant through a succession of Prime Ministers, each more shit than the last.

    “Things can only get better, right?” Spoiler alert: they didn’t. (Picture from standard.co.uk)

    Larry’s new Cat Daddy, Keir Starmer, is a cat person … but he already has a cat. He’s called Jojo and, apparently, he’s treated like royalty in the Starmer household, which is exactly as it should be. But how will he feel about sharing his Château?

    In the old days, if you wanted two cats to live together, you would just put them together and hope for the best. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn’t. And, if it didn’t, people would just live with scrapping cats and not give it much thought.

    Relations with Palmerston the Foreign and Commonwealth Office cat were somewhat mixed. (Photo from standard.co.uk.)

    However, these days there’s an actual PROCESS when introducing two cats with a view to them living together and managing conflict. According to Feliway – who, let’s face it, ought to know a thing or two about making angsty cats calm the heck down – this includes scent swapping, safe places to escape drama, and, erm, “serenity massages”.

    What’s that? You don’t believe me about the massages? Look here.

    Will Cat Daddy Keir be up to the complex job of managing relations between Larry and his new housemate? Are there enough electrical sockets in Number 10 for all those Feliway plug-ins?

    And how many of us will be taking more of an interest in this story than in anything that the new cabinet does?

    Jojo was a cat who thought he was a loner. (Picture posed by model from pethatestoys.com.)

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

  • Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir

    *WARNING: CONTAINS IMPLIED PENIS-CAUGHT-IN-ZIP INJURY REFERENCES. (Cat Daddy made me write that.)*

    Louis Catorze has just been for his steroid injection. It’s probably a little early, but we wanted to tick it off before going away on holiday. Having the jab makes him less likely to have skin problems, but it also makes him more annoying. So … swings and roundabouts, an’ all that.

    Vive les vacances!

    Naturellement there was a morning of me trying to Act Normal (it didn’t work: HE KNEW) and then the customary screaming as I tried to shove him into his transportation pod. It’s quite astounding the way a 3kg cat can develop the strength of ten angry bears when you try to make him do something he doesn’t want to do. And, somehow, in the chaos, I managed to get his tail caught in the zip of his pod.

    I didn’t think anything could make a trip to the vet worse than it already was. However, this did. Luckily I managed to free it, and Catorze seems to be unharmed. Having to ask the vet to unzip the zipped tail would have been mortifying (yet probably still not up there in my top ten embarrassing vet visits).

    Cat Daddy later winced and crossed his legs when I told him this.

    When we arrived at the practice, I was greeted by a most jarring sight: a dog (Bella the Border terrier) sitting in the Cat Area and a cat (Heera the long-haired Calico) sitting in the Dog Area.

    I KNOW. I’ll pause for a second to give you time to take in this disconcerting information.

    As you can imagine, this completely threw me into a tailspin. Should I sit with the cat as a sign of solidarity, or with the dog to demonstrate my ability to read and respect signs?

    Eventually I went for the latter. Catorze then started screaming at the dog, so I had to move.

    The screaming continued. Bella the Border terrier didn’t so much as flick an ear, and I then found out that she was deaf. Heera the long-haired Calico also didn’t react, and just lay in her Cat Daddy’s arms staring at Catorze and looking appalled.

    The little sod has gained a whole 80g (almost a whole bar of Green and Black’s chocolate) since the last visit, which has shocked us to the core because we thought he’d lost weight. But this is good news.

    Anyway, Le Roi has certainly recovered from his trauma, as I had a big fat mouse brought to the bedroom yesterday morning. Let’s hope that the Catorzian tail doesn’t develop some sort of delayed blood flow issue, going limp and dropping off just as we’re about to leave.

    Seriously. It won’t … will it?

    Please stay well, weird reptilian tail.

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

  • Le dernier prédateur de l’homme

    Since Cat-Disliking Friend is a science teacher, whenever I have a science question that I can’t be bothered to Google, I ask him. And, when I say, “May I ask you a science question?” his usual response is to roll his eyes and say, “It’s not about your cat again, is it?”

    Just before the end of term, I told him that Louis Catorze is glued to my side when I have Covid, yet couldn’t give a shite when it’s just a normal cold. And I asked whether it could be possible for cats to sniff out Covid.

    Naturellement, initially he fell about laughing. But, when I pointed out that dogs can sniff out cancer, fire accelerant and dead bodies, he realised that I may actually have a point. He asked me about Catorze’s reaction to other viral infections, such as flu, but neither Cat Daddy nor I have had the flu in the time that we have had Catorze. Yet it seems that that might be the only way of proving my theory.

    CDF: “There is, of course, the possibility that he’s showing genuine compassion.”

    Oh, come on. He, of all people, should know better than this.

    So, unless I succumb to some other viral infection, I don’t suppose we will ever know the truth. Meanwhile, I kick myself for all the money I could have made from the little sod during the pandemic; who needs a world-beating lateral flow test when they could have a Catorzian cuddle instead?

    Thanks, but I’d rather shove a swab down my throat and swirl it around until I gag.

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

  • Pas de violence; c’est les vacances!

    What are you most worried about for the future?

    If we’re talking about the short term, I worry about Louis Catorze misbehaving and being a massive shite. Long term … well, it’s the same thing.

    It’s the school holidays. And, naturellement, because this is Catorze, there has been trouble. Yes, ALREADY.

    I was sitting in the front room when I heard Cat Daddy shout, “Oh God. He’s screaming at something outside.” I went to investigate and heard that telltale, guttural cat fight sound coming from our shrubbery. The bushes were shaking and I could see a Chat Noir arse sticking out of one end, with a swishing tail so bushy that I wasn’t even sure if it was Catorze’s or not.

    A couple of seconds later there was a hiss, then a large (but then, any cat is large compared to ours) black and white cat went shooting out of the shrubbery and into the Zone Libre, with Catorze in hot pursuit.

    In my state of agitation I shouted, “Louis!” which was a stupid thing to do. Not only was it pointless because yelling at him wouldn’t have made him stop, but it was a hot day with everyone in their gardens, so all the neighbours would have heard me and therefore known that it was our cat.

    Catorze chased the interloper across the field and the pair of them stood facing each other for a few minutes, yowling and swishing tails.

    This is a terrible picture as I took it through the fence, but the black, shapeless lump to the right of the black and white cat is Sa Maj.

    Catorze then slinked back, but not before standing by a tree in the corner of the field and giving it the biggest, longest spray I’ve ever seen him do. In fact, it may well be the ONLY spray I’ve ever seen him do.

    Cat Daddy: “He sprayed? Him? He never sprays!” I KNOW.

    This has reaffirmed my belief that, despite being a pathetic scrap of a thing, our cat can handle himself. It also seems that he considers the Zone Libre his territory. That’s why he sprayed the tree, non? As a final “And don’t come back!”?

    Cat Daddy again: “Maybe we’re the problem. Maybe we’ve just raised a not-very-nice cat who chases visitors away and sprays all over the place?”

    Oh God.

    Catorze is now back on my lap, without so much a scrape, purring away as if nothing happened. We are going away in a couple of days. Can we trust him to be good for his chat-sitteur?

    “Et alors?”

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

  • Le cristal royal (Partie 4)

    We have had to abandon Louis Catorze’s fancy Versailles drinking glasses and replace them with his old Bodum tumbler. And you are not going to believe this: the little sod is still spilling water. I came downstairs this morning to the tumbler standing amid a LAKE of water.

    He didn’t spill water from the tumbler before. But it’s happening now. He’s doing this on purpose, isn’t he?

    Cat-Disliking Friend’s conclusion that Catorze was simply “a crap drinker” seems to be correct. Cat Daddy filmed the little sod the other day and, if you look carefully, you can see that his tongue flicks the water over the side of the glass twice:

    Messy little sod.

    However, if we fill it less generously to avoid the spillage, we risk Catorze not fitting his silly snout in properly.

    Nobody knows what to do now … but the coaster idea is looking more and more likely.

    Cat Daddy: “No.”

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

  • Quand le soleil dit bonjour

    When the air is hotter than the surface of the sun, and you’re a black animal covered in fur, what better than to have humans skivvy around trying to find ways of keeping you cool? And, if they happen to work up a sweat doing so, tant pis pour eux.

    Louis Catorze used to like having a frozen vodka bottle rubbed on his fur, but he seems to have changed his mind about that. And, when I put some ice cubes in his water yesterday morning, he stared at them as if to say “And what the hell is THIS shit?”, then galloped out of the room with his silly little feet skidding around under him, as if I’d given him radioactive waste. (No, I don’t understand this, either.)

    Luckily he was more receptive to ice cubes when rubbed all over his body (thank you, Marc, for the suggestion!). And he also loved having handfuls of cold water slapped onto his fur, then having the fur roughed up a bit. So I did it again and again until he ended up looking like this:

    Puppy Mamma said he looked like a stray. I replied that that ship had already sailed.
    Eurgh.

    Now, if Catorze is happy to have cold water splodged onto his body, he ought to be happy to be wiped down with a damp towel to rid his fur of pollen, non?

    Well … NON. I imagine that this is because the pollen removal is for our benefit, whereas the cold water roughing-up is for him. Why would a king put himself out to benefit us plebs?

    Here is Sa Maj, fresh from being ice-massaged, relaxing in the shade. If you zoom in, you can see the edges of his roughed-up fur:

    Hot, but still splendid.

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

  • La chaleur d’une amitié

    It is 28°C right now. To British people, this is hotter than a thousand suns. And, naturellement, now is the time that my fur-covered pet, who ordinarily couldn’t give a shite whether I live or die, wants to cuddle me.

    At the beginning of the day, I thought Louis Catorze was dying. There was no sign of him at breakfast or lunch, and I finally found him in the spare room, almost lifeless and barely able to lift his head to emit a breathy, feeble croak. But, later that day, when the heat hit its height, the little sod was mysteriously rejuvenated by some hidden force (I don’t know what it was, but it certainly wasn’t food or water as he declined both) and that was when he wanted to sit on my lap.

    Pretending to be at death’s door (LIES).

    He won’t sit on bare legs because he doesn’t like the feeling of lying on skin, so it’s a firm NON to shorts and mini skirts. His preferences, in order, are a fluffy blanket, denim jeans or compression gym leggings, merci for asking.

    So there I was, in stifling heat, sweltering under a blanket and a heat-radiating cat. Luckily it wasn’t peak hay fever time, otherwise I would most likely have had a beeswax candle burning, too.

    The same animal, pictured later the same day.

    It’s also going to be hot tomorrow. And, no doubt, the same thing will happen again. So please check on your British cat freak friends. We are not ok.

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

  • L’enfer a appelé et le diable a hurlé

    How was Louis Catorze’s summer solstice? Well, I wouldn’t know. I barely saw him because he was constantly out, with his activities varying from sunbathing to fox-goading to Rodent Duty.

    Oh yes, Rodent Duty. ‘Tis the season. Look at his silly little ears stood to attention:

    Sunset Rodent Duty on the longest day.

    In other news: another day, another Zoom call ruined. And it was with the same group of people as the previous, also-ruined, Zoom call.

    For the first forty minutes of the hour-long call, my microphone didn’t work so, although I could hear everyone else, nobody could hear me and I was only able to communicate via the written chat. As I fussed and faffed with my settings trying to work out what had gone wrong, Catorze sat quietly beside me, well out of sight of the camera. Eventually he curled up into a little ball and went to sleep.

    After forty minutes, I hit upon the magic formula which made the microphone work. And, naturellement, that was when Catorze bounced back to life.

    He started by just walking across the camera field, dragging his tail across my face as he went. When it was my turn to speak, that was when he really decided to go for it (whatever “it” was), and the worst point was when he stood on my lap, his face in my face and his arse pointing camerawards, whining like a dying dog.

    Everyone on the call responded in customary British fashion: ignoring it and pretending it wasn’t happening. Nobody’s face so much as twitched. And, as soon the call was over, Catorze decided that he no longer wanted to whine, and went back to sleep.

    I shouldn’t be surprised, given that this little weasel DESTROYED my online lessons and staff meetings during lockdown. But at least, back then, there was a spate of cats doing the same thing. By now, the rest of them have found better things to do.

    What is WRONG with him? What do we do?

    I’d far rather the Zoom callers had seen this end than the other.

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