Cats: do you ever worry that your behaviour isn’t bad enough? Do your humans think you are a Good Boy/Girl? If so, here are Louis Catorze’s top tips for remedying this state of affairs:
1. Drag filled-to-capacity bin bag across hallway.
2. Tip bin bag over.
3. Allow bin bag to leak bin juice and various other unpleasant items that don’t belong on the floor.
4. Sit back and watch the fun as one human cleans up the mess, then accuses the other human of having caused it.
5. Your work is done. Have a nap.
Here is Catorze, demonstrating how to carry out point 5 – and just look at his silly little fang sticking out. You’re welcome.
Ever since MouseGate last week, eerie things have been afoot at Le Château.
Louis Catorze’s eating habits, which always shift a little during CST to account for the increased daylight hours, have gone completely haywire. In the mornings he still wakes me as if wanting food but, when we come downstairs and I plate up, he stares right through the food as if it’s not there. He is still fixated with the area under the sideboard where he caught that mouse, but I have also seen him on Rodent Duty by the cupboard under the sink.
Not only is the most expensive food on the planet failing to satisfy the little sod, but his latest victim-to-be is somewhere in our house. This is not great.
I imagine it’s only a matter of time before we discover a headless body. But where will it be? Will our cold-blooded killer display the trophy in his usual trophy cabinet of choice (the bottom of the stairs – spookily, exactly what his big brother Luther used to do)? Or will he deliver us a plot twist in the form of a surprise new location?
I was about to say “I can’t wait to find out” but I’m in no hurry.
We may or may not discover what it is that he’s staring at. I’m leaning more towards “may not”.
We have just had builders in, fortifying the battlements at Le Château.
As you know, Louis Catorze LOVES tradesmen – builders, gardeners, locksmiths, anyone, really – and one of his favourite things to do is annoy them and make their work last for longer. On the morning that the builders arrived he was in especially high spirits, bouncing around and screaming. But, as soon as they started work, he disappeared.
It’s not uncommon for Catorze to vanish during the day, especially when it’s summer and there is gadding about to be done in the Zone Libre. But, when his food remained uneaten from the morning – he’d screamed and screamed for it, circling my feet like a hungry shark, then walked away the minute I served it – I started to wonder where he was. It even occurred to me that he might have crept into the builders’ van. But, although they’ve been here before and are used to peculiar Catorzian ways, I was too embarrassed to ask them to check.
He won’t. But the builders certainly will, if he’s around.
At around 3pm, the little sod reappeared in the living room, screaming indignantly, which I took to be annoyance at the drilling and stomping (even though it has never bothered him before). I then found out that he’d been accidentally trapped in the guest bedroom the whole time. He’d shot out, screaming, when Cat Daddy went to put something in laundry basket. And he may well have been screaming for some time, but we wouldn’t have heard him over the builders’ noise.
Poor Catorze then needed an emergency session of Boys’ Club to recover – not because of the builders’ presence, but because he was cruelly kept away from them. It must have been like having a really good bottle of wine but no bottle-opener.
Would it be weird to invite the builders to Le next Club?
“Hark! Is that the sound of HOMMES DANS MON CHÂTEAU?”
Cat Daddy came home from his weekend away on Monday morning. Upon his return, Louis Catorze completely failed to acknowledge him, choosing, instead, to sleep on my lap. This kind of behaviour is utterly out of character for him. And there was no full moon, no Mercury Retrograde, no thinning of the veil, no Lucifer Rising … in fact, No Excuse Whatsoever.
Sometimes you just KNOW when something is afoot, don’t you? In Catorze’s case, seeing him on his best behaviour and/or choosing me over his favourite person, are good reasons for suspicion and general unease.
I messaged my friend to tell her that that the apocalypse was nigh, and she replied, “He’s up to something”.
I knew it. Ugh.
Later that afternoon, Catorze sat creepy-staring at a completely full bowl. I picked up the bowl, waved it under his nose to remind him of its fullness and set it back down again, but he remained statue-still and didn’t even flick a whisker. I then realised that he wasn’t creepy-staring at the bowl at all, but at an area just to the right of it.
In fact, what I was witnessing wasn’t creepy staring. Mesdames et Messieurs, THIS WAS RODENT DUTY.
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
After prowling suspiciously around the kitchen for some time, Catorze was rewarded for his efforts: he dived underneath the sideboard and emerged with a twitching mouse in his mouth. Cat Daddy and I watched, frozen in horror, as he licked it from top to toe, but I snapped out of my shock-trance and was able to whisk it away before he could leave his customary serial killer calling card (eating the head).
Classic suspicious prowling pose.
At the time of writing this, Catorze had barely eaten any food since the incident. I am now terrified that his taste for mouse blood is so irresistible that no other food will do.
Do we have a mouse infestation from which our hero cat is dutifully liberating us?
Had he brought the mouse in and saved it for later?
And, if this is the kind of caper that takes place with no celestial or magical intervention, what on earth can we expect WITH said intervention?
Catorze knows the answers. But I don’t imagine he’ll tell us.
Scour the news for a story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.
(The original brief was for an “entirely uninteresting” story, but I ignored that bit.)
It was International Cat Day yesterday. We didn’t bother telling Louis Catorze because he already thinks every day is all about him, so it wouldn’t have changed a thing.
On the morning of International Cat Day, Cat Daddy’s brother sent me this picture (below). Having heard all about Catorze’s penchant for gadding about in storms, he asked me if I wanted one of these contraptions for Christmas (and I think he was only half-joking):
Yeah, I’d be pissed off, too.
Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs, this really is a cat-dryer. A dryer for cats. And, somehow, it made it into the Daily Telegraph.
Now, since trying to put Catorze into his transportation pod for vet visits is quite the Herculean labour, I don’t imagine that putting him into a dryer would be any easier. And the vet visits are only once a month, whereas the storm gadding-about takes place whenever it rains, multiple times per downpour, and often through the night, too. Do I* fancy Greco-Roman wrestling Catorze into a dryer that many times a day/night? Non.
*Let’s face it: it would be me, wouldn’t it, and not Cat Daddy?
Cat Daddy is concerned about the environmental impact of the device, especially since Catorze is so small. And he has a point. Would putting a tiny cat into a dryer be the equivalent of switching on an oven just to roast one potato?
Whilst we debate these intellectual and highbrow issues, here is Catorze, fresh from – yes you’ve guessed it – gadding about in yet another storm, and taking a drink from the water pooled on the table. And look at the army of birds in the background, who daren’t come down to feed until the apex predator has moved his arse:
Must keep hydrated in readiness for the next gad-about.
Cat Daddy is away at a festival, so it’s just me and Louis Catorze at home. No, I wasn’t tempted to go. And, after accidentally clicking on a link that was a video of a Glastonbury toilet, I knew that I would not attend any outdoor festival, EVER, as long as I live.
Testing out the camping gear before his papa’s departure.
My normal television viewings – which were temporarily halted on holiday as there was only one TV, so we had to compromise – have now resumed. Yesterday, when I was watching one of those Prime Video programmes with the obligatory ads that you can’t forward through, there was an ad for Wisdom Panel. At first I thought, “Why on earth would they advertise that now, in the middle of a show about bloodthirsty serial killers [or ghosts, or sharks, or whatever it was]?” but the fact that I remember the ad and am now writing about it, yet I’m unable to remember the programme that I was watching in the first place, shows that they have their marketing exactly right.
Wisdom Panel is an organisation who does, erm, DNA ancestry for pets. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: for the kingly sum of £89.99, you can gain “valuable insights on their genetic health, traits, ancestry and more”.
I’m curious. But not £89.99 curious.
We already know that Catorze is part-vampire, part-demon, part-alien and part-cryptozoological critter yet to be discovered. We don’t need a test to find this out. Wisdom Panel also claims to allow us to customise our pet’s healthcare according to its findings but, if what we already do for him isn’t “customised care”, I don’t know what is.
Regretfully, where the system comes crashing down for us cat freaks is that, in order to conduct the test, we have to rub a swab (just like the Covid ones) between the animal’s cheek and gum line for fifteen seconds. Now, this may not seem like a long time, but anyone who has ever had to pin down a screaming, hissing, writhing hell-beast of a cat to administer their meds, will understand that this just won’t work.
And, as if to add insult to injury, the Wisdom Panel site has two videos of well-behaved doggies sitting perfectly still whilst their humans swab them. There are no videos of anyone swabbing a cat.
So Cat Daddy and I will be putting our £89.99 to better use – for instance, buying more alcohol to help us deal with all Catorzian capers. I think we’re gonna need a bigger drinks trolley.
Waiting to accost the postman as he delivers the swabbing kit.
It seems I’m trying to attain the world record for the greatest number of surgeries undertaken by a human being. I have had the following, so far, in this order, with the last one only last week:
⁃ An osteotomy
⁃ A disc fusion
⁃ A myomectomy
⁃ Erm, a shoulder thing (can’t remember the medical name for it)
⁃ An emergency appendectomy
⁃ A hysteroscopy, a transcervical resection of fibroid and an endometrial biopsy (all three together)
Perhaps Louis Catorze has inherited his sickly constitution from me? That said, given that he’s had so many medical treatments himself, it’s strange that he should have zero empathy for people who are sick or convalescing. If I sneeze, and he happens to be on my lap, he scowls contemptuously and runs off, doing the bird-chatter noise as he goes. And he seems to save up his worst behaviour for when I’m recovering from something, as this and this will demonstrate.
Anyway, the most recent three-in-one extravaganza was, in actual fact, quite short and straightforward, so I was home the same morning. Surprisingly, Catorze could not have been more affectionate. And his fur was super-soft, the way it always is when he’s been in the care of a chat-sitteur before turning to merde again when we resume duties, so it was wonderfully therapeutic for me to be able to relax on the sofa, stroking and cuddling him.
All good, non?
Well … NON.
Since I didn’t have my wits fully about me as I recovered from the general anaesthetic, I forgot that Catorze is just like a toddler: a too-long sleep and insufficient tiring-out during the day mean torment after dark.
After sleeping on my lap all day, he went absolutely berserk that night. And the fact that there was a storm outside not only unlocked an extra level of psycho in him, but also meant that he was constantly rolling his cold, wet body onto us, then going back out to re-wet so that he could do it again. And again. AND AGAIN.
The next morning, he was perfectly dry and back to being sweet again. As long as I live, I shall never understand this animal.
Are you one of the chosen ones whose cats are nice to you when you’re ill? Please comment with some uplifting stories which will restore my faith in catkind.
A couple of nights ago, when I was sitting in the living room with Louis Catorze on my lap, Cat Daddy walked into the room and said, “There’s a huge full moon outside.”
Not even a second after those words had left him, Catorze jumped off my lap, ran to the window and headbutted the shutters.
Cat Daddy: “He knows, doesn’t he?”
Before I could stop him, Cat Daddy had opened the window and let Catorze out at The Front. He disappeared for about twenty minutes but then returned to sit on the window sill and look out at his royaume, with the full moon shining down on him. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: HE WAS CHARGING UP. If you believe in the power of crystals and charging them up under a full moon, then why not cats (especially this one)?
However, if you think that full moon madness means we are spared from any nonsense at times of other moon phases, you would be mistaken. Here is an old photo of the little sod demonstrating that, moon or no moon, he is perfectly able to power up for mayhem and mischief anytime:
A charged-up Catorze is like when Banner transforms into the Incredible Hulk.
We all know that Louis Catorze can tell the time; look here, here, here and here for examples of when he has proven this. And, after a few days of living with our chat-sitteur whilst we were in Scotland, he worked out what time her alarm went off and ensured that he started the screaming just beforehand.
However … are they actually capable of altering the passage of time? Or is that a step too far, even for a black vampire cat with demon/alien ancestry?
If you have ever experienced any of these, could the cat(s) have been responsible?
⁃ A peaceful night uninterrupted by a cat – if, indeed, you are lucky enough to experience one of these at all – despite the fact that you live with a cat (Feels Like*: 60 minutes, maximum).
⁃ Being TUC with a cup of tea on a cold, miserable work day morning (Feels Like: 3-5 minutes to you, longer to the cat).
⁃ The vet administering any kind of pill to your cat (Feels Like: 0.4 seconds).
*In the U.K., they often tell us the temperature but then add “Feels Like: [a different number altogether].” We Brits can only really relate to temperatures below 0°C and those above 27°C, so telling us that this morning it’s 10°C but feels like 5°C means absolutely nothing.
And, if any of these are familiar to you, perhaps you have unknowingly fallen victim to the little sods messing with time in the opposite direction:
⁃ A fitful night interrupted repeatedly by a cat (Feels Like: forever, or longer if it’s a full moon).
⁃ Being TUC when you’re desperate for the loo (Feels Like: variable depending on weight of cat and distance from loo, although even gossamer-light cats can make one paw exert horrendous pressure when it pushes on your abdomen).
⁃ You administering, or attempting to administer, that same pill that appeared to take the vet 0.4 seconds (Feels Like: forever³).
Little sod.
I once had a deeply religious colleague who would say that the feeling of time speeding up, with weeks appearing to pass like days, was a sign of Armageddon approaching. Cats are known Masters of the Dark Arts, so why WOULDN’T they hypnotise both us and time itself through some unseen power?
Where will this end: in a universal feline uprising? Or, as my ex-colleague predicted, in Armageddon? Are they even different things?
“Feeling bored, might press button later, IDK.” (Picture from twitter.com.)
Louis Catorze’s trip to the vet on Friday gave us a few surprises. In typical Catorzian style, he was loud. However, we weren’t quite expecting the, erm, VARIETY of screams uttered when we did the Walk of Horror across the park. Even Cat Daddy flinched at one of them and said, “Eurgh. That’s not a good sound.”
During the ten-minute walk (although it felt a lot longer), we were treated to the following:
1. His normal screams (the ones that could strip paint).
2. A sort of hiss-scowl hybrid (the sound that vampires make when you stick a crucifix in their face).
3. A strangulation-type sound.
4. An underwater strangulation-type sound.
5. A goaty bray.
As ever, Catorze screamed himself senseless all the way through his appointment, and was chillingly silent after that. It usually takes a couple of days for the Steroid Psycho to kick in. However, on this occasion (most likely because Cat Daddy was going out and I was home alone), Catorze decided to start straight away.
He was in and out all night, stopping only to batter at the shutters so that I would let him out at The Front (denied) and, when I decided to take myself to bed to get away from him, he followed me upstairs, sat on my chest and creepy-stared at me.
Since it’s a full moon in a couple of days’ time, and a BLUE MOON at the end of August, I don’t see this getting better anytime soon. Bastard cat.
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
In addition to enjoying the best food (Orijen and Cool Cat Club) and taking plenty of exercise in and beyond the grounds of Le Château, Louis Catorze stays well with regular trips to his royal physician. Sadly, she is about to leave her post to go travelling, and today is her last day.
Cat Daddy and I had originally arranged to visit her, sans Catorze, with a thank-you card and a gift. However, because the little sod has decided that now is the time to start scratching, we will have to take him as well, for his steroid shot. So what was supposed to be a meeting of thanks and good wishes will now be a(nother) full-on fight to the death peppered with screaming, but at least the vet will be able to tuck into our champagne afterwards. She’ll need it.
The perfect card for a vet.
If you are a long-term follower of Le Blog, you may recall that Catorze’s previous vet, from the same practice, also left her job to go travelling. I don’t know whether this is coincidence or whether taking a year off work is the only remedy for the stress of being Catorze’s royal physician. It’s the former, non?
We wish Charlotte the best of luck on her healing journey travels, and we hope that this is an “Au revoir” and not an “Adieu”. We are looking forward to meeting her successor, although hopefully it won’t be this vet.
Number of vets forced to flee the country to date: 2 (two).
Upon arrival we were greeted by the chat-sitteur, who regaled us with tales of Louis Catorze’s almost-exemplary* behaviour during her stay at Le Château. He made a particular impression on her boyfriend, who declared that he’d “never met a cat like this before”. Yup. We know the feeling.
*This was the “almost” bit.
However, Catorze himself was very conspicuous in his absence from the welcoming party, choosing, instead, to sun himself on his outdoor cat plinths (yes, PLINTHS, plural – he fits perfectly well onto one but insists on lying across two pushed together). At one point I glanced outside, we locked eyes AND HE YAWNED AND WENT BACK TO SLEEP.
When we went outside to marvel at how much the garden had grown, we thought the little sod would surely come and say hello then.
Me: “Louis!”
[Silence, tumbleweed, crickets.]
Cat Daddy “Louis!”
Catorze, very feebly: “Mwah.”
Chat-sitteur: “Louis!”
Catorze: “MWAHHHHH!”
Not only did she receive the most rapturous “Mwahhh!” of all of us, but her voice seemed to galvanise him into action and he finally moved his lazy arse in our direction. He let us cuddle him, briefly, then went back to sunbathing on his plinths.
He is not cross with us for leaving him; that would imply that he actually gave a shit. This is just classic Catorze. And it’s also classic CST; the little sod spent so much time outside on the day of our return that he missed the arrival of – and the chance to accost – Lee driving the Fig van from Ocado.
I have another month-and-a-bit at home at him before I return to the company of moody teenagers. At least they will seem very polite in comparison.
Typical: the one time that I attempt to photograph him across both plinths, he squeezes his arse onto one.
It won’t be a surprise to learn that it’s Louis XIV, the Sun King.
On the other hand, what may be surprising is the number of common points that Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, shares with his human counterpart:
1. Becoming king at the age of four: coincidentally, this was also Catorze’s age when he stormed Le Château and seized the crown in July 2014.
2. Believing that the universe revolves around him: well, naturellement.
3. Overseeing the administrative and financial organisation of his realm: see previous point.
4. Being of diminutive stature: both the human and the feline Sun Kings were/are teeny-tiny.
5. Enjoying a string of military victories: although point 4 might suggest otherwise, our little Roi has never shied away from a fight. Nor has he ever lost one, despite facing much larger and more numerous adversaries.
6. Annexing key territories: Le Château, The Front, the Zone Occupée and the Zone Libre (both of which form The Back) are all part of the wider Catorzian empire.
7. Being a keen linguist: our Roi is fluent in English, French, cat, bird, fox and squirrel (although we’re pretty sure he only knows swear words in the last four).
Catorze does, however, have two distinct differences from Louis XIV:
1. Believing himself to be God’s representative on earth: trust me, whatever force birthed him is/was about as ungodly as can possibly be. If he’s not the devil himself, he is certainly the WORK of the devil … and he knows it.
2. A liking for the ladies: erm … non.
Although Catorze struts around loving himself on a daily basis, naturellement when I really, really wanted a picture of him doing so, he wouldn’t comply. So here, below, are my two favourite old photos of him which paint an accurate picture of his kingly arrogance.
The first is from 2017 and, contrary to first impressions, no digi-trickery is involved. I really did lay out an enormous French flag, borrowed from my classroom, and plonk Catorze on top of it. And I happened to get lucky with this shot, open mouth and all:
“Pledge your allegiance to MOI.”
In the second photo, from February this year, he was probably looking towards the sound of a squirrel scrabbling around outside the window, but I like to pretend he was basking in the glow of his own majesty:
The first part of being a king is all about the body language.
The proverb “A cat may look at a king” suggests that cats are lower in status. I think all cats know that this is nonsense.
A colleague and I were once talking about dating. No, not the two of us dating each other, but about dating as a general concept and, more specifically, what people ought to reveal about themselves on the first date. I added, “Most blokes would be off like a shot when I told them I like cats.”
When faced with a comment like this, the only polite response is, “Don’t be silly, of course they wouldn’t” or some such thing. But, instead, he said, “Yup. And quite rightly so.”
Oh dear.
Does society see us as extensions of the animals that we like? Do others think dog people are loyal, affectionate and obliging? And, cat people, are we regarded as unreliable, aloof and unhinged?
Even Cat Daddy, who likes cats, has been known to make this judgement. If a friend of mine, whom he hasn’t met before, is due to visit, and I tell him that the friend is “a cat person”, he makes a face. And, if I add that I met this friend via an online cat forum, he suddenly remembers that he has a very important appointment, somewhere far away, which happens to coincide with the friend’s visit.
Having met a lot of cat people, both in person and online, I have to admit that most of us are a bit weird. But, usually, it’s in a good way. I know that it sounds dismissive and clichéd to say, “We’re not ALL crazy!”, especially if you see some of the petty yet vicious arguments that kick off on online cat forums (usually between Brits and Americans, usually triggered by a debate about whether or not cats should be allowed outdoors). But … well … we’re NOT all crazy. Despite the fact that I named my cat Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, I really am one of the more normal ones. And, the more cat people that Cat Daddy meets, the more he is coming to realise this, too.
So: dogs or cats? If you’re a friend, you won’t need to ask because you will already know the answer. If strangers ask, in order to distance myself from those complete freaks whose behaviour is embarrassing (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), I will probably say, “Both”. It’s not an outright lie, because I like the IDEA of dogs; I am super-cordial when I meet them, and I don’t like it when people are mean to them. But do I want to share a house with one? Not really.
That said, there are times when I don’t want to share a house with Louis Catorze, either. But, now that he’s in, we have no idea how to get him out (and we’re scared that he might do something bad to us if we tried). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
