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.

  • Le festin perpétuel

    How do you waste the most time every day?

    Probably by reading and writing about cats, although I don’t consider it a waste. I consider it time well spent, especially when I read about cats who are bigger shites than mine. (Unbelievably, there are some out there.)

    I don’t know what is happening to the cats of TW8, but they seem to be involved in some sort of Synchronised Piss-Take at the moment. Several cat owners have been posting messages on our local neighbourhood forum, asking everyone not to feed their cats because the little sods are chubbing up from all the extra meals.

    Generally the reaction has been sensible: most people are in agreement that you should absolutely not feed someone else’s cat without permission. But a small minority have surprised me with their responses. Some people have advised the original posters to keep their cats indoors; apparently, if you let your cats out, then you should expect “kind” people to feed them. Erm.

    Then there was this person. Their profile photo is that of a cat, but I am starting to wonder if that’s just a stock photo. If this comment is genuine and not satire, clearly they have never met a cat before:

    The name has been obscured to save them from embarrassment.

    As you know, Louis Catorze is inordinately fussy and wouldn’t be interested in food offered by random people. However, I’m pretty sure his big brother, Luther, would have happily eaten rusty razorblades if someone had drizzled them with fish stock first, whether he were hungry or not. He was also king of the Second Dinner Trick and, once, had me scrabbling through bins counting empty cans, because I didn’t know whether feeding him twenty minutes beforehand was real or just a dream.

    Worryingly, some people agreed with the commenter above. Are they mind-numbingly stupid? Or are they simply one stage along in the subversive brainwashing process that cats are conducting on us, in preparation for their world takeover?

    At least nobody on the forum has (yet) posted to say, “There’s a stray black kitten in my garden, who won’t leave my husband/boyfriend/brother alone”. I’m all ready with the “It must be some other black cat” trademark response.

    “It wasn’t moi.”

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

  • La joie de l’été

    It’s the summer solstice. Usually Cat Daddy and I would be doing something fun as it’s also our wedding anniversary, but I still have the last few dregs of Covid. So we will probably spend the day cooking separate meals and sitting in separate rooms instead.

    Meanwhile, Louis Catorze is out. As soon as Cat Daddy puts the cushions out on our outdoor seating, Catorze is there.

    Le Roi has left the building.

    That said, he still makes time to keep his Coviddy maman company. Two nights ago, when I was getting ready for bed at some desperately early still-daylight hour, I decided to call him in for a goodnight cuddle. Catorze is pretty good at coming when he’s called, but he was outside so, being too lazy to go to him, I knew that I’d have to shout pretty loudly for him to hear me across the hallway and out through the open bathroom window. So I opened the bedroom door and bellowed his name with all his might.

    I then head a “Mwah” and pitter-pattering paws. It turned out that Catorze had actually come up to the bedroom and wasn’t outside at all. In my haste to project my voice as far as I could, I hadn’t seen him at my feet, and my shouting had scared him. Oh dear.

    So, whilst I sit trying to drown the Covid with Lemsip*, Sa Maj is out. Again. And, even though I have seen the silhouette of Foxy Loxy slinking through the half-light, I know that the little sod can handle himself.

    *Lemsip does not cure Covid. I know this. It just makes my brain feel that I’m doing something to help myself.

    Happy Solstice to you all.

    He just abandoned a salutation to the sun. You can actually hear him mutter, “Nah, sod it”.

  • L’âge donne le sens

    How do you want to retire?

    Louis Catorze is, apparently, seventy-two in cat years, so he is well into retirement. However, nobody seems to have told him this. Or, if they have, he hasn’t listened.

    To outsiders, he still looks like a playful little kitten, doing all the other things that he did whilst younger: jumping onto and off beds, 3am parkour, scaling high fences to go wandering somewhere he has no business being, and so on. He still eats, drinks, plays and screams. He even still hunts from time to time.

    But, one morning last week, when I followed him downstairs for breakfast, I noticed that he wasn’t galloping down as he usually does. Instead, he would gallop a couple of steps, then take a couple gently, then gallop again, and so on.

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: he is finally starting to show signs of his age, reminding us that he is an old man and not a rambunctious kitten. This made me a little sad, but then he doesn’t know that he’s an old man. And, if he did, he wouldn’t give a shit.

    Here he is, wondering whether to show off his apex predator hunting prowess or just bid the bird a friendly bonjour. Turn the volume up:

    (Spoiler alert: he went for the latter.)

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

  • Un lion se voit, pas un virus

    Who do you spend the most time with?

    Merde, merde and thrice merde: I have Covid. In some ways I’m glad there is, at least, an explanation for why I feel so shite, and conducting the test in front of Cat Daddy soon put a lid on all his “Are you sure it’s not hay fever?” nonsense.

    I should have known that something was afoot when Louis Catorze spent the whole weekend on my lap, not even budging through my sneezes. He doesn’t have much patience for, erm, patients, and he makes his irritation quite plain when I’m ill.

    Unless it’s Covid. For reasons that nobody understands, when it’s Covid he is an affectionate and attentive nursemaid and won’t leave my side.

    So, from Friday to today, I’ve spent every waking minute, and probably every sleeping one too, with Catorze.

    This isn’t all some massive coincidence, because he’s done it before. I could have made an absolute fortune had I rented him out when Covid was rife; this kind of skill is right up there with those dogs who can sniff out cancer, dead bodies and whether or not a fire was started deliberately. (Different dogs, I mean, each doing just one of those things. I don’t suppose the same dogs can do all three.)

    At least the football is on. And at least I don’t have to work on Mondays.

    Here is Catorze, snuggled up against me. This is both heart-tuggingly cute and creepy as hell:

    Little sod probably just wants to watch me die.

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

  • Tel père, tel fils

    Today is Fathers’ Day in the UK, and I have bought Cat Daddy this delightful gift:

    For a few seconds I thought this said “10”, which would have been dreadful … but also very funny.

    No doubt he will be absolutely furious, not just at the waste of money on “unsolicited cat tat”, as he puts it, but at the fact that I accidentally made his hair much greyer than it really is. This was partly because I was on a crowded bus at the time of choosing the personalisation, and therefore wasn’t concentrating properly, but also because I just didn’t remember.

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: I actually FORGOT the hair colour of my husband of fifteen years, and didn’t realise until I arrived home that day and looked at him properly. Oh dear.

    Could I pinpoint Louis Catorze’s white hairs with greater accuracy? Probably, yes.

    Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely day, whether or not you choose to celebrate. Cat Daddy will be enjoying it from his default position: underneath Catorze.

    On this fine day, Cat Daddy decided to relax outside with a magazine. Catorze said NON.

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

  • L’ange noir qui veille sur mon berceau

    What notable things happened today?

    Just the usual screaming. You know how it is.

    Furthermore, Louis Catorze’s screaming is getting worse. None of us ever thought this possible, but it’s happening.

    When I told Cat Daddy about the incident with the beautician, asking, “What on earth could have been wrong with him that day?”, Cat Daddy pointed out that it wasn’t just that day; Catorze is like that all the time.

    This is how Catorze’s bullying escalates if he doesn’t get attention:

    1. Just screaming*

    2. Screaming + sitting at our feet, staring at us

    3. Screaming + jumping onto the sofa next to us, staring

    4. Screaming + placing front paws on our lap, staring into our face

    5. Screaming + placing back paws on our lap and front paws on our chest

    6. Screaming + head-butting our hands

    7. Screaming + knocking drinks, books or phones out of our hands (yes, he’s scalded me with hot tea more than once)

    *I say “JUST screaming” as if being on the lower end of the scale isn’t so terrible but, trust me, this is bad. The bar starts very low and just sinks progressively lower.

    Catorze was a particularly psychotic hell-beast the night before I had planned to a ten-mile walk with my friend. You know those nights when you think, “I really need a good sleep because I have a very important thing to do tomorrow”? Yeah, it was one of those. For the few nights before that, I hadn’t heard a peep from him and he’d just cuddled quietly in bed, hence why I stupidly thought he’d behave on the eve of my walk. Oh, and the already-demanding ten miles turned into a tragic thirteen because we got lost, so it really wasn’t great to have had the Catorzian disturbance the night before.

    What on earth do we do, Mesdames et Messieurs? There has to be a solution other than investing in earplugs?

    No, you go ahead and relax. Don’t mind us.

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

  • Un chat inoubliable

    A couple of nights ago, Cat Daddy and I settled down on the sofa to watch the latest series of Unforgotten on Netflix. Usually, when we watch television in the evenings, Louis Catorze is on his papa’s lap. But, this time, we didn’t know where he was.

    Cat Daddy, a few minutes into the first episode: “This isn’t right. He’s always with us in the evenings.”

    Me: “It’s fine. He’s probably arsing around outside somewhere.”

    Him: “This sort of thing isn’t like him.”

    Me: “What do you mean? It’s EXACTLY like him.”

    Him: “Something’s wrong. We need to go and look for him.”

    Cat Daddy, might I add, was a couple of bottles of wine under at the time, and in no fit state to be going up and down stairs looking for Catorze. So, when he said “WE need to go and look for him”, we both knew that he meant just me.

    My strategy was to start searching in the places that I really didn’t want him to be and, would you believe, he was in the first/only place that I looked: on top of a freshly-cleaned duvet (not a duvet COVER, but an ACTUAL DUVET) which is now no longer clean.

    Bastard cat.

    I brought the little sod downstairs and placed him into the lap of his overjoyed papa. After a little Boys’ Club drunken roughhousing and some name-calling of the Unrepeatable Expletive variety, the two of them were friends again and snuggled up together to continue watching Unforgotten.

    Cat Daddy will always try to have people believe that, of the two of us, I am the one who is obsessed with Catorze and who frets about him every waking minute.

    May this post serve as proof that it’s all lies.

    Loving all the needless fuss about him.

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

  • Graviter autour du soleil

    The only thing more embarrassing than having a black cat with bright white ears, is other people knowing that you have a black cat with bright white ears. So, naturellement, the last time that I applied Louis Catorze’s ear sunblock, he escaped out at The Front when I put some recycling out.

    I didn’t even realise until I heard feline screaming and people talking. I was completely torn as to what to do: leaving him out there would ensure maximum street-embarrassment, but then if I called him in, everyone would know he was my cat (and there was no guarantee that he’d come in anyway).

    In the end I opened the door and pretended (!) to put more recycling out, at which point he ran in having only shown himself up in front of a couple of people. Not great, but could have been much worse.

    However, Catorze wasn’t done there. That evening, I had a Zoom call with a group of people whom I hadn’t met before. You know how this is going to play out, don’t you?

    There I was, settled comfortably and listening intently to the person who was leading the call, when he appeared. Astonishingly, he didn’t make a sound and, instead, just walked across the camera field from right to left, then left to right, over and over again, brushing his up-tail against my face as he went.

    Eventually the back and forth became ridiculous, so I had to pluck him off one-handedly (easy to do as he’s so gossamer-light) and place him to one side. That was when he screamed, startling everyone on the call and having one person say, “That sounded like a baby!”

    Nobody commented on the bright white ears. I guess they must have either thought they were naturally like that, or that I painted them for fun.

    Curiously, the little sod did settle down after that, lying on my lap and appearing to concentrate on the voice of the main speaker. It seems to be that, when women are speaking, he shuts up. But, when it’s men (or boys), he runs riot.

    I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise to anyone.

    Here he is, gadding about on his outdoor sofa, with the bright white ears on display. You can even see the smears where he’s tried to roll off the sunblock onto some surface or other:

    Yuck.

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

  • L’avenir appartient aux chats

    A couple of nights ago, Cat Daddy and I sat down to watch the live election debate between our current Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Louis Catorze joined us, taking his usual place on his papa’s lap.

    Fifteen minutes in and I’d had enough; all they did was shout over each other (the election candidates, I mean, not Catorze and Cat Daddy). And it seemed I wasn’t alone in finding it quite jarring and stressful because, just as I stood up to go and do something else, Catorze stepped onto the remote control and changed channels.

    Cat Daddy: “OH, FOR ****’S SAKE! LOUIS, YOU ****!”

    Catorze: “Mwah!”

    Fresh from being sworn at by his papa.

    I adjourned from the kitchen to the living room to watch something more relaxing – demonic possessions, serial killers, whatever – whilst Cat Daddy tried to rewind back to the point where he’d left off. Catorze, whose work was done, came to sit with me for a short while, then escaped out at The Front when Cat Daddy put out the recycling.

    The next day, the general consensus regarding the election debate was that neither candidate covered themselves in glory. In other words, Catorze’s thinking was in line with that of the nation.

    Or was the nation in line with Catorze? And is this all part of the World Domination Plan?

    Larry the Downing Street cat is officially sick of all this shit. (Picture from Yahoo News.)

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

  • La nourriture du diable

    Describe your dream chocolate bar

    Cats and chocolate don’t really go together, so Louis Catorze doesn’t have a dream one.

    However, if he WERE a chocolate bar, he would be one of those 99% ones: dark, bitter and only manageable in very small doses.

    I prefer something sweeter.

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

  • Les plus bavardes des perruches

    Although the idea of being awoken by sweet birdsong is romantic, the reality is somewhat different. In the summer months, London’s resident parakeets – yes, we really do have them living wild here – start their infernal racket at 4am. Although they’re strikingly pretty birds, there’s nothing nice about the noise that they make (nor about the time that they start).

    Bastard birds.

    Louis Catorze can compete with any animal in terms of noise and, just because he can, he does. Also, because black cats are born without the chromosome that makes them mind their own business, when the parakeets are shrieking he is compelled to respond. Even if this makes them shriek more. ESPECIALLY if this makes them shriek more.

    Here he is, having just retaliated. Their heads were tilted to look at the source of the scream, but this also gives them a disapproving, judgemental air:

    Oh good grief.

    Just like the sunblock on the ears, we have a whole summer of this ahead of us. Quelle joie.

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

  • La douleur passe, la beauté reste

    Earlier this week, the beautician came over for a waxing and massage appointment. Louis Catorze has had some lively interactions with her in the past and, now that he is used to her, that’s where I thought any nonsense would remain: IN THE PAST.

    Catorze, however, had other ideas.

    He was conspicuously absent during the waxing, so I thought we’d got away with it. Then, when it was time for the massage, we heard him outside the bedroom door. And, before I could object, the beautician had let him in.

    Her: “Hello, Lewis! How are you, baby?”

    Me: “Nooo. Don’t encourage him.”

    Catorze: “Mwaaaaahhhhh!”

    The little sod circled the bed, jumped onto it, jumped down from it and tried to get into the beautician’s bag, all the while screaming himself senseless. He barely even drew breath.

    Me: “I’m so sorry. He’ll get bored and calm down soon.”

    He didn’t.

    Beautician: “Maybe he’s upset because he thinks I’m harming you?”

    I was pretty sure it wasn’t that. In fact, it’s far more likely that he was thinking, “If you’re trying to kill her, you’re doing a shit job. You keep coming back, but she’s still here.”

    After twenty minutes, Catorze went UNDER the bed. This was something of a relief as I thought he was going to find a quiet spot and go to sleep.

    He didn’t. The screaming continued from under bed.

    Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that feline screaming in your face were the worst it could get – after all, you have to cope with that outraged, bug-eyed face staring right at you. But there is something disconcerting about feline screaming out of sight, with the screamer making no effort to seek you out even though they know where you are. Who screams from UNDER A BED?

    After a couple of minutes Catorze exited bed left, still screaming. My head was hanging over the edge of the bed as I lay on my front, so he decided to place himself right underneath my face and creepy-stare at me.

    This was my view when I opened my eyes:

    I bet they don’t have this kind of caper at Champneys.

    From time to time he would rear up on his hind legs, scream at me and try to slap my face. The beautician was laughing so much that she couldn’t apply pressure properly and, every time she looked at him, she’d burst into giggles again.

    Catorze finally shut up at the twenty-eight minute mark, snuggling up against me and purring. The massage was half an hour, so my anticipated thirty minutes of relaxation turned out to be, erm, two.

    We still have no idea why he was so awful that day, but it turned out that, during the massage, Cat Daddy was outside on his static bike. So, with both humans occupied, La Personne Royale was unattended. Clearly this is a far-from-optimal state of affairs, and Sa Maj made his displeasure known in the most dramatic way possible.

    I’d like to think that he’ll grow out of this. But he won’t, will he?

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

  • Les aventures de Sigrid

    What better way to spend a half term break than accidentally meeting celebrity cats?

    Cat Daddy and I met up with some friends, who also happen to be fellow Chat Noir hostages, and, after lunch, we went for a short walk along the river as it was a lovely day. And we just happened to bump into this absolute beauty, sitting calmly among the crowds with her Cat Daddy:

    She looked, and felt, like a soft, fluffy cloud.

    I asked what her name was, and her Cat Daddy said “Sigrid”. At first I thought he’d said “Cigarette”, and I thought that was a strange name for a cat. But it was a good enough cat name for Albert Camus. And, since my cat is called Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, plus my parents gave me a difficult name which absolutely nobody can pronounce, I can’t really afford to throw stones when it comes to weird names.

    Cat Daddy has personalised Sigrid bike wheels.

    Sigrid is a Norwegian Forest Cat and she is deaf. When we Googled her later, we discovered that she is famous for accompanying her Cat Daddy, Travis, on cycling adventures. She hisses at dogs as she passes them. It’s the most brilliant thing ever.

    I wish I could take Catorze on cycling adventures. Regretfully it will never happen, since I don’t like cycling and I don’t trust Catorze to behave himself; he would be screaming all the way, then making off with the first random man that he saw. I can’t even take him on a ten-minute walk to the vet, although that’s less of an “adventure” and more of a Herculean labour.

    If you’re on Instagram and you’d like to follow Sigrid and Travis, here they are. And, if your cat is an adventurer, please tell me all about it!

    That’s enough adventure for one day.

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

  • Profiter du soleil

    What are you good at?

    Not applying cat sunblock, that’s for sure.

    This is the face – or, rather, the rear end – of someone who has just fought like an absolute demon to try and prevent me from applying his sunblock on his ears:

    Top-notch Catorzian ignoring.

    My friend, who is a dog person: “Does he NEED sunblock? I mean, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to sit out in the hot sun and bake himself to death, would he?”

    Me: “…”

    Him: “Oh, right.”

    I have to have the tube of sunblock next to me, ready for the stealth pounce. But the problem is that, on account of Louis Catorze having two ears, and on account of a surprise ambush only really being a surprise one time, one ear is absolutely impossible to do. Once he has twigged what’s happening, he kind of folds his ears downwards to stop me from putting sunblock on the very part that really, really needs it.

    This particular session was a real gladiatorial fight to the death, with sunblock smeared on me, on his head and body, on the sofa … in fact, everywhere but the one place where it was meant to go. After trying to roll it off onto every available surface, the little sod decided to sit facing the other way and sulk.

    We have a whole summer of this to look forward to. Luckily we will be away for two weeks of it, but dare we ask the chat-sitteur to do this in our absence? We would quite like to keep her friendship, merci s’il vous plaît …

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