We are now at the sixth day of Christmas and Larry reports that so far sixteen assorted festive avifauna have been received, killed and eaten. After some thought, the useless five gold rings were flogged on E-Bay and cash put in Larry's personal treats fund. Leftovers were used with eggs as indicated below:


On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, six geese-a-laying, FIVE GOLD RINGS, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Goose, calling bird, hen, turtle dove and partridge omelette for breakfast.

PS As regards University of Liverpool ridiculous accusations about moggies showing psychopathic tendencies, Number 10 Cat has said of the embarrassing pigeon incident in Downing Street: "I decided to let it go - I was just reaching it a lesson."



Superb action shot from Justin Ng, Larry's greatest fan!

Now I know Temperance isn't too keen on cute cat videos (unless they are about Larry) but please bear with me in this instance.

I sometimes take five minutes and look at a channel by Friends of Felines in Defiance, Ohio who besides rehoming cats and kittens look after disabled cats who are permanent residents.  I rather admired the ingenuity of this cat with CH (cerobellar hypoplasia) a condition some cats are born with which makes them floppy, though apparently they are not in pain.  Anyway, this cat, Spiker, has been a crafty lad and moved his bed to get close to some food to save walking.  

This is appearing in cinemas at the moment:



one of the many anthropomorphic cat pictures that Wain produced:

The Prime Minister is hiding isolating at Downing Street. The thought of having that man hanging around his house for a week is too much for Larry. As ever, the nation's favourite feline speaks for us all: he's had enough.






Phil Robinson's caption reads:

Replying to
@Number10cat

Where's that *%##*!@* taxi?

From wordpress.com

A new First Feline at the White House. Willow, a two year old tabby from Pennsylvania.



First Cat

LadyinRetirement (over in the Tumbleweed Suite) wrote:

MM, sorry to read about your cats.

I finally buried my deceased moggies, all three of them, yesterday. The ground here is very rocky and difficult to dig down to any depth, so I'd had my cats 'on hold' in a freezer until I could find a suitable place. But yesterday I managed to dig a reasonably deep hole in the soft earth in the middle of my pumpkin patch. I could only get down about two feet but I did get sufficiently wide to accommodate Mama Poes, her daugher Zwartje, and Tostig the stray. The hole certainly wasn't as big as Tostig's namesake was promised* but at least it's deep enough that they shouldn't be disturbed by any wild animals.

* According to both Henry of Huntingdon (Historia Anglorum, circa 1130) and Snorri Sturluson (the Heimskringla, or 'The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway', circa 1200), just before the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September 1066, a messenger arrived in the Danish camp from King Harold Godwinson, offering his half-brother Tostig the earldom of Northumbria if he would only abandon his treacherous support for Harold Hardrada. Tostig replied that he would not forsake the Northmen but he then in turn asked what might the King of England offer Hardrada himself ... to which the answer was, "seven feet of English soil, or a bit more as he is somewhat taller than other men."

Anyway my Tostig and the other two pussies got buried in a good eighteen inches of rich soil within my pumpkin patch and close to where there's already another puss (Zwartje's sister - Mama Poes' daughter - Vlekje, who died in 2013). And before anyone says that this all sounds like they were unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave, I did carefully put mum and daughter head-to-head, with Tostig, the unrelated tom, placed a little to the side. I would have put Tostig's girlfriend, Posca, next to him, but unfortunately she's now buried in the neighbours' garden.

Meanwhile in the absence of any cats I now have a rat in my cellar. Or at least I did. I had bought some rat poison but was loathe to use it as I didn't want the rat to die hidden away and inaccessible but leaving a bad smell as it decomposed. However while still vacillating and wondering whether traps were not a better way to go, I left the box of rat poison, still unopened, high up on an inaccessible shelf in the cellar. About a week ago, still uncertain what to do, I went to re-read the instructions on the box of raticide only to find that someone had got there first, had nibbled through the cardboard and had sampled two of the tablets. I haven't seen the rat since, so I guess it's a case of curiosity killing the rat.

But as a long-term solution I think I need to get another cat, or maybe two, from the local cat rehoming people.

Do let us know what kind of cat(s) you get if you do visit the rehoming people Meles. I've always ended up living in homes belonging to either tabbies, black cats or piebalds. A French grey or a Russian grey would be an ideal moggy to my mind but I've never been so lucky. My mother once had a luxurious Persian cat but that was after I had left home.

Yes, let us know, MM. You probably need a dangerously psychopathic, power-hungry cat to control the rats. I would suggest a ruthless, possibly semi-feral, ex-farm cat.

In comics one once often saw pics of arch backed cats doing a vertical leap with fur all spiked.  And I once saw a moggie of ours do just that to allow passage beneath for a tiny mouse  scuttling about -  so good luck with a rat catching mog, MM.
Of course you could try playing a recorder - the rats may not follow your tunes but they might just pack up and leave.

Deleted as I commented twice about the same matter.  I thought my first post hadn't registered.

Great video of Larry yesterday morning arriving for the 6.30am emergency COBRA meeting at Downing Street. I love the way he pushes in ahead of Liz Truss. That woman needs reminding of the pecking order at the heart of UK government.


Me First

It's around the time my cat is due her annual inspection and 'flu' jab.  There's a shortage of the vaccine apparently - generally not just at the vet practice I attend with my cat. She's been put on a waiting list for the vaccine.  I contacted the insurance company and they said they were aware of the delay and it won't void the policy.  I don't know why there is a problem in obtaining the vaccine.  I'm taking my cat for the check up on 14th of the month.

I've had a phone call to the effect that the cat vaccine is in stock so I've made a booking for Tilly for next week.

Well, I managed to get my cat vaccinated as per entry above and she had put on a litte weight which was deemed good.  She has another check up later this month.

Dear Larry always posts such appropriate things. I love this one, even though it is so silly.

Happy Mayhem Day more like it here in the UK: our Chief of Mousers has also posted a picture of a moggy on a tractor, but good taste prevents any mention of tractors (or combine harvesters) here, or at Westminster...

Roll on the coming elections, by(e) and local.



https://twitter.com/i/status/1520673078229061633

We need the likes of Larry to lift our spirits, Temperance.  I wondered about the origin of the word "moggy".  I found this site https://www.yourdictionary.com/moggy which suggests that it originally applied to a cow or calf, or a play on short forms of Margaret or that in Wigan a "moggy" was a mouse and a cat a "moggy-catcher" which became truncated to "moggy" for the cat.  Does anyone have any idea if any of these explanations are correct?

"No, I can't believe he's still here either." 



PS
I thought that was Larry's tweet for today (7 June 2022, following the vote of no confidence) but I now see that the date was 13 April 2022, and so was immediately after Johnson's 'partygate' fine. My mistake. Although seeing how Larry's tweet is still spot eight weeks later, surely says rather a lot about the current PM.

Larry was very put out by the appearance of a gigantic corgi in the skies above Buckingham Palace last Saturday night. "Am I living in a nightmare?" he tweeted.

Our Chief of Mousers was actually quite impressed: he wants a giant light drone thingy of himself displayed above Downing Street the night Johnson goes. It could well happen (Larry in the Sky with Diamonds, that is).

It looks like it was Larry's resignation that tipped the balance. Larry for interim PM.

When I switched off communication with the media last night Bo-Jo was still hanging on by tooth and nail so this was a surprise to me though it was obvious some of the papers were against him e.g. the "Get exit done" headline.

I always thought Bo-Jo was perhaps  cleverer than his bumbling public persona - but he must have lacked common sense if he didn't think 'partygate' etc would come to public knowledge.  Someone from one of the U3A groups I belong to said she doesn't think there is currently anyone else in the Conservative Party who could lead the country better...in that case we are in a pickle.  I can't believe that I'm in half way making an excuse for Boris Johnson but it wasn't his fault that the Covid-19 pandemic occurred.  'Cleverer' and 'lacked common sense' may seem like a contradiction in terms but I met intelligent people in real life who've done silly things (not saying all intelligent people do silly things).

Top cat throws in the towel.

The picture above posted by Vizzer is hilarious.

In May in the town council elections in the northern Icelandic town of Akureyri a Cat Party fielded a candidate (human not feline).  The council has plans to forbid the wandering of cats outside at night and not everyone is well pleased with it.  The Cat Party didn't fare any better than Count Binface sadly https://grapevine.is/news/2022/05/17/cat-party-fails-to-win-seat-on-akureyri-town-council/

I have a certain sympathy for Boris. He was right to quit and didn't deserve to carry on. But we should remember that covid and Ukraine have brought about a near recession that any politician of whatever party would struggle to contain. 
What irritates me the most though is the constant whining about high taxes and rising prices, after the two international crises mentioned above WHAT DO YOU EXPECT! The Left Wing unions and administrations in Wales and Scotland wanted more restrictions, more furlough, more WFH, more money spent, money which we were told at the time had to be found from somewhere and had to be paid back. Now they're crying in alarm when the bill has arrived. 
Of course no-one, myself included, doesn't like paying out more for less, but I understand that's it's the price we have to pay for the covid years plus Putin wrecking the world economy. It would be a darn sight higher if we'd followed Starmer's, Sturgeon's and Drakeford's policies that's for sure.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say I have sympathy for Bo-Jo but it's true the pandemic wasn't his fault.  I didn't actually shed tears the day Bo-Jo was elected with a massive majority but I came close to it.  Like a certain prince of the realm he didn't do himself any favours by telling lies.  The less well off are genuinely having a struggle to make ends meet at present and they aren't all shiftless people by any manner of means.

Maybe Larry will have a tweet to enlighten us.

Well I never knew that a skunk in Texan German is a 'stinkkatze'.  Circa 5:11 on linked video. 

That earlier picture LiR was reference to the withdrawal by Rafa Nadal from Wimbledon. The news from SW19, of course, overshadowing any lesser story from SW1 that day. But if we're refering to UK party politics, or more specifically to Tory internal party politics, then as I was driving to the council tip earlier on and listening to the car radio, the wag presenter said: "Tom Tugendhat has thrown his hat into the ring and become Tom Tugend."

After all my years here, I am come to this. What happened to the debate, the research, the agonizing paradigm shifts (mine), etc. etc. of earlier times? I now find myself being mesmerized by this: google "cat" and click on the large paw-print that should appear somewhere on the screen. You can keep clicking on the paw-print, and you will hear subtle variations in the response. I may be clicking on the paw-print all day.

WARNING: It's addictive, and you end up with a screen covered in paw-prints. Also you can't actually access any website link once it's been hit by a paw.

The Russians don't stand a chance against this level of Western technological genius: their whole weapons system could be disabled by paw-prints and cat noises (it purrs as well as meows).

What was it David Camerson said way back in 2015 about the only alternative to a Tory government being chaos?

I'm not sure whether it was George Canning senior or George Canning junior who wrote the following poem but the style seems more 19th century rather than 18th century so I'm guessing that it's junior:

The Cat and the Bird

Tell me, tell me, gentle Robin,
What is it sets thy heart a-throbbing?
Is it that Grimalkin fell
Hath killed thy father or thy mother,
Thy sister or thy brother,
Or any other?
Tell me but that,
And I'll kill the Cat.

But stay, little Robin, did you ever spare
A grub on the ground or a fly in the air?
No, that you never did, I'll swear;
So I won't kill the Cat.

To be fair to Liz Truss, though, she didn't claw Boris in the back (as did others) so it doesn't necessarily apply to her. She has, however, knocked the whiskers off George junior's prime-ministerial record.

To be fair to Canning his tenure as PM was not cut short by anything he did or didn't do, but rather by tuberculosis; the poor man died of the disease while still in office. But that's not to suggest that he hadn't formerly been an aggressive, abrasive, outspoken and generally divisive figure. When he was Foreign Secretary in the Duke of Portland's government, such was the antipathy between him and the War Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, that the government became paralysed by their disputes. Their disagreements within the government only ended when they fought a duel on Putney Heath. Canning, who had never before fired a pistol, widely missed his mark while Castlereagh, who was regarded as one of the best shots of his day, wounded his opponent in the thigh. Such was the outrage that two cabinet ministers had resorted to such a method to resolve their differences that they were both forced to resign from the government, although their political careers eventually recovered in time.

A televised duel fought on Westminster Green between Conservative party nominees for the post of PM, somewhat like the Korean ficticious survival gameshow 'Squid Game' ... now that would certainly be an interesting addition to the current parliamentary circus.

If I wasn't already cheesed off by (cheesed off with?) our current government, hearing that they were considering a cull of cats in the early days of Covid has made me consider their copy book well and truly blotted.  I adopted my present cat in February 2020.  The thought is awful - I'd have only had her a couple of months if they'd gone through with it.  I think I mentioned that I'd had to have her groomed (last Saturday).  The groomer had to shave part of her back so she looks a bit as if she'd had a tonsure (only on her back not her head).

I knew that 17th March was St Paddy's Day - and my birthday - but I didn't know it's also St Gertrude's Day (I thought that was in November).  But I've read something today to the effect today IS also dedicated to St Gertrude and that she is the unofficial patron saint of cats.  Even if people aren't religious I thought they MIGHT like to know....https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/celebrating-cats-in-art-for-st-gertrudes-day/102092484

My Belgian aunt and uncle live in Nivelles, the town where St Gertrude and her mother established an abbey in the 7th century (it was bombed in WW2 but has been fully restored). Actually I don't think Saint Gertrude had any special involvement with cats during her life but apparently in the middle ages she could be successfully invoked to get rid of mice and rats, and so in the round about way of catholic veneration of the saints, she became associated with cats. Anyway that is why, so tantine and tonton once explained, they called their cat Gertrude, although I think the name was more in hope than anything else as Gertrude the cat was always far too fat and friendly to be a good mouser.

Gertrude is an excellent name for a cat, despite its usually bovine associations.

I feel a bit sorry for Gertrude (the saint, not the fat moggy mentioned by MM) - she must be fed up at being completely upstaged every year by St. Patrick.




I have no idea whether this is St. Gertrude or not, but it's a nice picture...

A wholesome true story about Willow the cat who saved her diabetic owner and is up for an award:- https://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/national/23470587.cat-saved-diabetic-owners-life-among-finalists-national-cat-awards/ I didn't know that the Star newspaper group went up as far as Lancashire. The Express & Star (based in Wolverhampton but it's sold where I live) and the Shropshire Star I knew of.

I am scheduled to take my little mischief for a biopsy on Tuesday and possibly the extraction of some teeth.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.  I've been shutting her out of my bedroom because the female half of the couple nextdoor is a light sleeper and hears her if she meows.  I got used to not worrying about sounds carrying because the house nextdoor - as in the other half of the semi-detached built on to my house was empty for several years - but it's occupied now and the party wall is thin. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Hope I didn't sound too miserable in my last post.  Anyway, all is postponed till Friday because the cat somehow got out of the cat door (which I thought I'd sealed) during the night.  I rang the vet's and they said they can't risk her having perhaps caught a mouse and eaten during the night so we had to re-arrange the appointment.

I'm not quaffing anything very exciting at present - just tea. 

I wonder what Larry is making of the present shenanigans in London.

I took my cat to the vet's today as a follow-up to the procedure she had last week. The biopsy result was in and the lump was benign which relieved me.

Hi Cellarmaster - good to see you've found his important thread

Those cats depicted in the Chauvet cave are of course not just any old felines but rather are specifically an extinct species, the cave lion Panthera spelaea, which the Chauvet paintings show in such detail that it is clear that adult male cave lions completely lacked manes - something that would never have been known if we had to rely on just fossil bones.

I find the paintings in the Chauvet Cave to be so sophisticated that it's amazing to think that they predate, by a very long way, all of recorded history: in style they could easily be attributed a number of skilled sketch artists from just the past few hundred years rather than from many millenia ago. The cave itself has been sealed off to the public since 1994 with access severely restricted to very limited numbers of researchers only. However just a few kms from the original cave there's Chavet II, a huge facsimile of the cave which has been open since 2015 and which reproduces not just the paintings but the whole topography of the cave, with the resulting shadows and echoes. I'm not so far away so I really should make an effort to visit.