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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.

  • Poil par poil, toute la barbe viendra

    When quarantine began, I saw an internet meme (I hate that stupid word and am actually glad that my autocorrect changes it to the much more civilised “même”) that read, “We are three weeks away from knowing everyone’s true hair colour.”

    It’s now MONTHS since we went anywhere near a hair salon, and somehow I have come off worse than Cat Daddy: my hair looks like a haystack, with highlights have faded to an ugly, brassy yellow, whereas he is rocking the Keir Starmer sweepover and is looking mighty fine.

    My hair salon have been posting lots of videos and tips on social media, with their advice being, “Try to focus not on the colour, but on keeping your hair in good condition.” Erm, yeah, I think that ship has well and truly sunk, too.

    Louie Catorze, on the other hand, looks better now than he did when lockdown started (which, frankly, isn’t difficult as he looked terrible before). His facial fur has now fully grown back, and he looks just like a normal black cat, except smaller and toothier.

    His arm fur – which was shaved to inject the sedative for his biopsy – is taking a little longer to regrow, but we rather like the look of it. We refer to it as his tattoo sleeve and Cat Daddy pretends that it makes his boy look tough and thuggish, even though we both know that this couldn’t be further from the truth and that he’s actually a sweet little daddy’s boy who loves cuddles.

    This picture of him was taken last month, and I love everything about it: the blue sky, his glossy fur and the glimpse of tattoo sleeve that hints at the obstacles that he has overcome (and, due to him having the attention span of a gnat, completely forgotten).

    Très pleased with himself.

  • Le plus grand voleur de notre temps

    And, in a flash, the age-old mystery of why the living room television never works first thing in the morning has been solved.

    For months and months Cat Daddy blamed our cleaning lady. Then, when we entered quarantine and she stopped coming, he started to blame me for “forgetting how to switch it on” (nonsense) and “not pressing the correct buttons on the remote control” (no idea what this even means).

    The true perpetrator has just been caught in the act during his Morning Psycho Time, messing about with the wires. And, yes, that is a coven of witches on the television, who are most likely encouraging their little comrade in his dastardly dark arts.

    I don’t know why we are even the slightest bit surprised. About the real reason for the non-functioning television, about the witches, about any of this.

    Le chat des sorcières.

  • L’étagère du Roi Soleil

    Because Louis Catorze has been spending an awful lot of time here (see below) lately, I wondered if perhaps we should build him a little viewing shelf on the wall.

    According to Jackson Galaxy (in case you don’t know, he’s an expert cat freak who magically makes naughty ones behave) cats are either deep burrowers or they prefer elevated viewing points and, conversely, as Sa Maj gets older, he appears to be showing signs of preferring the latter.

    And, whilst most owners of 10-year-old cats probably wouldn’t be looking to create cat apparatus requiring high energy leaps, Catorze – as we all know – isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Quite the opposite, in fact.

    I had planned to ask Paul from down the road to create the shelf and, in the event of Catorze getting too old and knackered to jump up there, we could either turn it into a random shelf for books or plants, or just lift him up there ourselves.

    Cat Daddy: “LIFT HIM UP THERE OURSELVES?”

    Anyway, my plans were all set to take shape once we can be sure it’s safe for Paul from down the road to come into the house. (According to the government it’s safe provided he’s doing work, which almost certainly means it isn’t safe at all.) However, I had forgotten to take into account one thing: Catorze’s contrariness and his penchant for always doing the opposite of whatever is expected or wanted. And it was my friend Lizzi who said, “You know, don’t you, that, if you make that shelf, he will never use it?”

    C’est vrai.

    So our shelf plans have been, erm, shelved, and Catorze is going to have to content himself with sitting atop the shutters and surveying his royaume from there. I think he is quite happy with this.

    Cat Daddy: “You’ve actually written a whole blog post about deciding to put up a shelf, then deciding not to put up a shelf? Could there BE a more pointless post?”

    If you gave me a bit more time, probably, yes.

    Lofty perch.

  • Le plastique n’est pas fantastique

    Cat Daddy and I have found it difficult to stick to our green routine during lockdown, for the following reasons:

    1. Due to lack of availability, we have, at times, had to choose between food wrapped in plastic or no food at all.

    2. We haven’t been able to get to the post office to send our plastic film to our friend who makes the speakers, nor our empty crisp packets to the lovely volunteers who magically transform them into donations to their local air ambulance. So we have had to bin some of it, as we don’t have the space to let it pile up.

    3. Ocado are no longer taking back their carrier bags for recycling.

    4. Sometimes we I have stuffed up and ordered the wrong thing online by accident.

    Cat Daddy was very cross with me the other day when what I thought would be recyclable aluminium cans of John West Tuna in olive oil, ordered on Ocado, turned out to be plastic pots of John West tuna in olive oil. These are a new invention because, apparently, when people put a half-eaten can of tuna in the fridge, they don’t like the whole fridge smelling of tuna (and, apparently, decanting into a sealable container is too arduous and/or complicated). So the new pots come with a resealable lid to keep the tuna stench from tainting the fridge.

    It’s somewhat annoying that both pot and lid are made of plastic, plus there is a peel-back film made of that weird plastic-foil hybrid stuff which isn’t recyclable anywhere on the planet. And it’s also annoying that the pots are smaller than the cans, so the chances are that most people would eat the lot and wouldn’t need to put any leftovers in the fridge. But what offended Cat Daddy about this purchase was that he had just written to John West to complain about the hideous ungreenness of their new plastic pots and I have now made a fool of him by buying that very product, even though it was a genuine mistake.

    Anyway, in something of a departure from the norm, the only individual in our household maintaining their level of responsibility is Louis Catorze, who is still a loyal customer of Lily’s Kitchen in their compostable packaging (which, when empty, we use as food waste bags). And we sincerely hope that their acquisition by Nestlé will not lead to any changes in their packaging nor in their food formulations. I am half-tempted to shop around and change but Le Roi really, really likes Lily’s Kitchen Fabulous Fish.

    Here is Catorze, looking smug beyond belief in the knowledge that he is the greenest person in Le Château. And he would like to remind any tuna-loving furry comrades to boycott John West until they do something about their stupid plastic pots.

    Like an evil warlord planning his next strike.

  • Les deux garçons

    The males in this household are driving me round the bend.

    A couple of nights ago they stayed up late for an extended Boys’ Club, which is a fairly common occurrence here at Le Château. But, when they finally came to bed at 6am (!), instead of slipping silently into the bedroom, they were irritating beyond belief.

    It wouldn’t have been so bad had they both been irritating together, getting the irritation over and done with in one go, but it was one of them first (Cat Daddy stomping, talking nonsense and generally being a moron), then the other a little later (Louis Catorze bouncing all over me, purring and screaming). After 45 minutes of trying and failing to get back to sleep, I decided I might as well get up and do some work. At 6:45am. ON A SUNDAY.

    Anyway, it turned out that Boys’ Club had not gone on until 6am; in actual fact Cat Daddy had tried to wrap up the session much earlier, but had “fallen asleep whilst switching off the lamp” (?). (The fact that he had consumed 3/4 of a bottle of Limoncello had nothing to do with this … or, rather, it did, but this was apparently my fault because I needed space in the freezer for something. The Limoncello therefore had to come out of the freezer in order to free up said space, forcing Cat Daddy, completely against his will, to drink it.) He had woken up several hours later on the sofa, with Catorze snuggled up beside him, and that was when the two of them decided to come to bed and cause mayhem.

    By 3pm that day I was exhausted and so I went back to bed for a nap. Within 5 minutes Catorze was back, leaping all over me and hollering his guts out, and further into my nap I was awoken by Cat Daddy playing loud (and not even very good) music. So, for the second time in a day, the pair of them took several years off my life, and I am now wondering whether I should get out and take my chances with the virus and the beach-thronging stupids rather than put up with their idiotic shite.

    Cat Daddy, referring to the 6am incident: “We were only trying to be affectionate and to give you love.”

    Me: “…”

    Cat Daddy: “Are you saying you don’t want us to be affectionate or to give you love?”

    Me: “Not at 6am, no.”

    Cat Daddy, in a bit of a huff: “Fine. We won’t do it EVER AGAIN.”

    Me: “Good. I’d like that in writing, please.”

    [Silence, tumbleweed, crickets]

    Cat Daddy: “It was Louis’s idea, anyway.”

    [Stonier silence, more tumbleweed, noisier crickets]

    Here is the gruesome twosome, utterly unrepentant:

    The pair of them can kiss right off.

  • Les malheurs et les jumeaux ne viennent jamais seuls

    This little story did the social media rounds last month, and I really hope it’s true:

    Two for the price of, erm, two?

    I like to think that the cats met on their travels, with Cat 2 saying, “I would really like a human sucker whom I can treat like dirt”, and that Cat 1 replied, “I have a plan. I think I can get you in at my place …”

    I initially doubted the authenticity of the story because I was pretty sure that most people would know their own cat. Even those of us who have black cats know our own cats. But, hey, it’s an extra cat, and this can never be a bad thing.

    Louis Catorze has some very unique distinguishing features – freakishly small size, bizarre segmented reptilian tail, dark chocolate paw pads with a strawberry swirl, caustic voice that could strip paint and, of course, protruding vampire fangs – so I was very confident that I would be able to pick him out of a line-up of black cats. That was until my friend Lizzi sent me this, taken in south London:

    Double trouble.

    Believe it or not, Mesdames et Messieurs, this is NOT Sa Maj. I even managed to trick Cat Daddy into thinking it was an old picture of Catorze (although, when I told him the truth, he replied, “They all look the same to me”).

    This makes me very nervous as the world cannot possibly be ready for two Catorzes.

    Mind you, is it even ready for one?

  • Éviter les contacts proches

    Coronavirus is now over, and we can all go back to doing whatever we like.

    Well, nobody has actually said as such but this appears to be what everyone has decided, and Cat Daddy and I are the only ones who are still poking people away with a 2-metre stick. Although, to be honest, I was like this even before lockdown and, if I could continue the rest of my life telling people to stay away from me, I probably would. (Cats, however, are welcome to approach.)

    When Louis Catorze was Côned, I didn’t have to worry too much about random strangers putting virussy hands on him because Le Cône prevented him from wandering too far. However, now that he is back to “normal”, I was a little concerned about where he would go and what he would do, especially as he isn’t the brightest star in the cosmos and some of us West Londoners don’t seem to be much better. We all know that cats can’t transmit the virus to humans but, all the same, the fewer hands that touch Catorze, the better.

    His latest thing is to run outside when we open the door and roll all over the pavement at the feet of whoever knocked. He did it when Oscar the dog’s daddy came to drop off some masks. He did it again when Majestic delivered Cat Daddy’s wine. And we suspect he bothered Mohamed driving the Raspberry van whilst he was unloading our Ocado delivery, although it was dark so we couldn’t see (and we were too embarrassed to ask or check).

    However, it was only when Puppy Mamma passed by the other day on her way home from the shops that I realised Catorze was smarter than I thought and that I needn’t have worried. Puppy Mamma and I caught up on quarantine news with me at the door and her on the pavement and, naturellement, the little sod darted out, shimmied through the gate (which would have been impossible avec Cône) and flung himself at her feet.

    Puppy Mamma: “Louis! You look so much better than you were the last time I saw you!”

    [Catorze continues rolling]

    Puppy Mamma: “I wish I could stroke you, but I can’t.”

    [Catorze continues rolling, his body becoming more and more covered in dirt]

    Me: “Ugh. Think of all the dogs who have pooed here. Still want to stroke him?”

    Puppy Mamma: “…”

    By the time Catorze eventually stopped and I was able to shepherd him back in, he was covered in unidentifiable, greige crud from the pavement. So it seems I needn’t have been concerned about people touching him, nor of him encouraging them to do so, as he is his own social-distancing machine; nobody in their right mind would go within 2 metres of him, let alone put their hands on his gross body.

    Here he is, mid-roll, just before the filth started to collect on his fur. There was no “after” photo because, by the time he had finished, he looked too grim for words.

    Both shameful and shameless at the same time.

  • Vieux chat fait bonne chasse

    One big difference between me and Cat Daddy, in terms of our attitude and preferences regarding pets, is that he likes show-off animals who do lots of zany things, whereas I just want a quiet one who won’t give me any grief.

    Blue the Smoke Bengal’s mamma told us last week that, since quarantine began, Blue had caught a blackbird, a squirrel and some other animal that I can’t remember (possibly a mouse), and Cat Daddy remarked that Louis Catorze was useless, having caught nothing this year. I, on the other hand, was very happy not having to clean up the remains of dead wildlife from my house, and I did not want Cat Daddy to tempt fate by wishing otherwise.

    Over the weekend I had some restless nights, and Catorze didn’t help when his energy spike peaked at about 5am on Sunday resulting in abundant screaming and thundering loudly around the house. Later that morning I found a piece of silverware, i.e. a dead rat, in his trophy cabinet, i.e. the area at the bottom of the stairs, strangely the same area that his big brother Luther also used to use as HIS trophy cabinet in our old house. Whilst this is by no means a great place, especially as a sleep-deprived human doesn’t always spot brownish prey placed on the brownish floor and therefore risks stepping on it, Catorze’s previous trophy cabinet used to be our bedroom and, quite frankly, anything is better than that.

    As ever, I followed the same standard ritual that I always follow in these circumstances. And I am sure most pet owners can relate:

    1. Gasp and retch.

    2. Admonish Catorze, who doesn’t understand a word I am saying (and, if he did, he still wouldn’t give a shite).

    3. Shut Catorze away in sin bin in case he grabs rat and darts under our bed with it.

    4. Find coin and slide it next to rat (very slowly and cautiously in case rat springs back to life and runs up my arm), then take photo for my friend Lizzi, who STILL hasn’t forgiven me for not photographing the curly-haired rat from 4 years ago: https://louiscatorze.com/2016/08/14/a-bon-chat-bon-rat/

    5. Place Ocado bag inside another Ocado bag and gingerly scoop up rat with hand inside the double-bag barrier.

    6. Knot double-bag very firmly, again in case rat springs back to life.

    7. Place bag outside on doorstep so that Cat Daddy can dispose of it in park bin when he wakes up. (Since this is partly his fault for wishing it upon us, it’s only fair that he do his bit.)

    8. Gently slide coin away from ratty floor area.

    9. Clean both coin and ratty floor area.

    10. Release horrid, screaming Catorze from sin bin.

    11. Seethe with frustration as Cat Daddy undermines me by lavishing Catorze with praise and cuddles.

    I really want this to have been a one-off. But the fact that Catorze has now begun Rodent Duty – sitting motionless for hours outside, eyes fixed on the gap between the Zone Occupée and the Zone Libre – doesn’t fill me with hope.

    *EDIT: after I placed the bagged rat on our doorstep, we both forgot about it and didn’t remember until about 3pm, by which time it had sat cooking in the sun for 7 hours. Oh well. Cat Daddy’s problem, not mine.

    He can still taste it.

  • Le renard est de retour

    Oh. Mon. Dieu. We have a Code Roux situation at Le Château, and here is the evidence:

    Foxy Loxy.

    These are NOT Louis Catorze’s paw prints, nor are they even feline, as you can tell by their size (pound coin for scale). Mesdames et Messieurs: Monsieur Renard has been on the premises.

    We have known for a long time that he frequents our streets and gardens, accompanied by his buddies, but gadding about on our outdoor furniture is a bit too close for comfort, not to mention bloody rude. Other London foxes have much nicer manners than the ones in TW8. Whereas ours left us mucky paw prints, this week the ones in CR0 delivered my mum some prawn crackers. I’m not joking. She quite literally went out in her garden and found a full bag of Chinese takeaway prawn crackers, knotted at the top (although I don’t suppose the foxes tied the knot).

    Now, we don’t know whether our fox was the one Louis Catorze screamed at, the one whom he chased down the garden, the one whose dinner he stole for fun, or another fox entirely whom he hasn’t yet met/pissed off but who is next on the list. But this isn’t great. And, worse yet, the little sod is utterly unperturbed and was happy to roll around on the cushions/prints immediately afterwards. Most cats would be able to pick up the scent of another animal and would be upset or concerned by this (wouldn’t they?) but it seems that Catorze either can’t smell it or doesn’t care.

    “On s’en fiche.”

    It also doesn’t help that Catorze is on some sort of permanent adrenaline spike at the moment, screaming, thundering around the house at 5am waking me up, wanting to play constantly and so on. None of this suggests that, in the event of an encounter with Monsieur Renard and his colleagues, he would keep his head down and mind his own business. A calm, timid cat is likely to steer clear of foxes. A noisy, psycho cat who asks for trouble, not so much.

    I don’t want to keep him in overnight, mainly because the screaming to be let out would send us over the edge. But, if there are too many near miss incidents like this, we might not have much choice …

  • Noir et blanc

    It has been an especially sunny week here in TW8 so Louis Catorze is continuing to wear sunblock on his ears, much to Cat Daddy’s amusement. Sadly we have also had to deal with the usual Catorze contrariness, i.e. he dashes out into the sun before we have a chance to apply the block and, if we do manage to catch him and apply it, he comes straight back indoors and tries to roll it off onto our bed. But then we all knew something like that would happen.

    A couple of things about cat sunblock:

    Firstly, a little goes a long way. The first time I put it on Catorze, I applied far too much and he ended up with bright white ears. The second time I used about a tenth of the previous amount, but it was still too much and he ended up with bright white ears AGAIN. So, at this rate, I will only require about 0.001 drops per application, and therefore this tiny 30ml tube looks set to last at least 823 years. This makes it very good value indeed.

    Secondly, a black cat with bright white ears is hilarious. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I’ve seen plenty of white cats with dark ears and somehow this isn’t funny, but a black cat with white ears is. Cat Daddy now wants to apply sunblock in tasteful/hilarious patterns onto other parts of Catorze’s body, just for fun, turning him into a live, screaming art installation. And I don’t think he’s joking.

    As for what to paint, please let us know your feelings on the following designs:

    1. Skunk stripes.

    2. Snow leopard spots.

    3. Skeleton bones.

    4. “White Over Black” (a monochrome interpretation of Rothko’s “White Over Red” which will be very easy to do as it’s just a couple of rectangles).

    5. Other (please specify).

    Safe from the sun, but looking ridiculous.

  • Je me lève et rien ne me démoralise

    Good news: Louis Catorze is now completely off the steroids.

    Bad news: this has made absolutely zero difference to the level of psycho in his body, which remains unchanged. One of my friends told me that it took a few days for the effects of the steroids to leave the system. Erm, yeah, I don’t think we can wait that long.

    Today I caught Sa Maj attempting to jump onto the top of the picture to his right (our left, below). No, there is absolutely nowhere to land apart from the 2cm edge of the picture or perhaps the string of autumn leaf fairy lights. But, yes, he was about to try it anyway.

    Cat Daddy: “That’s REALLY worrying. You know how it would have ended, don’t you?”

    I do: with a ripped piece of art and/or mangled fairy lights, a furious Cat Daddy and a kicked royal arse.

    Cat Daddy: “And you know he’s only going to try it again when we’re out of the house, don’t you?”

    I do. So what a good thing we’re not really allowed out at the moment. (Or maybe we are. Nobody knows for sure.)

    Here is the little sod – who, incidentally, is not allowed to jump on top of the speakers – planning his next attempt:

    “Et alors?”

  • Partager, c’est sympa

    Good news: Thursday’s Clap for our Carers went without public incident.

    Bad news: Catorze bided his time until after the clap to cause discord of a different kind. He took advantage of the fact that Cat Daddy remained outside chatting – and, yes, when I saw Catorze pitter-patter towards the door I did yell at Cat Daddy to shut it, but he was too slow – and he tried to get into That Neighbour’s house. The poor man apparently had quite a time fighting the little sod away from his front door, and Cat Daddy had to intervene. Oh dear.

    In happier news, yesterday was Friday, which meant that our usual weekly doorstep food collection took place. To show his deep regret for causing a scene during last week’s clap, Catorze kindly agreed to donate his Lily’s Kitchen Delicious Chicken to the food bank.

    He had originally promised it to his buddy Boots, but I am not sure when I will be able to see Boots and, in the meantime, the food was just sitting in the cupboard. Never fear, though: I will be giving Boots and his brother Antoine some alternative treats when I do finally see them. So he needn’t be concerned about missing out on food (although he does appear to worry about this an awful lot).

    If you are in a position to donate food or money to your local food bank, I am sure they would be very grateful. Our donations are sent here: https://www.hounslowfoodbox.org.uk

    Here is Catorze, despatching his parcel with lots of love:

    “Bon voyage! Go make some other kitties happy!”

  • La fin du traitement?

    The citizens of the United Kingdom have spent the last couple of days taking in the government’s new pandemic advice. Which is as follows: “Go back to work. NOT ON THE TUBE, FOR GOD’S SAKE.”

    Meanwhile, Louis Catorze has almost finished his course of steroids. And what a très grand relief this is because, as you know, they have turned him into a fireball of energy and a criminal genius, and we just can’t keep up with him.

    Just like Bradley Cooper in that film about the blue pills, it’s as if the steroids allow Catorze to access the parts of his brain that he wasn’t accessing before (and, lets face it, that’s a lot of previously-untouched brain). He has become uncharacteristically cunning and resourceful and, avec Cône, managed to do a number of things that Côned cats should not be able to do, including – but not limited to – the following:

    1. Scaling 2-metre fences.

    2. Travelling across several gardens, covering more ground than we ever thought possible.

    3. Opening doors.

    4. Chasing foxes.

    5. Losing the detachable part of Le Cône.

    6. Losing Le whole Cône.

    7. Discovering bizarre new ways of scratching himself, the most notable of which was by using the corners of Cat Daddy’s old vinyl album covers. (Please see below for a picture of Le Roi having just toppled Deep Purple’s Machine Head after being caught in the act.)

    Catorze will have been on the pills, in various strengths, for almost twelve weeks in total. Had it been a few weeks longer, we probably could have asked him to join our pub quiz team and he would have nailed that tricky anagrams round. And, after a few months, he may well have become Prime Minister.

    Me: “Who would you rather have as Prime Minister? Option 1: Boris Johnson. Option 2 …”

    Cat Daddy, interrupting: “OPTION 2.”

    So that’s settled, then.

    “Rock et roll.”

  • Les ennemis tenaces

    Louis Catorze was highly displeased by someone or something outside the other day.

    We were in the middle of a play session when he broke off to leap onto the shutters, his huge, inflated tail swinging and thumping. And he made an exhaling sound so bizarre that, initially, I didn’t even realise it was coming from him. (Yes, that noise on the video, sounding rather like someone sweeping gravel outside is, apparently, Catorze.)

    Just as I was about to open the shutters, I heard the sound of someone calling their pet/child in their pet/child voice. (Anyone who has either, and anyone who may not have them but works with them, will know exactly what I mean by That Voice.) So, although I did not see the cause of Catorze’s chagrin, I am certain that it must have been a dog.

    Now, Catorze has never behaved in this way towards any dog, EVER. Not Bert the dog, not Oscar the dog, not even the psycho fox with the zombie war-cry (who isn’t actually a dog but is close enough).

    This, and the incident with Blue the Smoke Bengal during last week’s Clap for our Carers, disproves my theory that Sa Maj likes all other animals and wants to be friends with everyone. In actual fact he’s just like us, i.e. in the same way that not all people like all other people, he likes most animals but there was something about this particular one which offended him. I am now kicking myself for not being quicker to look behind the shutters too see what kind of dog it was. I’m imagining something like Cujo but it could just as easily have been a wispy little chihuahua wearing a pink feather boa and a tiara.

    Here he is (see video below) puffing, whining and bristling. Luckily, having the attention span of a gnat served him well on this occasion, because he promptly forgot about this whole experience in a matter of minutes.

    I would love to find out how your pets get along with other animals, so please comment below to let me know. Do they like their own species? Other species? Or are they a bit racist like Rocky, the ginger cat down the street who only likes black and tuxedo cats?

    Guardian of his Château.