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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.

  • Hotel Diablo

    Cat Daddy and I are in Iceland at the moment, so we spent the last couple of days preparing for the arrival of Louis Catorze’s chat-sitteurs.

    We systematically have to remind all visitors that Catorze has a naughty habit of entering bedrooms and raising merry hell as people sleep, and this occasion was no exception. However, despite our advice to keep doors shut, it seems that some bizarre and twisted part of our guests finds his nocturnal visits entertaining. So they ignore us and, naturellement, Catorze takes advantage.

    Guests have been known to wake up to find their suitcases open and their stuff strewn all over the floor. And what makes it especially creepy is that Catorze does this utterly silently, slipping undetected into and out of the room, like a ghost. Imagine Paranormal Activity, The Sixth Sense and Poltergeist combined and you will have an idea of what it’s like. Sometimes he remains there, presiding arrogantly over his handiwork, as we discovered below.

    My mum carefully constructed a sort of Jenga-style tower using a cardboard box and her suitcase, with her next-day clothes neatly folded on top. This was how she found the smug little sod the next morning:

    For goodness’ sake.

    Another guest made the mistake of leaving her case open on the bed whilst we had dinner. This was the result:

    The Covid testing kits weren’t quite ready for THIS particular contagion.

    Guests who place towels on the bed are also not safe:

    A cat-hairy towel. Lovely.

    En conclusion: if you stay here, your stuff will be messed with. And, since Catorze is a trans-dimensional being who can teleport, we are all powerless to stop it.

    Come at your own risk.

  • La piqûre magique

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs, the answer to Wednesday’s French Wordle was this:

    Little Turdle.

    I know. I didn’t think proper nouns were allowed but, after some research, I have discovered that a louis is a type of sovereign coin. So I have learned something new.

    I have to give a special mention to my friend Ben for his attempt (even though I know my mum is going to read this):

    OH. MON. DIEU.

    Ben then proceeded to blame me for his naughtiness, saying it was my fault for insisting that he try French Wordle that day. Erm, ok, but that still doesn’t explain how he arrived at THAT starting word. I think this says far more about him than about me.

    In other news, earlier this week I had the joy of taking Louis Catorze to the vet for his steroid shot. The little sod fought like a demon when I shoved him into his transportation pod and screamed all the way there, startling the dogs in the park as we walked past them. This is by no means unusual but I don’t think I will ever truly get used to it.

    Luckily the practice was empty when we arrived, so it didn’t matter too much that the screaming continued. However, two ladies came in shortly afterwards to collect some medication, and they were hit by Catorze’s decibels as soon as they opened the door. Whilst waiting to be seen, they politely looked the other way and tried to pretend that they couldn’t hear the infernal racket.

    Because there was a complicated blood test cat being seen just before us, we had a longer wait than usual. Pretty soon the two ladies couldn’t stand Catorze’s noise anymore and had to start talking about something – ANYTHING – in an effort to mask it, and I even heard one of them say, “Isn’t the weather awful? When it’s like this, you just don’t feel like going out, do you?” (It was glorious sunshine outside at the time, so clearly the screaming had got to her so badly that she didn’t even know what she was saying.)

    Eventually, Complicated Blood Test Cat came out. She was deathly silent in her pod at first but soon decided, after hearing Catorze’s screaming, that she would join in. So, whilst her bill was being sorted out, the five of us (Complicated Blood Test Cat’s human, the two ladies-in-waiting, the receptionist and me) were subjected to a cacophony of feline screaming from both cats, in stereo.

    Because Catorze is due to have his next dental surgery later this month, he wasn’t able to have his usual steroid shot as it would prevent his wounds from healing. So, instead, he was given a fast-acting shot designed to last a week, and we are just going to have to try to keep him itch-free until after the surgery. And, since we don’t know what it is that triggers his scratching, this is going to prove somewhat tricky.

    So, for now, all I can do is keep blasting him with the atmosphere-purifying beeswax candles, brushing him regularly and hoping it doesn’t all turn to merde before his procedure.

    Here he is in his pod, just before we left for his appointment. You may wish to turn the volume down:

    Saint Jésus et tous ses apôtres.

  • Le mot du jour

    In my eight years of writing Le Blog, never have I ever posted twice in one day. So, if you are a regular follower, you will know that this is a TRÈS big deal indeed.

    If you’re into Wordle, please give the French equivalent, Le Mot, a go today. Even if you don’t think you know any French, please trust me and try it just for this one day. I promise you will not be disappointed.

    If you’re stuck, here’s a clue.

  • Ne déconnez pas avec les chats

    West Ham footballer Kurt Zouma has been cruel to his cat, and everyone in the U.K. is rightly livid about it.

    This was bad timing as I had just moved him into my Fantasy Football team for the new game week. There is a video online showing what happened, but I haven’t posted a copy here as I am sure most of us can imagine what it’s like. We don’t need to see it.

    For those who may not be familiar with Fantasy Football and its ways, having chosen our team at the start of the season, every week we are allowed to move one player out and one in. I cannot believe that, of the five hundred or so players available, I happened to choose Zouma, just as he did this.

    Once you have transferred your one player in, you’re not supposed to transfer them – or anyone – out again until the next game week. If you do, you forfeit four points. But I would rather do that than have an animal abuser in my team, so Zouma is now gone.

    Good riddance.

    To cheer us up after this awful story, here are some footballers who are nice to their cats (taken from their Twitter pages). I have no idea what the cats’ names are, so I’ve just made them up:

    Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) with Babs and Pat.
    Aymeric Laporte (Manchester City) with Fermez.
    Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City) with Reverend Sparkle-Pops.
    Bernd Leno (Arsenal) with Baba Ganoush. Come on, this one looks like a Baba Ganoush, non?

  • Le Roi Blanc

    Cat Daddy: “Oh my God. What’s happened to Louis’s fur?”

    Me, imagining the horror of a Code Brun situation: “Erm, why? What’s wrong with it?”

    Him: “It’s gone all weird.”

    Me: “???”

    Him: “Like tiger bread.”

    Me: “???”

    Him: “Come and look.”

    It turned out that the cause of Cat Daddy’s alarm was Louis Catorze’s fur cracks. Now, they’re nothing new, and we are frequently marvelling at the weirdness of the tail ones, in particular. However, what struck me about this particular set was how pale Catorze’s skin is; underneath all that black fur, the little sod is white. Not nature-white which, in fact, is not white at all but more like an off-white. Sa Maj is bright paper-white.

    Bright white skin peeking out from under that fur.

    This makes him the, erm, polar opposite of polar bears, who have black skin under their white fur. (Thank you, Lizzi, for telling me about this and sending me down a Google Image rabbit hole from which I can never climb out.)

    I expect that the white skin is something I knew anyway, on some level, but now I can’t stop thinking about and am unhealthily obsessed with exactly what we’d be left with if Catorze had no fur. I imagine it would be something like this, but whiter and with much larger fangs:

    Picture taken from Pinterest.

    And, when the little sod sleeps on my lap, I can’t resist parting his fur to peek at the paper-whiteness. (He is not a fan of this, as it’s also what I do just before giving him his flea treatment.)

    We are shocked, but not surprised, to STILL be discovering weird things about him, all these years after he first came to torment live with us. Life with Catorze truly is beset with labyrinthine twists and turns.

  • L’ambroisie du Roi

    Merci à Dieu et à tous ses anges: after a few months of being out of stock, Louis Catorze’s Orijen is back.

    Cat Daddy opened a new pack the other day and, for the first time in ages, the little sod wolfed down a whole scoop, without leaving a single crumb. Cat Daddy, assuming I hadn’t fed him that morning (I had), served two more scoops, which were promptly eaten. Later that evening Cat Daddy put down an extra generous scoop to keep Catorze going whilst we were out for dinner, and he wolfed that down, too.

    Cat Daddy: “I think he likes it better when it’s a freshly-opened pack. Maybe we should buy smaller packs more often? This one is designed for people who have, like, ten cats.”

    This probably makes sense; anything that results in fewer Catorzian rejections, and therefore less food waste, is fine by me. However – and you knew that there would be a “however”, didn’t you? – the smaller pack isn’t such good value for money. At a nose-bleeding £20.55 per kg, the 340g pack costs almost £4 per kg more than our already-expensive regular 1.8kg pack.

    Cat Daddy: “[Unrepeatable Expletives of the Worst Kind]”

    I once said that the only thing more expensive than Orijen was more Orijen. I was wrong: the only thing more expensive than Orijen is LESS Orijen. But as long as the Dark King is happy, we should be able to hold off the apocalypse for a short while longer.

    “Feed moi.”

  • Les causes de la douleur

    Louis Catorze has been an utter pest for the last few days, and he has neither the moon (nowhere near full) nor the steroid shot (hasn’t taken place yet) as an excuse this time.

    By day he annoys the merde out of Cat Daddy, headbutting his laptop and screaming, and by night he annoys me by walking all over me, settling on my stomach so that I can’t breathe, doing that head shake thing and showering me with spit, and whining like a dying dog. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with him. He’s just being an idiot.

    In other news, in today’s episode of Stupid Places That My Cat Chooses To Rest, I give you … a blister pack of painkillers. And this wasn’t an absentminded flop; this was very careful and deliberate placing, with the little sod lowering his body and tucking in his paws in slow motion.

    “Et alors?”

    Disadvantages:

    1. Peculiar, slippy texture of foil

    2. Sharp edge

    3. Crunches every time he moves

    4. Doesn’t even go underneath whole body

    5. Just makes no sense whatsoever

    Advantages:

    1. Erm …

    My fluffy-blanketed lap was available at the time. It was declined. (This seems to be becoming a pattern when it comes to Catorze.)

    Cat Daddy: “…”

    Me: “…”

    Please feel free to add to our insightful conclusions as necessary.

  • Le Premier Chat

    Louis Catorze is delighted that one of his comrades has infiltrated moved into the White House. And he is not remotely surprised to learn that the cat chose them, and not vice versa, when she decided to join Dr Biden on stage during her husband’s presidential campaign.

    I imagined that Catorze would be somewhat affronted that the cat’s name is Willow (sweet and delicate) whereas the Bidens’ dog is called Commander (authoritative and strong). After all, it will be a cold day in hell before any self-respecting cat allows themselves to be commanded by a dog. However, don’t be fooled. This is clearly a ruse on Willow’s part, to trick us with her dainty, pretty name before unleashing her malevolence onto the world.

    I’ve seen this kind of thing before. The most evil cat I have ever known was Missy, one of my childhood/early adulthood cats: prissy name, minuscule size (smaller than Catorze, which takes some doing) and a barely-audible, breathy squeak of a meow, yet with the kind of psychopathic mind that would make most serial killers shudder. I still have the remains of a scar on my wrist that I repeatedly had to explain throughout my late teens because it looked like a self-harm mark.

    Missy also used her nefarious ways to brainwash her feline counterparts. Her long-term consort, Rambo (younger followers: ask your parents), was a docile cuddlebug and a non-hunter when he first arrived but, after Missy’s Mansonesque indoctrination, he changed. My sister once caught him on our upper floor landing, crunching the headless corpse of a huge rabbit twice the size of Missy and which she would never have been able to drag through the cat flap alone. Had they been humans, she would have been the criminal mastermind and he, the brainless muscle who dutifully buried the bodies and scrubbed down the crime scene.

    Rambo (tuxedo) and Missy (tortie cult leader), pictured in July 1994.

    Commander the dog may be commanding in name, but Willow the cat is the one we need to watch. Would you trust a cat who had access to both The Mothership AND the nuclear launch codes?

    Just Biden her time (picture from today.com).

  • Le costaud évasif

    Back in May last year, I posted about my sister in SE20 who is trying to trap some feral cats who live near her house.

    She is soldiering on in her mission, but we are all worried about one particular black cat, known in the neighbourhood as Chunky (for obvious reasons). The poor boy needs a vet but, unfortunately, he is so strong and aggressive that he has proven difficult to catch. One local lady did manage to succeed and was actually on her way to the vet with him when the big sod broke out of the carrier and escaped.

    My sister has seen Chunky once in her garden, and the rescue have advised her to leave food regularly and to try to establish a routine of him returning regularly before setting a trap for him. It sounds as if he’s the sort of cat who won’t be trapped if humans are around, so my sister will be relying on one of those self-activated traps that the rescue have agreed to lend. I have only ever seen them used in cartoons so I have no idea how they work but, given Chunky’s track record, I think it could be a challenge.

    Let’s hope not only that Chunky will like Louis Catorze’s rejected Canagan, but that he will like it enough to take his eye off the ball and allow himself to be trapped. And, if anyone has any ideas for trapping a cat as big as a Sasquatch and twice as elusive, please let me know.

    I have a photo of Chunky but it’s too upsetting to post, so, instead, here is Catorze willing his large, black comrade to do the right thing:

    “Piège-toi. You know it makes sense, mon pote.”

  • Le mal résident

    There is a new némésis in town, and Louis Catorze is not pleased about this at all.

    I know: when you’ve pissed off almost every animal you’ve ever met, the last thing you need is another enemy, right? But our mutual friend has, for whatever reason, decided that adding one more to his portfolio would be a good idea.

    A couple of nights ago, the little sod was happily having a wash on the living room floor when he suddenly stopped, jumped up onto the shutters and started swishing his tail. Now, usually, when Catorze swishes his tail, it’s good news. (I know, I know, this is not remotely typical of normal cats, but that’s Catorze for you.) However, when his tail is swishing AND puffed, Armageddon is nigh. And that is exactly what we saw that night.

    After a minute or so of puffed swishing, Catorze’s noises started. Oh. Mon. Dieu. There was classic Hallowe’en cat yowling. There was hissing. And there was … ringing snorting. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: cats can snort, and snorts can ring. Imagine the sounds that the Jurassic Park velociraptors make when they call to each other, and you will have an idea of what we heard.

    Cat Daddy and I were in such shock that we didn’t think at all to record what we were seeing. Instead, I went to investigate the cause of Catorze’s fury, praying that it would be a normal animal and not a chupacabra or a Sasquatch or some such thing. Sitting on the wooden planter at The Front, staring up at Catorze, was a never-seen-before tuxedo tabby, with a collar and a bell.

    I went out to shoo him off but he returned afterwards, resulting in even more chilling noises from Catorze. Eventually Cat Daddy had to pluck him down from the top of the shutters, but this didn’t really help much since it was Catorze’s creepy kitty sixth sense, and not his eyes, that had informed him of the intruder’s presence. So Cat Daddy had to go outside and shoo him off for a second time.

    This is not good. I feel very uneasy that this cat is much larger than Catorze (mind you, who isn’t?), and that we clearly cannot trust Catorze to be the, erm, bigger person and not start any trouble should they meet. But what can we do about it?

    Anyway, whatever we do or don’t do, Sa Maj couldn’t give a hoot. Here he is, daring all comers to do their worst, and I fear that this is extended to all creatures, living, dead and undead:

    What he lacks in size, he more than makes up in fightiness.

  • Cent façons d’embêter son papa

    Last week Nick Ferrari on LBC (a U.K. radio station) had a phone-in with the question “How many cats is too many?” and Cat Daddy gave serious thought to calling in and saying “One”. No doubt the call would have been punctuated by ear-splitting screaming from a certain individual, proving Cat Daddy’s point.

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: Louis Catorze has been putting all his efforts into annoying the absolute merde out of his papa. I am not there to witness it because I’m at work, but I receive regular photos on the matter, accompanied with complaints of “He won’t ****ing leave me alone.”

    Catorze’s tactics include stalkerishly following Cat Daddy everywhere he goes, headbutting his hands and laptop, and, of course, screaming. It wouldn’t be classic Catorze without the screaming. Cat Daddy has even been known to go for long walks just to avoid the little sod, and he was very upset the last time because it started to rain and he had to come back home earlier than planned.

    Here are a few photos from the last session. Luckily they are just photos and we have been spared the horror of his voice.

    “Papa! Stroke moi!”
    “Papa! Cuddle moi!”
    “Papa! Love moi!”
    “Papa! Worship moi!”

  • Posez des questions

    At school last week we had a training day, and the theme was “Effective Questioning”. Each of us had to go along to the session with three examples of ways in which we regularly question students in class, although I don’t know what my colleagues made of my choices (“WTF?” “Are you kidding me?” “The hell is wrong with you?”).

    In somewhat related news, today is Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day. However, as we all know, cats simply don’t care enough about us to ask us anything. I don’t even think they could be bothered with any of the ones mentioned above.

    So let’s turn this thing on its head: what questions would you ask Louis Catorze, if you could? I can’t guarantee he will answer politely, or even at all, but I will put them to him anyway and hope for the best.

    Le Roi will take the next question from the nice gentleman at the back with the inviting lap.

  • Le réveil-matin (Partie 2)

    Every now and again, Louis Catorze wakes me up some time before my alarm goes off. This annoys the hell out of me, but shutting him out of the bedroom would result in him screaming and scratching at the door like an angry poltergeist, which would be considerably worse.

    We have known for some time of his creepy kitty sixth sense, which can pick out our car from others parking outside and return him home from jaunts at The Front before his curfew kicks in. But now it appears that the little sod is able to know when the alarm is about to go off, just before it happens.

    I often wake up with him lying by my feet or across my stomach. When he feels me stirring, he walks up my body for cuddles, then, suddenly, he sets off decisively and with real purpose across to the bedside table where my phone sits. No more than a second or two later, the alarm goes off.

    Every time we decide that he is sufficiently creepy, he does something to out-creep his own creepiness. This is both terrifying and not the slightest bit surprising.

    “Alarm is going off in trois … deux … un …”

  • Le dernier repas

    It’s all kicking off here in the U.K. and we Brits are the laughing stock of the world. Again.

    During lockdown, when we weren’t supposed to be seeing more than one person outdoors, parties took place at the Prime Minister’s residence. The person hosting the parties initially denied that there were parties, and has now admitted it but claims that he thought they were work events. The person originally investigating whether or not there were parties, attended one of the parties. The person who wrote the Covid rules and who decides whether or not they were broken, also attended one of the parties. The newly-appointed person investigating whether or not there were parties, works under the person who hosted the parties.

    I know. It couldn’t be more absurd if it tried, although it certainly explains why Louis Catorze behaved so badly during my online lessons and meetings: clearly he thought he was at a party. And, to be fair, there were a couple of occasions when things were completely chaotic and/or I was drinking neat Absolut Vanilla from a tea mug at 3pm, so I can’t really blame him.

    Meanwhile, Catorze’s war against mealtimes is waging on. Cat Daddy has weighed Catorze’s food on our new set of precision scales, and it turns out that we are only supposed to be giving him three scoops per day. In actual fact we have been giving him around 978 scoops per day.

    Now, I wouldn’t normally advocate overfeeding a cat but, since the vet told us that the little sod needed to chub up, we aren’t in a rush to change the overall quantity of food. We have, however, been reconsidering his feeding times and, instead of feeding Catorze whenever he asks, we decided that would give him set mealtimes, just like normal cats.

    Catorze came downstairs from his nap one afternoon at around 4pm, then began to creepy-stare for food.

    Cat Daddy: “Look at him, trying to bully us.”

    Catorze continued to creepy-stare.

    Cat Daddy: “Ignore him.”

    Catorze continued to creepy-stare.

    Cat Daddy: “In fact, let’s take his bowl away.”

    I put Catorze’s empty bowl into his food cupboard.

    Then the screaming started.

    Mon Dieu: I know I have said this numerous times before, but you really could strip paint with his voice.

    Our new tough love regime lasted a whole minute and a half before we reverted back to our previous system, because I just couldn’t stand the screaming. So here we are – again – at the mercy of this shouty, toothy little dictator.

    He really is the worst. And we are pathetic beyond belief for allowing it.

    “Feed moi.”