louiscatorze.com

C’est le moment le plus merveilleux de l’année

15/12/2018

It has started to feel très festive here at Le Château now that Louis Catorze’s tree is in place. (Yes, you have read that correctly: in addition to our main winter solstice tree, he gets his own mini one.) Decorating it is no mean feat, as the Pine Needles of Death are razor-sharp and, therefore, affixing each bauble is pain. And, yes, I do, indeed, see the tree as a cruel yet accurate metaphor for Catorze’s life, with him sitting atop all smug and loving himself, and me desperately scrambling around trying to adorn it with more and more lovely things, only to have my efforts rewarded with repeated stabbing.

Anyway, now that it’s done, it looks rather splendid. We don’t usually buy him any gifts, though, because he already has so many things – or, as Cat Daddy puts it, “this house is full of his shite”. And, besides, buying a tree AND gifts for a cat might be considered a bit over the top.

We have less than a week to go, and so many things still left to do. Luckily for Catorze, all he has to do is sit around and watch us do it all.
Le chat aime le poisson, mais il n’aime pas se mouiller les pattes

08/12/2018

Not long ago, Cat Daddy and I decided to have a Fish Week at Le Château, because we love fish – I always choose it in a restaurant – but don’t eat enough of it. Now, most cats would think this were the best thing on earth and would hover around at cooking time, yowling, sniffing and generally being a pest. However, because Louis Catorze can take or leave food, Fish Week passed him by completely unnoticed.

His big brother Luther would never have let us get off so lightly; Luther loved seafood so much that it was actually listed on his rap sheet at the rescue. I recall wondering at the time why a food preference were important enough to pass onto potential adopters, but I later discovered that they were actually trying to warn us: “Likes prawns” was, in fact, code for “Will kill you to get to them.”

This was proven by The Fish Pie Incident aka HaddockGate, which my sister also witnessed, and about which she can now only talk in a hushed whisper. There were also further incidents, such as the time that I had to leave the house and eat my prawn salad in the car because Luther was harassing me so badly. He had never used a cat flap before but learned in about 0.3 seconds because I stood on the other side, waving a piece of sea bass.

Fish Week would have been all Luther’s dreams come true. No such luck with his petit frère: look at this, quite frankly, FREAKISH non-reaction to a salmon and gruyère fish cake. (The paw, incidentally, was NOT reaching out for the fish cake: Catorze was in this position anyway when I plonked the bowl down in front of him. I even left the room to fetch my cup of tea and, when I returned, both fish cake and cat were as I had left them.) Luther, on the other hand, would have swum through molten lava for this.

We’re not exactly short of evidence that the little sod isn’t normal (reason: #becauseRoi). But this just tops the lot.
Entre le chat et son maître, il n’y a que le saut d’une puce

02/12/2018

Cat Daddy: “Why don’t you give Louis his flea treatment now?”

Me: “He’s moving around too much. It’ll be easier if I pounce when he’s asleep and unsuspecting.”

Cat Daddy: “Just hold him down.”

Me: “Trust me, he’ll holler and kick and the treatment will go all over me instead of on him.”

Cat Daddy, sighing and doing that “Oh, for crying out loud” face: “Give it to me. I’ll do it.”

Me: “Fine. But you’ll be sorry.”

He was. But at least he will be free of fleas for a month.

Pity the same can’t be said of Louis Catorze.
On aime mieux la chasse que la prise

25/11/2018

This may look like a set of backlit studio photos for Sa Majesté’s next Hallowe’en portrait but, in actual fact, this was another Code Ambre emergency. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: there was a fly in the living room again, behind the globe lamp. You can’t see the fly in these pictures but, if you ever played Spot the Ball in the 1980s, I am certain that you would be able to place the buzzy little beast with impressive accuracy via Louis Catorze’s body language.

Cat Daddy and I had settled down to binge-watch series one of Marcella when the buzzing and chattering started. Observing Catorze answered the long-standing question I had about why cats chatter at birds – or, in Catorze’s case, birds, flies and Jurassic World pterodactyls. They’re not trying to communicate at all. Catorze had the terrifying eyes of an enraged crack addict throughout the hunt, meaning one thing only: death to all winged beasties.

There was something hypnotic about his pursuit of this fly. And the clever fly, having worked out that the globe lamp was spherical, didn’t have to try too hard to avoid being caught. All it had to do to escape the claws of doom was wander over to the other side of the world, which was against the wall and therefore inaccessible to the so-called hunter.

Our conversation went like this for much of the evening:

Cat Daddy: “Where’s the fly now?”

Me: “In Madagascar. Wait … now it’s walking across the Indian Ocean.”

[Chattering and swiping from Sa Majesté]

[Buzzing from the fly]

[Cat Daddy grabs his phone to take a picture and, at the same time, something dramatic happens on Marcella]

Cat Daddy: “Oh. I missed that. Can we rewind that bit?”

That is how a 45-minute episode of Marcella took us about 2 hours to watch. And, whilst Marcella edged closer and closer to catching the killer, Louis Catorze completely failed to catch the fly.

Next time: more excitement of a similar nature, no doubt.
Les caresses de chat donnent des puces

17/11/2018

My plan to make Louis Catorze a zero-waste kitty has reached an obstacle: spot-on flea treatment. Not only is the market fairly limited in terms of products – with some well known to be utterly useless – but not a single one is plastic-free. So it won’t be quite as simple as swapping brands, as we did with the little sod’s food.

Louis Catorze uses Broadline, which has the added benefit of also treating worms and therefore absolving us of the Greco-Roman death-wrestle when we try to get a worming pill into him. Each little vial comes individually wrapped in a plastic tray with a peel-off film cover. Whilst I can see why vets and pet shops would want such packaging for sterility, I wrote to the manufacturer to ask if there may be another option for at-home users.

The response – which, unbelievably, came from a lovely customer services lady named Cat – was that the packaging was needed to keep the product stable and to comply with some fancy-sounding European safety law.

(When I told others about Cat, very worryingly a couple of friends told me that the name must just be a coincidence, as if I genuinely thought the company might only recruit people with animal names or, worse, that I thought they had an actual cat managing their customer service enquiries.)

I wrote back to Broadline Cat and asked if they were doing anything to find an alternative to plastic. I understood about the product stability – after all, we wouldn’t want rancid chemicals to cause Catorze to mutate and turn into the scary Monsieur Hyde version of himself – but, given the ticking time bomb that is single-use plastic, I hoped that there might be another way. (Cat Daddy remarked that Catorze already IS the scary, mutant Monsieur Hyde version, and that a cocktail of putrid chemicals couldn’t possibly make things worse in that respect.)

Broadline Cat replied as follows:

“Please rest assured that Boehringer Ingelheim continuously look to make improvements where possible to improve our environmental impact. Whilst there is nothing more we can share currently on this particular area, we will ensure to raise this with global manufacturing and supply chain colleagues working on our environmental programmes.”

I don’t know what the solution is for packaging spot-on flea treatment. But I hope Broadline Cat will be true to her word and that they will continue to look for one.
Je gueule, donc je suis

11/11/2018
I often write about Louis Catorze’s screaming but, in actual fact, depending on the situation and on his mood, he is a Man of Many Meows, not just one standard scream. Here they are, in order of volume (quietest first):
1. Le Miaulement à la Bouche Fermée. This is usually deployed in the middle of the night and is murmured through a closed mouth, which we take to mean, “I don’t want to wake you up, but I’m just checking in to bid you a bonne nuit.” Unfortunately, despite its softness, it DOES wake us up, hence why Cat Daddy finds this meow the most annoying of them all.
2. Le Cri Aigu. As the name would suggest, this sounds just like a dog’s toy, and it is the most un-catty sound that one can possibly imagine. It is usually uttered when Le Roi is grabbed or squeezed when not expecting it. And, yes, sometimes we DO do this to him just to make him squeak because we find it so funny.
3. Le Cri de Guerre Wah! Wah! Wah!. What it lacks in volume – for it is only moderately loud – it makes up in evil intent. This sequence of short, staccato meows tends to be heard when Le Roi breaks into a sudden sprint, such as when he spots the door open at The Front or when he is in the perfect position for an exquisite photograph and then sees me reach for my phone.
4. Le Miaulement Habituel, aka what we hear 60% of the time. This sounds like a spoilt, whiny child who has just been told that there is no more ice cream. Visitors are often concerned that our boy is upset or in pain, and we are forced to shamefacedly admit, “Erm, no. That’s just his normal voice.”
5. Le Cri des Cris, the most awful of the lot and, sadly, the second most frequently heard after Le Miaulement Habituel. This indignant holler can mean an assortment of things including, “Let me in/out!” and “Where the heck have you BEEN?” Those who have heard this sound – which, by now, includes most of our street – are unlikely to forget it, and, if you haven’t, today is going to be the day.
Now that my new domain of louiscatorze.com allows me to post videos, you will have the pleasure of hearing all of these meows at some stage (although I expect that, now that I have announced my keenness to capture them on video, Sa Maj will refuse to produce most of them ever again). We were, however, (un)fortunate enough to be greeted by a 5 pointer – Le Cri des Cris – one day after coming home from work, and I do have evidence of that. Turn the volume DOWN.

You’re welcome.
La boîte à merveilles

07/11/2018

Middle-class cat problems: when your cat has too many toys. And, since every single one of them was given as a gift by a visiting pilgrim (oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: we have never needed to buy Louis Catorze a single toy in his life), I guess that makes it an upper-middle-class cat problem.

Cat Daddy decided recently that the cat toys must be secretly moving and/or multiplying in the night because, every time he comes downstairs, he finds them in a different position. It’s possible that supernatural forces are at work … although it’s far more likely that Catorze, like his mamma, is great at using things but not so good at putting them away afterwards.

I thought, for a minute, that Cat Daddy was going to threaten to get rid of the toys (or Catorze). But, instead, he suggested: A TOY BOX. And, naturellement, because he is Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, only the best box will do.

So Cat Daddy spent an afternoon painstakingly restoring Cat Grandpa’s antique tool box to make it into a toy box for Le Roi. We know that Cat Grandpa would have approved of this as he had a very special relationship with Catorze. During his visits he would whistle to Catorze, just like whistling to a dog, and the little sod would go running for a cuddle.

Cat Grandpa would have been 100 today and we hope that, wherever he may be, he has cats and a whole stack of toys.
Le voyage des pèlerins

03/11/2018

Hallowe’en is over for another year, which makes me a little sad, although living all year round with a black vampire kitty means that every day is Hallowe’en here at Le Château. And, yes, we succeeded in keeping Louis Catorze under lockdown on the night of the 31st, with the little sod only managing to escape once.

Best moment of the Hallowe’en season? Catorze’s conspicuous indifference to the severed zombie hand. And, having transferred Le Blog to the new domain louiscatorze.com*, I can now post videos, so see below for some splendid non-giving of a merde from Le Roi:

*Cat Daddy: “Louiscatorze.com? Why have you done this? You only need to do this if you’re going to sell Louis Catorze merchandise. Are you going to sell Louis Catorze merchandise? Please don’t sell Louis Catorze merchandise.”

This time of year is traditionally for remembering loved ones who have passed on. We have certainly been doing that, but I have also resolved to spend some time looking back at the Sun King’s visitors’ book and remembering the pilgrims who have come to pay homage to him.

I have been pretty rubbish at printing out the pilgrims’ photos and, until now, they have remained pointlessly trapped in my camera roll. But, thanks to a friend kicking me into action, they are now all in the book alongside the pilgrims’ lovely little notes. Having a picture of Catorze with each visitor really does make the book and, better yet, we have a VERY special visit due later this month. The details shall be revealed nearer the time, but I am excited beyond belief and I know that Catorze is, too.

Thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to visit Sa Maj and bring him gifts. He really does appreciate it, although he needs to work on showing it.
Le meilleur ami de l’homme

31/10/2018

One of my cat-loving friends has just got a DOG. If you are following Le Blog it’s likely that you are a cat person, so you will understand what an apocalyptically big deal it is for someone to leave our ranks and defect to the Dark Side. That said, given that dogs are loyal and loving and cats are psychopaths who don’t care if we live or die, it’s possible that our side IS the Dark Side and that my friend had to save herself by whatever means possible.

I knew that she was thinking about getting a dog, because we spent a whole afternoon together Googling “Dogs that smell” and “Dogs that don’t smell” to help her to choose her breed accordingly. (Dog owners: sorry, but your houses can smell doggy. You don’t notice because you have become accustomed to it, and people don’t tell you because they are trying to be polite, but I’m afraid it’s true.) However, I didn’t know she’d actually got the dog until I went round to her place and her partner answered the door holding a trembling, honey-coloured ball of fur half the size of Louis Catorze.

“Surprise!” my friend trilled. “This is Nala! I didn’t tell you about her because I wasn’t sure you’d want to come round if you knew she was here.”

“Erm, you’re right. I probably wouldn’t,” I replied.

“I know you’re not a dog person,” she continued, “but she’s about the same size as a small cat, isn’t she? So, erm, maybe you could just PRETEND she’s a cat?” Right.

Anyway, I spent the afternoon with little Nala and, apart from one pooing incident – fortunately nowhere near my person nor near my possessions – all went well. And, when I returned home, far from being repulsed by me (as he usually is), Catorze sniffed and nuzzled me, rolled all over me and purred like an aeroplane taking off.

So does this mean that our cat is … part-dog? He certainly has some dog-like qualities (following people around, wagging his tail when happy, being irresistibly drawn to dogs even if they are displaying all the signs of wanting to kill him, etc.). The one area where they differ is their compliance with humiliating Hallowe’en outfits and, luckily, Nala has been able to compensate for Sa Maj’s shortcomings.

As you can see, she was very obliging and happily dressed up whereas Catorze, despite usually being a lover and not a fighter, would tear my skin to shreds and watch me bleed to death if I attempted to put clothing on him. (Don’t ask me how I know this.) However, he and I did manage to produce a passable official Hallowe’en portrait this year, unlike last year when there was just one moderately decent shot out of about a hundred attempts, produced two months too late for the event.

Happy Hallowe’en from all of us (including Nala), and may your furry overlords of whatever species behave themselves tonight.
Le lion a suffisamment de dents pour se sentir bien dehors

23/10/2018

Have you ever seen one of those 1980s movies where the small-town neighbourhood bad boy is undignifiedly hauled home to his parents by the local sheriff? (I haven’t, but I am sure that it must have happened in some 1980s movie at some time.)

Well, Louis Catorze’s troublemaking-about-town has reached such a level that neighbours have started knocking at our door to return him to us. Cat Daddy is BEYOND mortified about this although, curiously, he fails to see that it wouldn’t be a problem if we* were more vigilant about keeping The Front under lockdown.

*HE

The first time that this happened, Catorze had slipped out unnoticed at The Front and his screaming could be heard from the living room of one neighbour, disturbing his TV viewing. A couple of weeks ago, he had slipped out unnoticed again and had tried to get into the same neighbour’s house as their dinner guests were leaving. And the most recent incident involved him slipping out unnoticed YET AGAIN (I think I may detect a pattern here) and ambushing Oscar the dog’s mamma and sister, screaming, as they left the house. They politely knocked at the door a few nights ago and said, “Louis is outside at The Front, and we just wanted to check that you knew?” Erm … no.

I never know what to say when the little sod is returned to us. I can’t even lie and say, “He’s never behaved like this before” because it tends to be the same people who keep bringing him back, and they all know what he’s like.

I am trying EXTREMELY hard to be careful at The Front, but Cat Daddy is somewhat more, erm, relaxed when he puts out the recycling. With Hallowe’en – which I am spelling authentically for the first time ever – around the corner, and the very real danger of Catorze being mistaken for a novelty vampire cat toy and scooped up into some kid’s treat bag, we need to up our game. (Yes, most cats would probably loudly and violently object to being carried off by a gang of sugar-high youngsters, but this is Sa Maj we’re talking about.)

And I have just checked my calendar and realised that it’s a full moon tonight which, let’s face it, adds another complication into the mix that we really don’t need. Someone needs to intercept The Mothership’s transmissions très rapidement.

Thank you to Emily for this amazing photo of the little sod who is, most unusually, moving AWAY from the front door
La paix, la justice, la liberté

19/10/2018

Because all cats are selfish users by nature, it’s not uncommon for them to lead a double life with another unsuspecting family. However, despite Louis Catorze’s recent daredevil escapology, I didn’t expect his other life to be this:

That’s him at the bottom, happily nibbling on a plant whilst the murderers, gang members and drug traffickers of the Porto Velho penitentiary go about their daily prison business around him. And, yes, I am aware that most black cats look very similar to one another. But if you live with one – and especially if it’s a troublemaker – you know your own. The miniature size, the pose, the casual chewing of plant matter with the intention of puking it up later in some inappropriate place … this is all classic, unmistakable Louis Catorze. And we all know of his tendency to gravitate towards men. What’s less clear is how the flip he managed to get all the way to Brazil. (He speaks English, French and the odd swear word in dog and bird language, but no Portuguese.)

Cat Daddy: “Are you kidding? He can escape outside at The Front in broad daylight without being seen. He can break into locked rooms and cupboards and re-lock the door after himself. Of course he could make it out to Brazil and still get back in time to wake us up screaming at dawn.”

This is true.

The only other question we have is which way Catorze’s prison gang allegiance has swung: has he made himself the kingpin of the Comando Vermelho or the Primeiro Comando da Capital? Given his extraordinary capacity to incite barking wars between Oscar the dog and (now sadly departed) Bert the dog and then smugly sit back and watch the fallout, I’d say that he has probably managed to fuel even more hatred between the two gangs whilst remaining annoyingly impartial* himself. In fact, I’d be prepared to bet Le Château on at least 80% of the riots in Porto Velho being his fault.

*Not giving a merde about either faction

One day his pot-stirring will he found out, and I don’t suppose the inmates will be too happy about it. In the meantime, it’s probably just as well that he has Le Château as a bolt-hole and us to take care of him.
La nuit des morts-vivants

13/10/2018

The zombie fox is back, and not only has he brought back-up in the form of three equally shouty buddies, but they have been raising absolute hell in our street at night with their part-reanimated corpse, part-Velociraptor shrieking. I have seen/heard them with my own eyes/ears and, a few mornings ago, I found paw prints on our car windscreen which were much too large and too muddy to belong to cats. It seems unlikely that the dog walkers of TW8 would suddenly decide to use parked cars as an obstacle course, so I can only assume that Monsieur Renard and his comrades are to blame.

Needless to say, this has made our street quite an unnerving place after dark. And, naturellement, it has also made Louis Catorze more desperate than ever before to defy us and go outside at The Front.

As you are aware, he can hear the sound of the front door opening from wherever he is in the house or garden. However, he has recently figured out that putting out the recycling involves opening the front door and, as soon as he sees us gathering up cardboard, glass or tins, his silly little ears prick up and you can almost smell him mentally planning his bolt. Evidently the stupid act was just that: an act, to trick us into lowering our guard and give him licence to run riot.

Last night I discovered that it is utterly impossible to gather up the recycling in silence. I tried, but the little sod’s head whipped around as soon as he heard the first clunk of aluminium against glass. He followed me to the front door and, when I came back indoors, I knew he was waiting on the other side of the door so I swung it open hard to startle him into retreating. He didn’t. He let out a squeak which sounded shockingly like a whoop of glory, shimmied between my ankles and pitter-pattered out, up-tailed and screaming.

I was never comfortable with him being out at The Front at night, but I feel even more nervous knowing that the streets are being prowled by four predators who are, most likely, seeking the little upstart who insulted one of their number. And taking refuge on top of a car is evidently not going to work for Catorze, as the foxes will just follow him. Foxes are not known for attacking cats but, if the cat is the one who starts the fight, I don’t suppose I can blame them for retaliating.

If Le Château was on high alert before, I don’t know what to call our current state. Is there a word for higher than high and redder than red? Anyway, here is Sa Majesté in his observation tower, waiting for nightfall so that his Army of Darkness (which consists of, erm, just himself) can attack:
Louis Catorze et la Cape d’Invisibilité

08/10/2018

*Today’s entry of Le Blog would be greatly enhanced by listening to the Harry Potter theme music whilst reading*

After the recent altercation with the zombie fox, you’d be forgiven for thinking Louis Catorze had been put off going out at The Front. Mais non. He is now obsessed with it and, even if he is outside at The Back, he can hear the front door being opened and he hurtles in, screaming, to try and break out.

And his Cloak of Invisibility appears to be growing in power as the Season of the Black Cat progresses, because he is managing to slip out unnoticed more than ever before. Last Tuesday night we found him outside on the window sill when we came home from the football, happily watching all the football fans make their way home, and on Thursday I came home from work to find a random passer-by stroking him on our front wall. On yet another occasion, a neighbour sent us this picture when we thought Catorze was asleep on our bed:

Little sod is having a ball, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could spit. If he is out at The Front, I have the shutters open and am anxiously checking every few minutes to make sure he isn’t rolling around in the road, screaming at dogs/foxes or launching himself at some terrified man. And, although he has been ok so far, I daren’t let my guard down.

Cat Daddy: “If we had children you’d be absolutely ridiculous with them, wrapping them in cotton wool.” Not true in the slightest. This is more of a civic duty to save the good people of TW8 some heartache, rather than for Le Roi’s benefit. Plus children come back when they’re called – or, if I had any, they’d bloody well BETTER come back when they’re called, or else. Louis Catorze couldn’t give less of a merde if he tried.

So Le Château is now in a state of high alert, although we are pretty defenceless against a Cloak of Invisibility on account of it being invisible. A friend suggested we confiscate the Cloak, and we would, if we could find it …
Je suis une légende

30/09/2018

Colder weather usually brings cuddling kitties, although they’re clearly just using us for our warmth and haven’t suddenly decided that they really like us. Louis Catorze, however, is still spending as much time outside as he did during the summer months, and his Short Man Syndrome has been getting him into trouble with foxes. This is not good.

Last Tuesday a fox ran through our garden and he thought it would be a good idea to run after it, screaming. He chased as far as the gap under the fence at The Back, all puff-tailed and indignant, watching the intruder disappear into the distance and not budging until he was certain that it had gone.

And, on Friday night, he had another stand-off with another fox, this time at The Front. As you know, he isn’t allowed out at The Front unsupervised because he can’t be trusted but, when he bolts out unexpectedly when we get back from an evening out and refuses to be caught, we can’t do much apart from keep the window open, watch nervously and hope he will decide to come in.

We thought Catorze’s screaming was bad, but he has nothing on Monsieur Renard. Everything we thought we knew about fox sounds was blown right out of the water after experiencing this hellish din. Imagine, if you will, a modern horror movie in which the lead zombie – of chillingly superior intelligence compared to the others – throws back his head and emits a piercing war-cry, the signal for his comrades to destroy the last few pathetic humans. THAT is what Monsieur Renard sounded like. And, terrifyingly, not only was he glaring straight through the bars of the park fence at Catorze as he made this unforgettably dreadful sound, but CATORZE WAS GLARING AND SCREAMING BACK.

“Aw, they want to be friends!” cooed Cat Daddy. “That’s so cute. Let’s leave them to it.”

I really didn’t want to do that, yet Catorze was NOT coming in and repeatedly darted out of my way when I tried to grab him. I have no idea what the neighbours must have thought but, unfortunately, they all know the little sod well enough by now.

Eventually, after more gut-wrenching zombie-hollering from Monsieur Renard, Sa Maj did come in through the window, and a punch-proud Cat Daddy rough-cuddled his boy and commended him for “showing the fox who was in charge at Le Château”. I would far rather he retreat and mind his own business, but nobody in this household seems that concerned with what I think.

October – and therefore the Season of the Black Cat – started today. And I fear that this means things are only going to get worse.