More about Life

Today we had a few peaceful hours without mammals under foot. Basically our kids spend the better part of the day at a kittie rave. A full-on drug festival. An acid mouse party. It's the only thing that explains how they were dozy, red-eyed and barely able to walk when we collected them. And what's more, we paid for the drugs.

Tenzin took something that knocked her out completely, but Borneo, with his singular appetites and dodgy ticker, had to have a completely different cocktail of drugs. Main ingredient in the mix was Ketamine, known on the street as "mean green", "K", "Ket" and "Special K". It's a horse anaesthetic. Well, actually it's lots of things, but it's also a horse anaesthetic. And a recreational drug.

It was quite a party just to get their teeth cleaned. Maybe next time I get my teeth cleaned, I'm going to wink at the dentist and hope I get the same treatment. If not, I'm going to the vet.

Top 5 Cat drug songs
1. Pussy in the Sky with Diamonds – The Beatles
2. Sorted for E's and Catnip – Pulp
3. Smoke Two Joints – Bobcat Marley
4. Ebeneezer Puss – The Shamen
5. Sweet Leaf – Black Tabby

Feel free to add ones I've missed.

Labels: Cats, Drugs, Music, Wildlife

As many of you know, Professor Gray and I live with two creatures of the genus Felis catus. The functions of these creatures are to act as a crude alarm clock, to cover everything in the house with a thin layer of hair and for scientific observation.

Cath and I both have very different disciplines. I am in charge of noting the negative characteristics of the subjects: such as, the frequency and irritation of pitch of their whining; their tendency to believe they are ankle bracelets; and their inability to learn practical lessons from many of their escapades. Professor Gray is in charge of exaggerating their learning and cognitive skills.

Even before our chubby little subjects went on their diets, the overriding concern in their lives was food. Whilst this is true of many animals who, in the wild, don't know where their next meal is coming from, for animals that have never known the wild, rarely go out and are fed pretty damn regularly, this should not be a worry. Yet, Borneo (the male subject) spends his entire waking life whining that he doesn't have food in his bowl. Obviously he does have food in his bowl quite frequently, but it's only ever there for a few seconds before he wolfs it down. This brief period does at least afford the briefest gap in his whining. Borneo has an eating problem.

One of other joys in a cat's life is the stalking, wrestling and torturing of such prey as twine, thread and lengths of string. This of course is also related to food. In the wild, these bits of string would be mice, birds and adorable, little baby rabbits with big eyes and a delightful curiosity. But even cats know that the nutritional value of a bit of string is somewhat below wood shavings and hair (although Borneo does eat a lot of the latter). However the process is so closely linked with the getting of food, even for a cat that has never caught anything bigger than a moth in is life, that once the string has been caught, very often Borneo will drag it down to the kitchen and drop it in his bowl. Because all he knows about food is that this is where it appears.

Professor Gray has hypothesised that this shows rudimentary understanding of currency. Which I guess could be true. But it's more likely he's either treating this as a gift (more able cats often give their owners gifts of disembowelled mice or the badly-chewed heads of adorable, little baby rabbits with big eyes and a delightful curiosity); or that he is using some rudimentary logic along the lines of:

things caught = food;
food lives in bowl;
therefore anything put in the bowl will become food.
(Reductio ad felinus)

It's possible that some dropping of caught string in the bowl has been seemingly rewarded with real food, which may have reinforced this behaviour.

However with true scientific rigour, we do need to prove or disprove the currency theory. Therefore I am creating a whole system of different-length strings that equate to different amounts of food, along with an exchange rate (linked to stock market prices) between the string and other currencies (little squashy balls, catnip mice and shoe laces). So the cat will be paid unemployment benefit of three balls a week and an obesity allowance of one catnip mouse, plus whatever string he's able to hunt, as long as it's under the string-hunting quota of 15 pieces of string a week. Once he's got the hang of this, we'll starting introducing hunting levies and taxation, plus we may have to investigate possible unemployment benefit fraud as hunting could be considered an occupation. Once he has mastered these complications, it's time to make him CEO (or perhaps Main Executive Operating Worker) of his own corporation and see how long it lasts. Although the problem I foresee is that his first role as CEO will almost certainly be to reward himself a huge food bonus.

Who said cats were stupid? Oh, yeah, I did.

Labels: Cats, Science, Wildlife

As I may have mentioned before since shacking up with Catherine, I am the step-owner of two step-cats. I come from a long line of dog people, so cats were somewhat new to me. I knew about cats of course; At least the stereotype of independent, resourceful, ruthless creatures beloved of crazy old women, that merely exploit humans for food and show only patronage masking cold disdain in return. Dogs are the opposite and show unfettered devotion from which they only sway to maul the odd small children.

Cath's cats were shelter cats. The shelter they were from seemed to give their charges the names of countries. The male cat is still called Borneo, but the female was originally called Iraq, which isn't a great name for a girl. Sher'll only get teased at school and called Eye-rack. She was renamed Tenzin, after the first man to climb Mount Everest laden with another man's stuff.

They are apparently mostly Maine Coon cats which are hairy little critters: black and white like fluffy racoons. These are not to be confused with Caine Moon cats which look like Alfie's Arse. (This was a topical joke in 1966. For kids under 15 who have seen Batman Returns, read "Alfred's Arse.")

Far from being the stereotypical independent go-getters, these cats are needy, greedy and weedy. Weedy because the list of things they are scared of is immense. From vacuum cleaners and flushing toilets to plastic bags and spoons.

The list of what they like is: eating, sitting, sleeping, eating and playing with wool. When they are not doing these they are complaining that they want to eat or play with wool. Cats don't ask nicely, they can only mew irritatedly. In fact Borneo has a small language of about 8 sounds. All plaintive and irritable. This is not because they are American cats, in case that's what you're thinking, because then they would also have a "have a nice day" sound.

Even Tenzin, who is irritable, but normally silent has undergone a change recently. Since the rediscovery of wool, she has become a first degree wool addict. She needs her play and whines frequently to get it. I hadn't known she could make a noise until this painful little screechlet first emerged. It sounds like a word she picked up from Borneo.

Wool seems to be a sort of cat drug. From the moment Tenzin first got play of a strand of wool, she was addicted. For the first few days, she neglected her food, and now spends many of her waking hours pleading to have a fix. If she could steal to get a play on the wool, she most certainly would.

Cats do not understand mockery. Replicating their noises in exaggerated, mocking tones only makes them repeat their original noise. They do not understand that getting in the way of human legs means getting kicked or squished. No matter how many times this happens to them, they fail to understand that it was their action of moving in the way of the foot or leg in question that caused this kicking or squishing and regard you venomously as if it had been deliberate. I can honestly say, I very rarely kick the cats deliberately. I don't need to. Borneo spends 1/3 of his waking life getting in the way of feet. He thinks he's a feline football. Fortunately I have self control and have never to this date attempted to score a conversion (place kick) with this furry, fat ball. Although I can just hear his plaintive whine diminishing as he flies off through the open top window to score the full two points.


No cats were harmed in the writing of this essay.

Labels: Anthropology, Cats, Netherlands, Sport, US, Wildlife

Following some considerable experiments, I have ascertained what are the top five cat predators in the wild:

1. Plastic Bags
2. Police Cars
3. Drills
4. Vacuum Cleaners
5. Flushing Toilets

Given this fact, if a van load of policemen were to burst in carrying drills and rustling plastic bags which they use to turn on the vacuum cleaner and flush the toilet, most cats would die of a heart attack.

Fortunately the likelihood of this event happening is roughly 1,456,335,544 to 1 and we are far more likely to get a cat President of the United States of America. Mind you, only a few years ago, these were the odds for a black or female president. So the bottom line, I guess, is your cat shows any political ambitions, don't stand in its way, because one day it could be the most powerful cat in the world, and then you'll be sorry. And if you do want to stand in its way, hire ten policeman to burst in carrying drills and rustling plastic bags which they use to turn on the vacuum cleaner and flush the toilet.

Labels: Cats, Politics, Wildlife

I've not written too much here for a while. Not because I don't love any (either?) of you any more. And not because I have turned my back on the written arts - heaven forbid. It's just that my time and pen has been taking me elsewhere.

So what's been going on?

In February, as well as turning another ripe old age, I moved in to a menagerie. One of the number was the wonderful Lady Catherine, with whom I have been stepping out for a good 8 seasons. The others are a horde of cats. Although in fact I believe they number just two.

The move was pretty simple, especially for Lady C who didn't even leave her building, and instead humped her stuff up two floors to the penthouse apartment. I had to shift my stuff over a river but and fortunately this city is festooned with bridges, so there was no need to hire a boat, just a guy with a van. The new place has two floors, much storage space and his'n'hers offices. Damn near perfect, despite costing all of our limbs and the limbs of our first-born in rent.

I am not really a cat person. I was brought up with dogs and hamsters. But I have always admired their cunning and ability to dupe owners that they care about them. Cats take some getting used to. Dogs, once trained, respond to commands and won't go where you tell them not to after a few times of stern telling. Cats wilfully seek those places and do not understand orders, shouts or pleads to move. When you finally shove, throw or even gently push them off, they look back at you with a face of incomprehension and faint malice.

Of the two cats, one is exactly what I expected in a cat. She's superior and a little independent, if somewhat afraid of sudden movements and much of the outside world. The other is needy, demanding of attention and whiney. More like a puppy in fact. This is the one that if we didn't barricade ourselves into the bedroom section of the house, would spend all night scratching at the door to be let in. He's not allowed in as, once in, he would either turn his nose up and walk out again or try to sleep on you face.

The other thing about cats is that they shed hair. Girlfriends, of course, do this too, but nothing like the way cats do. It's quite amazing to put on a shirt you haven't worn for a few weeks that's been hanging high in the wardrobe and find it's covered almost uniformly in cat hairs.

I guess I shouldn't complain as real cat-hair jackets cost a lot of money these days and no cruelty is involved.

Labels: Cats, Wildlife