No sense of proper territory - that's humans

The trouble with humans is that they have no sense of territory. OK so they have what they think of as home, a core territory in which to sleep, scratch and lounge about without tension. But it's not home territory as we cats know it. They invite other humans right into it, to share the space and sometimes to spend the night. They even invite them to share their meals. Share? No sensible cat does that. We don't share hunting so we don't share the prey either - not if we can help it. We don't share territory either except for relatives.
Once again Celia has shown that her territorial feelings, so necessary for a decent cat, are all awray. She is going away. Not just on a one day hunting trip to London (prey being clothes, shopping, books etc) but a three day hunting trip. This time the prey is even more ridiculous - static, non-living standing stones, often in rows. They just stand there. They don't move. They are cold and inedible and what on earth is the point of them, I ask. Something in her head is very disordered indeed.
This will leave me alone with Ronnie, a good man but not a first class cat wrangler. He can't bend down to pick me up. I don't much care for being picked up, what cat does, but I like the attention. Ronnie can't pick me up and he wobbles alarmingly when I wind round his ankles or his walking stick. I am somewhat afraid I may trip him up. I still rub against him however. It's my friendly nature to do so. He will have to look after himself. I am not a dog for the disabled. He is on his own.
He can, however, throw down food. So he can feed me and William, which is his main duty. This doesn't make Celia's conduct excusable or acceptable. Her duty is to serve us cats and this weekend she is failing in it. It's a disgrace.

Late again. She's getting pretty upset.

"You come in late. You just walk in without any explanation in the small hours and think you can crawl into bed with me without so much as an apology." That was the accusation that met me last night when I popped back through the cat flap after a night's hunting. I've noticed her saying much the same to Ronnie too. It's a habit of human females.
OK so it was little late - 3 am. I just hadn't realised the time. I was having such an exciting time hunting rats in the old piggery down the farm track. Time flies when you're having thrills. It's not the caterwauling female cats out there that make me stay up late. Hunting I love but love I laugh to scorn, as the bard said - more or less. Celia thinks, with Dr Johnson, that "it is very strange and very melancholy that the paurciy of pleasure should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them." She's wrong. Badly wrong. She tries to shut the cat flap so I can't get out into that dark world of excitement, cruelty, blood and death.
She whines and complains when I get back late. All she thinks about is how I might get eaten by a fox or run over by a car. She doesn't sympathise with, and doesn't want to hear of, the pleasures of waiting near a rat hole, the mysterious whispering and squeaking that goes on in the night, the dark shadows where you might see a tail slipping by, the cry of the hunting owl, the bark of the hunting fox, the quiverings, the pouncings, the crunch of bone as my teeth sink into a furry neck. The night is alive with hunters of all kinds and full of dark cruel doings. Moonlight and shadows play in a world of predators and prey.
I was late. And I was rather late the night before. And the night before. The delights of the fireside, the bowl of food, and the touch of a human hand, are nothing to the fierce excitements of the night. Just thinking about the world of the dark makes me quiver with anticipation. She just doesn't understand me.

My own conservatory

Celia must be feeling guilty about the imprisonment - see earlier diary. She's made my very own conservatory. Admittedly it is made of plastic not glass but it's nicely placed in the vegetable patch to catch the sun. Underneath the plastic she has carefully dug the earth and made it friable. Just right for rolling in or for digging a hole for you know what. She's really tried hard with this one and I appreciate all her hard work.
That said, it has several uncomfortable features. It's hardly big enough to turn round in. No room to swing a mouse. For some reason she has made it long and narrow, rather than rectangular. I mean I shall enjoy sitting in it in the sun, but the shape is not ideal. Further more she has added doors either end - well, more like barriers. I shall either have to shoulder my way through these or kind of creep below the plastic. It will be quite possible but a little uncomfortable. What was the woman thinking of?
And, the final touch. You can see she was trying to make the conservatory nice by decorating it. She planted two rows of small broad bean plants but she planted them ALL along the conservatory taking up valuable room and getting in the way of my digging. Broad bean plants smell mildly pleasant and very pleasant when in flower. But they have no place in a feline conservatory. I can't tell her that. She would be too upset. She meant well.

Free at last.... just checking territory boundaries

We are free. No more prison. No more horrible strange Persians within a whisker of us, unnaturally close for comfort. No more Gill the Cattery. Regrettably, no more cooked coley at lunchtime. (How can I convey to Celia the idea that she should cook for us, not just open yet another tin.) The relief is enormous.
Getting back home required a lot of energy. I went right round my hunting territory boundaries, past the evergreens near the pond (useful for amphibian prey), up past the unused owl box (unused by owls but now home to some pigeon prey), along the side of the ploughed field past the Dutch barn where the brambles are (good for mousing), down the track towards the old piggery (also good for mousing) then up the other side of the hedge towards the rabbit holes (best of all, a lagomorph killing ground.). All the territorial smells I had left from chinning had gone. I renewed them. I left new scented scratchings on the apple tree and the plum tree and that bit of hedge near the rabbit holes. If you don't make your boundary marks, some other cat may take over your territory. William used to stop and spray at various points but he seems to have neglected to do this lately. So far I have not bothered to spray. Maybe as I get older I will start doing this. Spraying is a useful way of leaving "George was here" marks.
The first night back I slept very close to Celia all though the night, and woke her several times for a bit of cuddling. Not that I needed reassurance, you understand. Nothing of the kind. I am just trying to rebond her so she doesn't do that to me again. If a bit of cuddling up makes her feel guilty so much the better.

More escape plans

Next door is a very posh Persian. The length and glossiness of his fur puts William's to shame. His pedigree is longer than my tail even if he's not very bright up top. William, who I think is jealous, claims he is stupid and that his face wears a perpetual sneer. I had a look at it. I mean it's all snubbed up and it may interfere with his breathing, but actually he looks just a normal sort of feline chap apart from that and the fur. I asked him if he could make a diversion just at the moment that Gill the Cattery opens our cage - give us a chance to slip out. He said he would but he was being collected within the hour. And so it turned out. It made me feel almost ill with misery to see him in his human's arms.
Still, nil deperandum. Plan C (or is it D? or even E?) is to gnaw through the wire. I have paced right round to see if I could see a weak spot. No such luck. Did about ten minutes gnawing and my teeth hurt so much that I decided to move to Plan D ( or E or even F). An escape tunnel. Mice use them all the time. The best tunnel would be sized-up rodent tunnel but there are no mice at all here. Not a whisker of one or the tiniest flick of a mouse tail. No rats either. So I tried scratching, like one does in the litter tray, but the concrete just hurt my paws and wore my nails down to the quick. Tunnelling is for rodents only.
Plan F ( or G or H). Make a pair of wings and fly out. Birds do it all the time and we can actually see them from here. They fly in and out of the courtyard where there is a bird table. If I could get to them, I could tear off their feathers and stick them on my shoulders. But could I fly out? I lay on my back to see if I could see any weakness in the roof and wire. Nothing at all visible. And no feathers, either. So I turned to Plan G (or H or I) - feigning illness. William suggested I simply stop eating. Of course I would do so like a shot, only I think he will just eat my share and that won't help at all. I suggested he stop eating but he wasn't keen on it. He said, and it was rather hurtful, that he thought I would just eat his share. In the end I persuaded him to lie on his back and breathe heavily as if he was poorly, when Gill the Cattery came in, while I tried to sneak out.
He did but she tickled his tummy and he bit her. Again. End of Plan G (or H or I).

Escape plans

William and I have been doing some serious planning while we are banged up. We dropped the idea of building a Trojan Mouse (hoping that Gill The Cattery Owner would take it home with both of us inside it). There were two major problems. One was just the problem of how to make it. Cat biscuits obviously weren't going to be as easy as planks and nails. They wouldn't really stick together. I tried chewing and spitting out a few, to see if they made a kind of glue. They didn't. The other problem, a graver one, was the humiliation we both would feel, having to cower inside a hollow Mouse. OK, so it would be a Trojan mouse, designed as an escape unit for prisoners. But it would still be an assault on our dignity as cats.
We have dropped the idea. Even as prisoners, we felt our dignity should be preserved. They cannot take that away from us. And moreover, we have eaten all the cat biscuits placed before us, and the cooked coley for lunch, and the tinned stuff and the large biscuits which are good for our teeth and anything else set before us. The only bright spot in our days here is the food and we eat heartily to keep up our strength for further escapes. It is our duty to do so. The food is quite different from what we get at home and we relish it. We may have to work on Celia's shopping choices if we ever make it out of here.
William spent the first two days hiding in the litter box. He said he wasn't hiding. He claimed it was an undercover strategy to make Gill The Cattery Owner take pity of him and get him out of here. If it was a strategy, he blew it. When she was combing his ruff, which is coming out in chunks, he bit her yesterday. That has put an end to any hope of his appealing to her better nature. She has noticeably cooled towards him.
So it was left to me. Charm the birds off tree, I thought. Use the smarm'n'charm strategy. I wound myself round her ankles. Looked up appealingly. Rubbed against her. Chirruped. Tried sliding out of the door as she opened it. Wiggled my attractive whiskers. No luck. Nothing worked. The struggle for freedom will continue!

Get me out of here...... from prisoner, cell block G.

Help.....
I am imprisoned in a small cell somewhere in the Midlands. I was betrayed utterly by my so-called friend Celia. Judas I call her. I was having an enjoyable time hanging round the hedgerows, thinking of nabbing another rabbit or perhaps a pheasant or just a nice young rat, when she called me. She called me and I, trusting her completely, came. I walked into her arms. She picked me up, stuffed me in the cat box, and drove me off, with William in the other box.
At first I thought it was just the vet. Just the vet. Just the pain of being stabbed and the horror of the surgery. But it was much much worse. She thrust me into a prison cell. With my cellmate, William, we have been locked up behind bars. We are completely and utterly shattered by the betrayal. She just walked away.....
Me and William are considering various escape plans. Perhaps we could start building a Trojan mouse out of old cat biscuits - if we hadn't eaten them all.

Yet another example of mystifying human reactions.

Steffi-Next-Door, she who admires my mousing skills and wanted to borrow me as a rodent operative, has behaved outrageously. She has been away in holiday leaving the house empty except for my visits. I quite like going there for a look round, a snack if any food is down and a nap on her bed. She is normally happy about this and welcomes my visits. But this time, when she came back from holiday, I sauntered in only to find uproar. She was very emotional. Very. I had expected praise. It's not every day that a cat can kill a full grown pheasant. I thought she might like to share in my pleasure and may be even share a bit of the bird. (Well, perhaps not. Cats don't share). Anyway I thought at least she would admire my hunting skills and the way I had branched out from mice and small birds to large rabbits and equally large pheasants. She was the one who had kind things to say about my mousing. She admired it. My present of feathers was even better. Spectacular is what I would have called it.
Did she appreciate it? Heck, she did not. "Ohmigod! Look at this huge heap of feathers. I can't bear to clear it up," she wailed. I slunk off. Humans are completely unpredictable. Maybe it's a good thing Celia mowed their lawn while they were away. They seemed almost hostile for a moment.

Crufts Dog Show - would you breed from the judges?

I was going to be left alone at home (well with only Ronnie and William), deserted in favour of a lot of dogs. Celia was thinking of going to Crufts Dog show until some sort of flu made her decide to stay at home. Why dogs would appeal to her, I can't think. Noisy animals who are stupid enough to allow humans to tell them what to do - and then actually to do it. Dogs have no independance of mind, no persistence in the face of human stupidity and seem incapable of doing their own thing. They spend a lot of time at Crufts just sitting on a bench or locked up in a crate (to protect them from passing humans muttering "Good Boy" and interfering with them by patting their heads). Then there are hours being groomed. You see them posed on grooming stands while people fix their hair. It goes on for hours and hours. Then it is into a small ring, one or two circuits, then more standing around in a silly and unnatural position with legs stretched back. An elderly human male or female then starts running his or her hands all over them, right into the intimate bits. It's sexual harassment of a gross kind.
And, my dear, the people. Nothing for a beauty parade there. Have you seen the judges? Talk about hereditary faults - hip dysplasia, loss of hair, no tails, poor eyesight, false teeth, and completely dry noses. And you can see that some of them have cheated with plastic surgery - not just the women, either. All in all, judges are not the sort of humans you'd want to breed from and yet none of them are spayed or neutered. Any sensible dog would bite. Hard. But they don't - dogs are natural wimps.
How do I know all this? Well "Best in Show" is one of Celia's favourite movies. As for cat shows, I wouldn't let Celia even think about it. I'd indubitably win - black, glossy, long tailed, and of an athletic build. But I don't fancy hours of just sitting in a cage being looked at. My life is the life of a true cat - mousing, birding, having a crack at rabbits, hanging out, inspecting the garden pond, hovering at the door until Celia opens it instead of using the cat flap, and popping in for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea, supper and late supper. You wouldn't get me into a show cage.

Home improvements - a new morning alarm call device

For once, Celia has made a real home improvement for me. Normally I dislike any change whatsoever to my home territory. Thoughtless humans go in for quite unnecessary alterations sometimes involving the intrusion of hunky men with builders' bottoms, dust, grinding and hammering noises, and a radio set loudly to Radio 1. (My musical tastes are classical as you can see from my profile.) This particular home improvement involved only a short visit, a little bit of hammering, but no dust. The intruder hung up blinds in my bedroom, the one I generously allow Celia to share with me. Celia's aim seems to have been to cut out the morning light which conveniently wakes her up in late spring around the time that I think is suitable - somewhere near 6am most mornings. She hopes to drowse in bed for a further hour. Luckily, although the light is now much reduced, the intruder has thoughtfully installed a wake-up device which I easily mastered. It consists of three pieces of rope with a nice little plastic toggle on the end. When the blind is pulled down this hangs down to the windowsill where I can reach it. This morning I woke her without any difficulty at all at 6am by swinging the toggle and smashing it against the windowpane several times.
Neat, eh? More fun that scratching the bed and less trouble than sitting on her face.

Look at this - it's almost as big as I am

This was the day of days, the moment when my life reached the pinnacle of success and triumph. I caught a full grown adult rabbit. My first. It was so huge I couldn't get it through the cat flap - which is why the photograph is poor. Celia was in an inexplicable mood. Instead of welcoming me home as I dragged the dead body right down the farm track, she shuddered and ran indoors. So she would only take the photograph through the door. That's why it is bad quality. She let me down.
Indeed her emotional reaction was really perplexing. On the one hand she called to Ronnie, with a real note of pride, saying "Look what he's caught." Then she said: "That's good news for my vegetable patch." All well and good. Then came a series of remarks suggesting that she had had second thoughts. "At least, it's dead. I just couldn't bear it if I had to dispatch it." Then: "I wish he wouldn't kill everything."
The woman can't decide whether she's proud of me or upset by me. Talk about conflicting emotions. You see she wrote a book called "One Hundred Ways to a Happy Bunny" because she loves rabbits. Ånd she's connected with the Rabbit Welfare Fund. So she is actually as fond of bunnies as I am - only in a rather different way.
It all rather spoiled my triumph. Who'd keep humans as pets. They are so devastatingly irrational.

Nothing like a good scratch

I like a good scratch. There's the sheer pleasure of scratching upwards, stretching my whole body and raking down my claws, loosening up the bits of nail which I shed. Then there's the power of the scratch message! I often do it in front of William to show what a big cat I am. He can hear me scratching. He can see how tall I am and he can also smell the scent of the handsome black pads on my paws. When he's feeling competitive he scratches over my marks, but since I have got bigger, it's more likely to be the other way round. He puts on his scratchmarks to say "William was here" and I then put on mine, saying "George was here and he can scratch a good deal higher."
Scratching is also a good way to get Celia's attention. In the morning, I do it on the scratching post in her bedroom - around 6.45am for starters to make sure she has woken up after the newspapers arrived. It's the feline equivalent of the speaking clock. "At the first scratch it will be 6.45am." This is only a Force 1 wake-up message and she often goes back to sleep. So do I sometimes, when I don't choose to proceed to Force 2 wake ups and others up to Force 9 (biting her face).
Scratching as a way of getting her attention, rather than William's, works well in the living room. I have a perfectly good scratching post which I can use to shed my nails. Anyway I use the tree for that. But the living room has some very nice scratching furniture. I scratch down the end of the arm chair. Once. Twice. She's noticed. Bingo! I have her full attention. She shoos me away but I don't care because it has worked. She has noticed me.
Then she puts double sided carpet tape on the furniture. I hate scratching sticky surfaces. This is one of the rare occasions when she outwits me. But she thinks it looks unsightly (luckily) so after about a month she will take it down and a few weeks later I will scratch again in front of her.
Oh the games humans play! Little things suit little minds.

Documents - for sitting on

Documents spew out of Celia's printer all the time - white paper with little tracks on them rather like the markings left by very very small birds only far less interesting. Their use to a cat is to sit on. I learned this pretty quickly as a kitten and I might add that I have left my muddy paw mark on many of Celia's documents.
Why are they useful for sitting on? For one thing the paper is smooth and gets nicely warmed up with feline body heat. Unlike carpets there is no static electricity even if it's not quite as warm as carpet. But mainly documents are useful as a way of catching your human's attention.
As most of you cats reading this will know, humans spent an inordinate amount of time staring at a screen or watching paper come out of the printer. Mildly interesting as it is not unlike something coming out of a hole. I sometimes poke the printer when the paper is coming out and Celia says that Fat Ada (my black and white predecessor) used to sit on the printer in the days when they were big rectangular devices. Usually the printer ground to a halt, suffocated by the sheer weight of cat. Ada was large, very large.
I don't sit on the printer much. It's sort slanted and not very comfortable. I sit on documents. This never fails. Celia looks at me and laughs, or swears sometimes. Then she leans over and picks me up and gives me a cuddle. She can't resist.
It's so easy.

William has his say on using catnip moderately.

George has unfairly described me as cautious when it comes to doing catnip. I am not cautious; I am a simple recreational user who knows when to stop. I can control my drug use (unlike some cats) and I use catnip moderately. At the age of 11, I have discovered that bingeing on catnip doesn't suit me. I prefer a more sophisticated approach of savouring it slowly and sort of rolling it round my nasal passages analysing and enjoying the odour. Besides, if I binged like he does, I would in danger of becoming a victim of feline violence - from him, who else?
As I have explained before, George is an intemperate and silly adolescent. He keeps pouncing on me even when it is absolutely clear that I resent this harassment. So when the catnip mice arrived, I had a nice little sniffter. I indulged in a couple more and then I decided enough was enough. George, on the other hand, went on to take a skinful of the stuff. He rolled, chewed, kicked and generally behaved in a ridiculous way. He was completely stoned. He admits to being a bit of a catnip junkie - which I think is truer than he lets on. It's a good job there weren't any small kittens about because it was a disgraceful exhibition.
As I said, I had a sniffter or two and that was enough. I felt very relaxed. And then I felt sleepy. It was rather hot near the fire, so I fell asleep, as I sometimes do, on my tummy. I had a very pleasant dream of being the only cat in the household.

A word about those catnip "mice"

The catnip through the post came packed tightly in little sacks with a convenient string attached for dragging them around, pouncing on when high as a kite, or just pawing when out of it. Nice little sacks. Nicely made by a well wisher, who has seen my handsome photograph on this blog and wishes to pay her own small tribute to me. I have enjoyed, and am still greatly enjoying, them. Doing catnip is great.
But... Celia thinks they are mice. She calls them catnip "mice." She's got the same delusion about two or three little furry toys which I sometimes play with when there's nothing to kill outside. Of course, they are not mice. They don't smell like mice. They smell, of course, of old rabbit fur - probably oriental or maybe Chinese rabbit and been dead a long time. I reckon the fur has been stuck on something a bit like cardboard. I mean they are fun, but they are not mice. Neither are the little catnip sacks.
When I came to, after doing some more catnip earlier today, I pondered on this. I mean if it doesn't smell like a mouse and it doesn't move like a mouse, it's not a mouse. I think her delusion arises from the fact that humans have practically no sense of smell. They can't tell the difference between friend and foe by smell. They can't smell intruders or next doors' friends. They can hardly smell anything at all. They are smell-blind, so to speak.
Nor can they hear. They are deaf to a mouse's footfall. If a thing doesn't sound like a mouse, it's not a mouse. But humans are almost insensible. The only sense they have is vision. Even their sight comes in glaring colours and is not movement sensitive, so they can't see much at twilight hunting hour. Lacking smell, hearing, sensitivity to movement, Celia looks at a little sack of catnip and she "sees" a mouse, just because of the shape.
How weird is that? Poor woman.

Something very interesting in the post

Today there was something interesting in the post. Almost every day a lot of square bits of folded paper come through a slot in the front door. As a kitten I was quite interested by this - after all, it looked rather like a rectangular mouse hole and things came out of it. But I got less and less interested because the bits of paper weren't particularly rustling. Just square bits smelling of nothing but computer ink. After opening a few, I stopped bothering.
Today was different. Very different. A large but light envelope arrived. It smelled wonderful. Very intriguing. A sort of catty smell which made me feel positively light headed. This was one to open. It was even addressed to George and William. So I investigated it. I rolled on it. I turned it upside down and sideways. I rubbed my chin against it. I tore bits off it until it revealed the treasure inside. A wonderfully shaped item smelling strongly of catnip.
Finally I managed to tear the whole thing open and pull out the catnip thingie. It had a nice little string attached to it to pull around. It was PACKED with the highest quality stuff. I sniffed and sniffed. I rolled on it. I licked it. I chewed it. I threw it around. I scratched it with my back legs. I lay on my back wriggling with pleasure completely stoned. Humans do skunk and smack and coke. I do catnip. I'm a bit of a catnip junkie. Boy, was it strong. William then got interested and pulled out another one. But he's more cautious about doing drugs than I am. Just does a bit and stops. It may be he's scared of losing control around me.
Oh, it was so goooooooooooood

My very own take away bird bar

Celia has installed a take away bird bar for me in the garden. It was never very well designed because the lure-feeders are too high but otherwise it worked more or less OKl. Scores of little birds arrived there and it was up to me to choose which ones to eat. Because of the design fault, I couldn't reach the high up ones, but a lot of the bait falls on the grass, which was my killing ground. Obviously no birds ventured there when I sat below in full sight but I enjoyed just looking sometimes - staying, as it were, in the first stage of the hunting sequence which is eye, stalk, pounce, grab, tear off feathers, eat.
Ordinary food in a bowl is just the last bit of the sequence and while satisfying hunger leaves all the other parts of the sequence not done. So just eating the food in the house leaves me filled but unfulfilled, so to speak.
So back to the take-away bird bar in the garden. When I was not just looking by sitting underneath, I used the shrubs for the hide before real hunting thrill. I sat in them and eyed the birds. I chose one, I did the stalk and bottom wiggle, then I sprang out, ran in and grabbed one before taking it in and tearing off the feathers on the carpet in the house, then ate it. I used to leave a little bit - perhaps a claw or a beak - for Mr Manners. Good fun.
But lately Celia has overdone the challenge. She had already put the feeders too high for me but yesterday she placed scrumpled up wire netting under the shrubs so that it interfered with my ability to do the run in. Now I run in up against the wire. That woman has not got any common sense. She's well meaning and I appreciate her thoughtfulness in taking the trouble to build the take-away installation. But she's now got the whole thing wrong. I can't reach the take-aways.

Odd white stuff outside. Snow and self pity - human, of course

It was an unusual light dawn so I woke Celia early. She was sluggish because she'd been late the night before. This going out and coming home later really isn't what I need. It puts a quite unneccessary strain on our relationship when she does this and I don't appreciate the behaviour. She has duties which cannot be performed if she is absent, as she was all day yesterday. So she needed a force six wake up - jumping on bed, heavy walking up and down the torso, chirruping noises, mock fight with William, loud purring and rubbing her face while dribbling. When we got downstairs there was the reason for the odd light - the garden was white with snow. It wasn't really dawn at all. It was much earlier and the sky was still dark. I don't remember seeing snow at all in my first year of life so I was intrigued. I skipped breakfast (no more roasted bits, thank goodness) to go out for a look.
The white stuff was pretty cold, fluffy in appearance, but wet. As I like wet things, I jumped about a bit, put my paw in it, poked it, and fooled around. William came out and stood around looking sort of bored and superior. He isn't, so I don't mind it when he pretends to be. Then I got bored and wet and cold, so I came in for breakfast.
All this makes a change but I can't say snow is very satisfactory. It looks fluffy but it isn't really. Just goes soppy the more you touch it. But I told Celia to take a photo because I think I look rather good on a white background. Instead of being grateful for being woken up to see the first snow before dawn, she was yawning a lot and complaining she hadn't had enough sleep. Humans are full of self pity.

Shun small girls - except Alice

The homo sapiens young are usually to be avoided. The babies are incredibly backward, compared with kittens. Kittens walk within a few days, babies can't for weeks and weeks. Then a year or so later they start taking an unhealthy interest in cats. Sometimes there are interesting bits of food to be picked off them, but usually there's a lot of dribble, clutching hands and generally inappropriate behaviour. Still later on the small female homo sapiens becomes even more sinister. Small girls always want to cuddle cats. They insist on picking them up all the time. And they commit the unforgivable sins of DRESSING UP cats in baby clothes and trying to put them in dolls' prams.
But there is one small girl I like, because I am rather an exceptional cat. I actually enjoy being picked up and I don't mind a cuddle. So when Alice came to stay last summer, we bonded. She is not like most small girls. She knew cats were different from dolls and she never tried to dress me up or put me in a dolly's pram. She learned how to call me properly, using my proper name in the right sounding call. Then she would pick me up putting her hands carefully under my bottom so that I was supported. I would be cuddled for a bit and carried round the garden by her. Then I'd jump off and do something interesting. She'd call me and, because I am a people cat, I would go for another cuddle.
Admittedly after about two hours, I got bored and disappeared because I had better things to do. William, on the other hand, just made himself scarce from the beginning. He may have social skills with other cats (being brought up in a 70 cat household) but he's no good with small girls. Not even Alice.

Cats one: humans nil.

Well it didn't take long. In the battle of wits between human and cat, it was always going to be a human defeat. But I thought Celia would hold out longer. She caved in after only 24 hours. No more roasted bits were served. She upgraded to the pate type food - not my favourite but acceptable for the time being. The sachets of roasted bits were taken away to be put in the Cats Protection unwanted food bin at the vets. Rather like handing out scraps of food to the poor in Victorian times. They will be properly grateful for them, poor strays.
How did I do it? Well the picture shows how. I simply tipped my unwanted roasted bits into the water bowl. Neat, eh? I have to confess I licked up the gravy first. A sign of weakness, I know, but not weakness that mattered in the overall strategy. Celia came down to find the bits deposited in the water. When I don't like something I usualy rake up the floor round the unwanted items in my bowl. Some humans call this caching food and say I am trying to hide them, as a kind of storage to eat later. I don't dispute it's an instinctive thing but it's not about storing the food for later. Oh no. It is about disposing of it in a litter tray way. If food is shit, then I bury it. Only this time with a deft backhander of a handsome black paw, I upped the bowl so that it fell in the water tray. Rather skillful, I thought.
William came up trumps too. I don't say he acted out of solidarity because that dog-like behaviour would be demeaning for any cat. He ate one of the two bowls of roasted bits left down over night. But then he sicked it up on the living room carpet.
The day has started well. Cats one: humans nil.

Felix roasted bits - it's war between me and my human

More Felix roast bits. I don't like them. I will eat the gravy around them but I don't like the bits themselves. So I eat the gravy and then William, who is less fussy than I am, eats the bits or at least some of them. At the moment there are two half eaten bowls of this particular Felix. Visible evidence that I don't like them at all and William doesn't much care for them either. Now it is a battle of wills. Me against Celia. She bought them on special offer. Cheapskate behaviour. She didn't save on her free range roast chicken by buying a special offer frozen one from Thailand. Why buy my food on special offer? And why were they on special offer in the first place?. I think I know why. They just don't taste as good as the more expensive Felix food.
If William had a greater sense of solidarity with me, we could present a united front against her. Then there would be two bowls of roasted bits minus any of the gravy just sitting there. Alas, he has eaten some of them. Of course if he had a sense of solidarity with fellow felines he wouldn't be a cat. He'd be a dumb stupid dog with too much altruism for his own good. We cats don't do the pack perversion bit. We have the selfish gene. (Well dogs have the selfish gene too but it is routed via their altruism - great for wolf packs, not so great for Labradors, poor saps.) So I can't rely on William to hold firm any more than he could rely on me.
What I can rely on is my own inner persistence. If there's one thing we cats pride ourselves on, it is persistence. Humans don't know the meaning of it. Celia has never sat waiting at a hole for a mouse for two hours in wind and rain. She gives up when something doesn't work and tries something different.
So if it's war of waiting over the Felix roasted bits, I think I can hold out longer. Maybe I can't win today. I notice she has failed to fill up the bowl of dried food which I have been eating in preference to the roasted bits. She thinks she is going to be firm. But I know she isn't going to be. Sometimes tomorrow, or the next day, she will weaken. Watch this space.

I have been stabbed.... cat abuse at the vet's.

I am spitting with indignation, hissing with rage and still shuddering with fear. My beautiful black pads are wet with anxiety. I am NOT happy at all. Humans seem to think they can do anything, anything at all, to us. The only reason why I didn't launch into instant reprisal was that she was much bigger than I am and (shame on her) Celia was on her side. Indeed it was she who put me through this awful ordeal. She has betrayed our friendship.
It started with the cat box. I often sleep in mine and Celia puts little goodies in it for me to discover. So when she threw some nice food into it, I naturally went in without thinking twice. She whisked up the box and put it in the car and drove off. I shrieked with indignation, of course, but she took no notice. Obviously I tried to dig my way out but even when I had crawled under the furry lining, I could not break out.
When the car came to a stop, it became worse. She took me into a room smelling of misery and pain and disinfectant and (of all things) dogs and other strange and intruding cats. I was horrified. A couple of the female humans there looked vaguely familiar from the days when they cuddled me as a kitten. I wasn't in the mood for social niceties so I ignored them both. Besides, they smelled horrible too. There was a lot of human vocalisations and I got taken into a room, rooted out of my cat box, and forced to submit to handling harassment from the human vet. Veterinary surgeon my tail and ears. More like a thug of the worst kind. She stabbed me with a needle inflicting bodily harm on an innocent animal. I HATE this vet woman. I hope she is tortured by a thousand rat bites, smothered by a herd of rabbits, bitten by a very large dog, or just mauled by a big cat, big enough to make her feel as angry and fearful as I do.
And Celia needn't think that a few cat treats will make me feel better. I ate them but she is a Judas of the worst kind.

If only I shopped for my own cat food.....

If I chose my own cat food, I would settle for tinned mouse. In jelly, I think rather than gravy. Goujons of mouse in aspic would be delicious. Maybe occasional tinned sparrow breasts or even smoked sparrows with a jus d'oiseux. Or perhaps dried extruded rat biscuits in a box with a few savoury dried rabbit biscuits included. Then as treats, raw mouse tails or even dried mouse tails. The tails could be individually wrapped and sold like After Eights, for the end of a meal. After I have eaten a mouse (head first to make sure the fur is smoothed down not ruckered up), I rather like crunching up the tail at the end. It's a bit like pork crackling for us cats, only healthier because there's no salt. Sometimes I don't crunch. I just suck it in like spaghetti.
As it is, we cats make our menu choices at one remove. We know what we like, but we have to train our humans to purchase the correct items. I have to rely on Celia's choice of food. The woman is dreadfully lacking in imagination. I started her off buying Felix cat food, because that was what Cats Protection fed me. I mean if they'd fed bananas, I'd have liked bananas. I like Felix, don't get me wrong. Indeed I prefer it to other brands thanks to my kittenhood experiences. But I rather hoped I could persuade the woman to go a bit more upmarket with her choices. She keeps trying to give me the cheaper Felix, or the roasted pieces Felix which I don't much care for, rather than the more expensive pouches which come with a slogan "It's as good as it looks". It is. She comes back laden with human goodies from Waitrose and what is in the bag for me? Felix. Again. Bog standard pouches of Felix. She doesn't eat the same thing week after week. Why does she expect me to?
I am trying to train her. I purr loudly and look hungry when she gives me the more expensive stuff. And I walk to the bowl and turn away looking sad when it's the stuff I don't like. Admittedly I eat it in the end but reluctantly without purring and with the pathetic look of an abused cat. She does notice. Sometimes I see the guilty look flit across her face. She knows she has failed me. She knows she has been saving money at my expense. She knows that she is being selfish. She is still holding out on me...

TV - the case for smelly television

I used to watch quite a lot of TV when I was a kitten. The flickering screen sort of interested me and I quite liked moments when a shape seemed to pass from one side to another. Of course, the picture wasn't sharp -- too far away for my eyes to focus most of the time, except when I got on top and looked down at it. Colours - well we cats see some colours but colour is not our thing. What interested me on TV was the movement. We cats are very focussed on tiny movements - for obvious reasons.
Some cats take to TV. Naturally they prefer programmes about mice and birds but those that do go in for TV viewing are often interested by wildlife in general. Mac, a black cat like me only less handsome, took up TV late in life when he retired from a life of crime and passion on the streets. He got fixated by big cat programmes. When a lion or tiger growled, Mac would chatter his teeth with excitement. I think it may have reminded him of when he, himself, was a big beast on the block. He felt akin to these big cats. He had a lofty indifference to any pet cats on the screen. It was only the big wild ones that he identified with.
As for me, now I am older, I have given up watching TV. I see what a waste of time it is. Very little to see - a lot of faces of homo sapiens (boring, very boring), lot of human vocalisations (even more boring), a poor imitation of caterwauling at times, and only very occasionally, during the nature programmes, a mouse or a bird. Nothing to pounce on at all. I investigated the box, itself, when I was a kitten just in case there was a bird inside it. But there wasn't.
Worse still, there's no smell. Nothing at all, except an odour of plastic slightly heating up. Now if there was a smell to the bird picture, I think I would be entranced. Smelly TV would really turn me and other cats on. But as it is there's no real life at all in a TV.
However, there is something useful about television. If you want to get your human's attention start pawing at it, sitting on the top and looking down, or just tastefully drape your tail over the screen. It never fails. Even the most stupid human reacts mostly with laughter and very occasionally irritated comments. It proves something. Real life (if it's black and beautiful like me) scores over TV every time.

I am in demand for my incredible skill in mousing

Steffi-Next-Door, well next door at weekends, wants to hire me as a mouser. She emailed from London to say she had a big favour to ask. "We have a mouse in the house here in London which is driving me crazy. I put down traps and poison and it has evaded or avoided both. It seems to be hanging out in our bedroom which is freaking me out. I wondered if you were coming to london this week and if so, if we could borrow George for the day and bring him back to you later. I'm sure he'd be able to catch the little beggar. I would of course remove the poison and traps etc. I can't sleep at night because this mouse keeps making noise in my room."
Someone appreciates me - unlike Celia.
Someone, not like Celia, is impressed by my predatory skills.
Someone, again not Celia, is anxious for my help in killing.
It feels really good to be recognised. I celebrated by bagging a blue tit. The bloody woman took it off me.

She's done it again! She's stolen my mouse!

Humans! They are the lowest of the low species! She's stolen my mouse! A particularly lively fat one at that! In the evening, I am imprisoned in the house with the cat flap shut. It may be warm but it gets very boring, especially at about 3am. Obviously, I do my best to liven things up by jumping on her bed, worming my way into it to play the you-are-a-mouse game with her, or just pounce on her head as she lies on the pillow. But I am afraid she quite often just sleeps through all this.
Out of the kindness of my heart, I thought I would make my own arrangements for a 3am game. Instead of treating her as a mouse, I brought in a proper one. It was big, surprisingly fat for this time of year, and had a most exciting squeak. I stashed it under the fridge, as I often do, but it insisted in running round the kitchen and wedging itself in the corner of the open kitchen door. It squeaked so loudly that even a deaf human could hear it. (They can't hear much. Their sense of hearing is inferior to ours.)
That woman - I can hardly bring myself to name her - heard it and fetched a wellie. She then wedged the wellie near the door with the idea that the mouse could run into it. Well, for about five minutes it didn't get the point, and Celia and I had good fun. I tried to catch it and Celia tried to stop me. Very enjoyable and my blood was up, so if I scratched her I couldn't be blamed for it. The excitement of the moment had me in thrall and besides it was aimed at the mouse. Then the idiotic little thing finally got the point and ran into the wellie. Celia picked it up, getting in the way of me the predator and the mouse my lawful prey, and chucked the wellie into the hedge.
No mouse. No more fun. No 3am snack. That woman is a kill joy. For a moment or two I could have killed her - only she's so much bigger than I am.

Let the New Year roll with William, guest columnist

George has gone out for the traditional Boxing Day hunt (so far two mice, one shrew, and an unidentified bird) and handed the column over to me. I would like to wish all you cats a Happy 2007. Christmas - that day of intruding human visitors and turkey scraps under the kitchen table - has gone. Celia went out so George and I failed to get a chance to steal food or even to find anything very interesting in the trash can. Roll on a new year.
I want to put right a bit of disgraceful spin from the pen of George. I am not a wimp. I never was a wimp. I will never be a wimp. I am a socially adept cat that knows how to deal with harassment in a diplomatic and effective fashion. I don't run. I don't fight. I roll on to my back with all four claws at the ready. This is NOT appeasement. It is a warning gesture designed to deflect aggression.
If George was a sensible cat, instead of a giddy and undisplined adolescent, he would recognise this. But the bloody fool, though usually retreating, has the infantile habit of jumping on me nonetheless. Why does he do it? Just for fun, it seems. I then snarl, threaten to bite and occasionally resort to claw enforcement.
Of course, I can do the social roll without claws. Here is a delightful photo of me looking at my most charming. My paws are in prayer posture because Celia responds best to this particular gesture. I used just to do the social roll without the paws but, because she consistently responded better to the praying paws, I trained her to pay attention by putting my paws like this.
I am the most beautiful of cats with a remote and peaceful temperament. What is more I have killed two weasels - beat that, George!

George's Christmas Message to Cats worldwide

My human and I would like to wish you all a happy Christmas.
This is the season of the year when we look back over the past year, take stock of the present and make resolutions for the year to come.
One thing is certain: the inevitability of change for all cats, who face the difficulties of sharing our lives with humans. Those cats who live lives completely independent of this species have the reassurance of a changeless though challenging life style. The search for a dry place to sleep, for mice and other prey to eat, the joys of caterwauling nights and the love of kittens, will be for them the pattern of nights and days, as it has been for hundreds of thousands of years.
But for us who live with capricious and dysfunctional bipeds, these enduring values may be lost in the pace of hectic mutability. Ours is the harder road. The species we domesticated cannot leave things as they are. Homo sapiens (surely a misnomer of the highest order) is addicted to a life of hurry, doing not being, worry and acquisition. New homes, new furniture, new pets, new babies, new routines – this is the demanding and worthless lifestyle they try to inflict on us cats.
It is therefore for us to reassert the timeless values to which our species holds fast –the love of familiar faces, the pleasure of well-known and well marked territories, the inestimable reassurance of unvarying family scent, the excitement of hunting if not prey, then dustbins or even a single autumn leaf. While all is chaos around us, a chaos only too often wantonly instigated by our humans, we need to live our lives in our way. A way nonetheless that allows us to love this extraordinary and self destructive species.
I am reminded, as I write these words, of last autumn when I was able to forgive Celia for the time when she locked me in the garden shed for three hours. I also remember that day of days, when I bagged a partridge, and she was deluded enough to take the quivering bird from me and set it free. Or the many Sundays when I have had to forgo breakfast until an unduly late time because of her determination to sleep well past the proper time of waking. I have risen above all this to offer her forgiveness from the goodness of my black heart.
During the last year I have been on state visits to Paul and Steffi next door. Their pleasure in my company has fully repaid me for the effort of getting through their cat flap though I wish they would offer a choice of cat food not just the same biscuits. These are good quality but a change would be nice. I have also visited their daughter Jessica and, with an exquisite condescension, deigned to sleep on her bed. She was duly honoured and expressed herself appropriately by opening a tin of cat food.
Compassion, as the past year has taught me, is perhaps the single most important virtue that we cats need. If we are to make sense of our companion pets, we should reflect on their history and learn the lessons from it that they seem incapable of seeing.
We must also to practice that other important value of our times, that of tolerance. If we can remember that our humans are vulnerable to that emotional disorder of living in the past or the future, if we can pity them for their inability to enjoy the moment, if we can (and I know it is difficult) feel sorrow for their incapacity to know what is really important in life…. If we can do all this then we can offer them the compassionate love that they so badly need.
As we step over the threshold of another year in the company of these poor deluded humans, may I wish all of us cats a happy New Year.
P.S. I am very indignant about this silly hat. Just when I wanted to look dignified. She tricked me into wearing it. Waited till I was having a little nap on the sofa, popped it on when I was asleep and took the picture. This is a SNATCHED photo. The woman will stop at nothing.

Tale of a tail

My tail is particularly beautiful. It is a 37 centimeters long - black all the way down without any vulgar white tip to it, sleek and shining. You can learn a lot from my tail. My main way of greeting Celia from afar - sort of "Hello there" - is to put my tail upright with the tip turned over and towards my head. Human beings with cats usually recognise this signal and some scientist theorize that we cats developed it specially to communicate with them. The idea is that the poor saps couldn't read feline body language easily. So when Felis silvestris Lybica, the African wild cat, decided to domesticate them, my ancestor concluded he needed a better way of saying hello. So he ran up the tail flag, so to speak. Even a really stupid human notices this as a cat steps towards him. I use Tail Up a lot as I like most human beings and most of them, naturally, are impressed and delighted when they see 37 centimetres of tail, with a neat little twist forward, coming towards them. They see it before they see my black whiskers and dazzling golden-green eyes.
Celia, as a good servant should be, pays a lot of attention to my tail. If it starts to lash, she keeps her distance knowing that a disciplinary claw may be next. She also notices it when I am going to pounce on William like a mouse - something he does not appreciate. So she will call out to him to get his attention so that he can lie on his side and protect himself with the lie-on-side claws at the ready posture. Lying down isn't submission. It just clears all four paws for action in this case.
William's tail is much fluffier than mine and some people might think it is prettier. But mine is much longer and snakier.
Tail up!

Mud, puddles, ponds and the pleasures of water.

I like mud. I like puddles. I like ponds. I like getting my feet wet and I wade through puddles, as well as drinking from them. Mud is fun too. My black paws sink into mud in a very satisfying way. The first time I fell into the garden pond was when the ice broke under me. Then I fell in out of curiosity. Then I fell in again for the sheer fun of it. I liked the way Celia screamed and rushed towards the pond ready to lift me out for some resusitation. Quite unnecessary. I can swim. I discovered that the second time I fell in. The first time, when I was a kitten, Celia fished me out with the pond net. Now she knows that I don't need her help, thank you very much.
Puddles are another matter. I like the way the water sparkles on them and I wade slowly through them instead of skirting round the edge. I also sometimes lie down low in them so that the bottom of my tail gets wet too. Wet wet wet is fun. Of course I also enjoy splashing them with my paw, in the same way that I splash any water I find in a saucepan. The water coming out of a tap is interesting too - so I either drink from the tap or I splash it with my paw. William isn't interested, except when the lavatory flushes. He rushes over to watch the water going down the bend. Oddly enough I don't find this human litter tray very satisfying though I am getting more interested. My reluctance may be because, when I was a kitten, I fell in. Luckily Celia was there to pull me out. Kittens do sometimes drown because they can't get out.
The best thing about water is the human reaction. After a nice time wading through puddles and skittering about in the mud, I come in feeling affectionate. I leap on to Ronnie's lap and he shouts "Get that filthy cat off!" Celia would be pathetically grateful if I lept on her lap so I never do. Instead I leap onto her desk and put mud on the documents there. She doesn't shout. She picks me up and cuddles me. She knows that is wrong. She knows she should ignore me. But she doesn't. The whole science of training (which she has studied) is ignored in favour of cuddles. Poor woman.

Think of the starving strays this Christmas

This is Henry. Celia showed me his picture. I haven 't met him yet thogh I dare say he will stroll across the hill to visit one day. Henry is a bit of a roamer, a chap that gets about a bit. Eighteen months ago he was a cat in search of safety and food. He had been living about half a mile away in a small hamlet. He would break into human houses (why not?) and being a sensible cat nip upstairs to sleep on the beds. (What else were they for?) One householder rang Celia to say that she had just seen him strolling in the front door which was ajar and going straight upstairs as if he knew the way and had lived there all his life. Naturally Henry would eat any cat food he found left down. If the cats of the nouse hadn't finished it, his need was greater than theirs. Sharing resources etc.
His main source of food was the dried dog food put out for some rottweilers in the hamlet near us. He would - very swiftly - try to finish up any bits that were left, hoping the dogs wouldn't notice. If they did he had to beat a very quick retreat. They did not like cat burglars. One snap of their jaws, and his life would have been ended. Then one day he took a walk over the fields and arrived at Celia's house. His method of soliciting care from humans (exploiting their pity) was to roll on his back - the so called social roll. It worked well with human suckers. The picture shows him doing this endearing trick. Naturally, after that roll, Celia fed him and introduced him to a garden shed.
But Henry wasn't going to put up with a second class owner. In those days Celia spent some of the week in London and the shed wasn't up to his standards. She used to leave down plenty of food but she didn't offer him the human company he needed. And he hated being in a car so going to London with her and William and the late Fat Mog wasn't going to work out. Nor could he be let into the house because elderly Fat Mog, then in the last months of her life, was quite clear about that. So Henry hung about occasionally going back to rottweilerville. He was on the waiting list of Çats Protection for eventual homing. Celia's neighbours tried to give him a home but it involved living all weekdays in London and, for a cat that had been used to roaming, this didn't suit either. Resourceful as ever, Henry found his own home. He set off downhill to the next village and ended up in the care of Jon. Where he is now. Well fed. Happy. Loved.
Henry's story had a happy ending. He might have been killed by a rottweiler as he scavenged for food. Or shot by a gamekeeper. Or killed on the road. Or just starved, flea ridden, and dying of damp and cold.
So think of the strays this Christmas. Adopt one of us if you can - ring Cats Protection. Look at me and Henry. He's very endearing and I am... gorgeous. You won't regret giving one of us a home.

Human gardeners and cats.

I tried to catch a goldfinch on the bird table this morning, and got tangled up in the wire netting Celia had placed there to thwart my natural urges. Several resentful thoughts came to me. Celia's friend, Jane Owen, has just published "One Hundred Ways to a Beautiful Garden," a book that humans will enjoy. However, there is nothing much in it for cats - except perhaps for the idea of tree houses. Now if there had been a tree house near the bird table, I could have leapt down at the finches rather than merely leaping up. Life in the garden is really rather confusing. On the one hand Celia loves and tries serve cats (what right minded human doesn't). She also likes pretty birds like goldfinches. I agree with her there. They are charming - and delicious. Nice little crunchy bones when you grab them. I also enjoy just watching them from the warmth of the kitchen. But she never eats them. Just watches. I think she has a disorder of the predatory sequence. I go in for the whole natural thing - eye, stalk, pounce, grab and eat. She just gets stuck in the first bit of it, watching. Dysfunctional, of course. But worse still, she thinks she is normal and I am aberrant. So she stuffs scrumpled wire netting under the shrubs just in the place I would sit and start my stalk. She makes the bird table about 7 feet high - because I can only jump 5 feet. She creates a wildflower garden (Jane Owen is good on this) then objects when I do my wild thing and try to slaughter the wildlife. Lord, humans are so cranky, contradictory and downright mad.
So for Christmas, buy your human "One Hundred Ways to a Beautiful Garden" and buy your cat, "One Hundred Ways for a Cat to Train its Human." My favourite book, of course. It works too.

Do cats forgive humans?

Re-reading my last blog, I wondered if I had forgiven Celia for her negligence about the garden shed? Do we cats have a forgiving nature, like dogs. Dogs forgive easily. Indeed they fawn on their abusers, creeping back with tails wagging sometimes urinating a little out of fear and appeasement. It's the pack instinct. Dogs are social animals and they have an enormous need to stay within their human family, so much so that they will put up with too much. Celia's remembers a poor labrador which was taunted and teased by a teenager. Its adult owner, female, used to hit it every time it urinated out of fear. Every morning she would come down to the kitchen to let it out into the garden, and when it crept towards her urinating out of frightened appeasement, she would hit it. "It knows it has done wrong. That's why I punish it," she told Celia. Nothing Celia could do, would persuade her that its urination was out of fear of punishment and it had no idea that this was making her punish all the more. We cats would never behave like that - not that creeping towards punishment each morning. We don't do appeasement gestures. We do, in extremis, urinate out of terror. As the SAS say, "Ådrenalin is brown". That's why sensible humans, put a layer of plastic between the car seat and any cat carrier which doesn't retain urination. We don't apologise for it. We would never ever go towards a human who is going to hit us. One hit and we are off. And we never forget a really terrifying traumatic experience.
So do we forgive? Yes, we do when the bad experience isn't that bad. But we don't forgive physical abuse like dogs do. We leave home. That morning I got shut in the shed, I considered taking one of Celia's red spotted hankerchiefs, wrapping up several envelopes of Felix, putting it over my shoulder and walking off to the nearby village to see if I could find a better home. But then I thought about how warm it is here, and how the Felix in unwrapped for me, and I stayed. If forgiveness is letting go and moving on, I have forgiven her. But she'd better watch out. I might feel differently if she does it again.

The negligence of my personal staff

We cats expect a certain level of service from our humans. In return for our beauty and company, we expect doors open, regular meals , warm beds (which we are generous enough to share with them), and thoughtful personal service with proper attention health and safety. I am sorry to report that Celia has failed badly. She has been astonishingly negligent in her duties. She has failed to carry out a proper risk assessment of the garden shed. And she utterly forgot its obvious dangers to a healthy active cat (me). It happend early in the morning when she went out in her dressing gown to get the floating device for the garden pond - it stops the pond icing over and allows animals in the water to breathe because gases don't build up below the ice. If she had done a proper risk assessment she would have identified the high risk of my getting shut inside the shed. Obviously when she goes into the shed, I follow her - to check territory, to see if mice are living in the shed, and to make an assessment of whether there is anything else interesting there - spiders, frogs, wood lice and so forth. As is my wont, as could be expected by a better member of staff, I went in there and was nosing around. She shut the door on me without a thought. Worse still she walked off. I was there for three hours until Ronnie saw my angry face at the window and set me free. Worse still, I had not had time to perform my morning toilet in the nearby seed beds. So there was an ugly rush to the vegetable patch, a great deal of frantic digging, and I finally squatted down with enormous relief.
It was very emotionally upsetting. Tramatising even. I expected better of her. She is an unreliable woman and she is lucky that I didn't just leave home. I have not forgiven her.

Household staff - from kitchen maid to parlour maid

Another Sunday. Celia has come back from a Feline Advisory Conference and has decided William is under stress -- from me. To reduce competition around the kitche feeding station (I need more than he does because I am still growing and I am also greedier) she installed two extra feeding stations yesterday evening, one on the landing and one in our bedroom. That is the bedroom that I share (cats don't really share but we both use it) with William, one on each spare bed. This is a good idea. More food, as much as I like when I like, must be better. It gives me freedom to eat and how much (a lot) to eat. I feel no longer dependant on her putting down food for me. We cats like choices. So just to make the point, both William and I spurned the soft food she put down in the morning. We told her we had already had our breakfasts at the much more convenient hours of 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am and 7am. We don't need her. As a kitchen maid she is now irrelevant to our lives. Her job is now elevated to that of parlour maid, ie of serving food in the three separate areas. Or should that be a housemaid, as two of the food bowls are now upstairs? I need a stately home cat to fill me in on the proper hierarchy of human servants. As for William, I can of course still elbow him out of the food bowls, only I shall have to try to keep an eye on all three. It is going to mean some strenuous running up and down stairs to do so.
Maybe hunting is more fun than bullying him. I hoped to bag another partridge yesterday but had no luck. I shall keep trying.

My best day ever - bagged a partridge

This is my best day ever. Almost the perfect day. I'll come to why it wasn't later. Lately the fields round me have been full of huge bewildered pheasants let out of their nearby pens, where they have been kept like poultry, to starve in the fields before getting shot by humans. Hundreds of them. The nearby road is sticky with their blood and feathers. Slighly less big but just as bewildered are the French partridges (easier to rear in hen coops than the more alert English species). They too are wandering round unable to cope with life in the wild. No idea of predators which is where I came in. I have been eyeing up the pheasants for the past week since they were let out. I've had a couple of practice runs but stopped short each time. These are huge birds, taller than I am, fat and slow moving as pigs. This is the cat's time. They haven't learned to run and in their hen coops they haven't had a chance to fly. The humans have only slaughtered a few of them. My chance is now. As I run in for the grab, I keep thinking about their size so I stop.
This morning was my opportunity. The French partridges stay in proper groups and are normally a bit cleverer than the pheasants. They all keep a look out for one another. If one spots something (like me) they all fly off. Well this morning, one of them hadn't stayed alert for danger. They'd come into the garden in a vain hope of food - outside is all ploughland - and the poor saps are used to breakfast being put in a food hopper for them.
I eyed it up. Definitely a more manageable size than a pheasant. I stalked. I did the run in. I grabbed the bird - no mean feat when you consider its size even if it's smaller than a pheasant. And I popped through the cat flap fast so that I could finish it off at leisure in the kitchen. That's where my perfect day ended. Moving with unusual speed, Celia grabbed me. I dropped the bird who ran into the living room. Celia handed me to Ronnie and walked out shutting the door. I never saw the partridge again.
Did I sulk? I looked thoughtfully at the feathers and the smear of blood on the kitchen tiles, and decided not to hold grudges. I went out for another one.

Is God a Cat?

One of the oddest things about humans is the way they anthropomorphise their God. If you listen to them talking about God (any main religion god) you get a picture of a sort of super human - almost always male, a person, a father, a director, sometimes even new employer. My thoughts were prompted from sitting on Celia's desk reading the blog of Ruth Gledhill of the Times. It is as if humans can't imagine a God that isn't human. I say what if She was a Cat. If God was a Cat, things would be different. For one thing, She'd make it clear that some of the human activities had got to stop - trapping and killing cats, shooting cats with air guns, kicking cats, etc. Instead churches would open their doors not just to church mice but to church cats. They'd take collections and go and buy cat food for strays. And all the starving little strays that scrounge a living in busy towns would know there was a sanctuary for them - a dry sheltered place with lots of room and cat food given out free. There'd be less church ritual (what's the point of if?), less standing up and kneeling, less human music (though some caterwauling would be lovely at midnight mass), and more practical charity. Humans would be allowed in to serve others (cats) and, if they persisted with their 'services" (which aren't really anything of the kind in practical terms) we could sit on their warm laps for the duration. Some forward thinking churches have already taken a step in this direction by having resident felines. At the Tower of London chapel there is Teufel, a black tom who is known for enjoying weddings. He often sits down for a nap on the bride's train. Rupert was assistant organist at St Lawrence, Ludlow. And Lucky is a convent cat. She joins in as the nuns sing Alma Redemptoris Mater. As humans no longer go to church, perhaps we could take over.
Of course, it is pretty bad news for mice if She is a Cat.
And even worse news for us, if God is a Mouse.

Specieism - One Day in History but no Cats.

This morning, as I was eating my toast or rather Celia's toast on the kitchen table, I couldn't help noticing something in the Times. I had carefully placed my bottom so that Celia couldn't read it. I needed her to concentrate on buttering my toast or rather her toast. Apparently yesterday thousands of humans in Britain documented their day for a kind of mass blog. It was meant to be of use to the historians of the future just as the records of Mass Observation during the war time years are now. The organisers, History Matters, did not ask me to contribute. Indeed there are no feline blogs. Felines only occur if humans have put them into their blogs. That's called species discrimination. Something that humans are very good at. Their self-centered view of the world simply leaves out others, like us cats. They don't think or won't think of others. So I thought I'd write about my day, today and call it Cat Matters. I woke Celia at 6am, 7am and 7.3O am. The woman is so tired, she keeps going back to sleep. Normal wake up proceedures -- purring, standing and stretching on chest, rubbing against her face, dribbling while rubbing, rolling over etc. I save biting the nose until 8am and this morning I didn't need to. Went downstairs and had snack in bowl. Out for a little walk. Back in for toast (hers). Another walk. Back for snack in bowl. Morning hunting. Caught a mouse which I generously deposited at her feet. She threw it out again and closed the cat flap. Lunchtime snack in bowl. Slept. Tea time snack in bowl. Walk. Second tea time snack in bowl. Blogged before going out hunting again. Came back later for snack, then sleep, then snack, then sleep. There's a kind of stripped-to-the-bone poetry in this routine. We cats know what matters and it's not human history. In the early morning I added this fancy picture of me - just for the record.

Dogs - the deference problem

I don't care for dogs. I met some dogs when Cats Protection was caring for me but since then, they have not been part of my life. Meeting dogs was included in my Cats Protection education. Cats Protection kittens get a better education than pedigree ones because they are given proper experiences of life when young enough. But I didn't do a secondary education in the canine species. Dogs are a potential problem for cats. When I adopted Celia, we decided it was best if I grew up frightened of them. We live down a cart track and occasionally yobs from Birmingham come with their greyhounds and long dogs to do illegal chasing of the local hares. Two years ago, Stanley, the then next door cat (black like me), turned up with his tail half hanging off and we think it was one of the coursing dogs. So Celia felt it was safer for me if I just was brought up to shun the species. She didn't want me walzing up to an unfriendly dog and getting killed. There are dog walkers come down our cart track and some humans teach their dogs to chase cats. They shout "Cats" as a joke, and we die in earnest. When I think of the blood curdling idiocy and cruelty of some humans, I have to try to remember the kindness and goodness of others. Not all humans are cruel brutes. Just some of them.
The other problem with dogs is that their ridiculous deference to human beings. Difficult to believe they can do this. They think humans are their leaders. They have this absurd pack instinct which makes them seek out their social superiors (in their eyes) and obey them. Instead of training humans, they are trained by them. They are naturally codependant so the average dog is a dog that loves too much. If they are beaten and abused at the hands of the truly inferior species, humans, they come back for more. We cats won't take it. We just push off down the road to rehome ourselves at better accomodation. It's well known that dogs look up to humans, and cats look down at humans. Of course. Dogs can't even survive in the wild, like we can. They are completely dependant on human society. They actually want to be loved by a human. Who'd be a dog?

Cuddles

Personally I like cuddles. Lou Kirby of Cats Protection used to cuddle me a lot when I was in the kittens' pen there. She called it socialising. They say it must be done before the age of eight weeks, in order to get a friendly cat. But Celia took me on when I was nine weeks old and she continued the process. She handed me to 24 different people over the next four weeks. In the vet's surgery, she handed me to all the nurses, some children waiting there with a hamster, and all the adults one after the other. The postman got a cuddle. So did the man delivering mail order clothes. The people next door got lots of cuddles, so did visiting friends and relations. I was cuddled by her nephew, her neice in law, a total of six visitors, and the man who came to mend the lawn mower. Ronnie said people wouldn't like having a kitten thrust at them, but they all did. All 24 of them. Of course they liked me. Everybody loves a squeaky clean little black kitten with yellow eyes and a cheeky little miaow.
Do it to all kittens, as soon as you get one, say I. I am thinking of calling myself Gorgeous Cuddles George. I think the extra name has rather a l920s debonaire ring to it. Like Stroky Jackson or Binkie Beaumont. And I am dressed in an all black DJ. Not unlike Fred Astair but with more hair and elegant whiskers. He'd have looked better with a bit more hair too.

Sundays and human sloth

It's Sunday and for some reason Celia considers this day to be one in which she is allowed to fail in her housekeeping duties. She thinks she can sleep longer and keep me waiting for breakfast. But discipline must be maintained, as a character in Bleak House put it. (I pride myself on being a bit of a literary cat). On Sundays harsher measures are needed to wake her up. Usually I just jump on the bed (if I am not there already) and wake her by nosing against her face in the feline friendly rub. If I do this one or two times, her eyes usually open sleepily. I then dribble a little just to make the point. She is rather touched by the dribble. She thinks its a sign of love. Actually it's a sign that I am hungry. Four or five cheek rubs later and her eyes are open. If they close again, I sit on her face, or as near to her face as I can get. That usually does the trick but if it doesn't I roll on my back and wave my paws in the air, which makes her laugh. If I've got her laughing, I've woken her.
On Sundays, however, she seems determined not to respond. She just hunches herself further under the duvet. Duty and responsibility are forgotten in sloth. Today I bit her nose. I don't like doing it but sometimes these things have to be done. I'd tried charm and it had failed. It was time to see what pain would do. It was very effective.

The human mouse

They've got no idea, humans! Celia's "mouse" (so called) is oval, white with a transparent coat, marked with the sign of an bitten apple. It smells of nothing except plastic and only moves when she puts her hand on it. Anything less like a mouse would be difficult to find. The only thing it has in common with a real mouse is the white tail that comes out of its end and fixes into the keyboard. Once again this is hard and cold where a proper mouse tail would be warm and soft and waving freely. The only thing that can account for this massive misnomer is wishful human thinking, the desire to be more like a superior species, us cats. The poor dears aspire to be feline. It's really rather charming. And I suppose one way is to give human things feline names. I've written before (9.12.06) about musmalfunction, the way humans can't do real mice. They can't smell them. They can't see or hear of them most of the time. If they do, they can't pounce properly. And, as I've remarked, they can't grab them with their mouths. Nor do they eat them. Not a nibble. Even when a mouse is put on their keyboard.
Instead they play for hours with this plastic "mouse". Pathetic but sweet.

The humans next door

My friends from next door arrived for the weekend. Paul and Steffi have a proper attitude to cats and they also have a cat flap left over from when Henry lived there (more on that another day). William and I naturally pop in to see that all is well when they are absent. And we pop in for a snack when they are present. They have suitable beds and armchairs for a nap. Last week a builder was in doing something to the loft. I kept an eye on him. He also had a suitable attitude to cats. He fed me some dried food from the tin that is kept for me and William. Where does this fit in with the human selfishness I was writing about yesterday? It is simply this. Our primary servants or caretakers often want us just to eat at home with them. They want us all to themselves. Yet it's natural for us to pop in elsewhere. There are inviting cat flaps all down the street and even where there is no entry, humans can usually be persuaded to let us in if we sit at the back door looking hungry. Or on a windowsill. A sensible cat can fix three or four alternative caretakers to feed him. It's particular useful if your humans are out at work during the day. Somewhere in the street is a lonely human, with the central heating on, who would love a visit. Like Paul and Steffi. It's important for their welfare to do this kind of social work for lonely humans. I thnk Paul and Steffi are all the better for it.

Human selfishness

Homo sapiens is a selfish beast. Under the guise of caring for others, it exploits, plunders, mistreats and even kills. Even when it pretends to care, it doesn't. Of course, our species, catus catus, is linked to humans. Some cats see it as a symbiotic relationship - both species benefits. We have access to the mice in their granaries and houses. They have cats as a pesticide to keep down the mice and rats. But there are signs that this relationship is becoming more intense. Some cats are kept in a state of dulosis, enslaved by their humans, their freedom completely gone. These are the indoor cats, kept in small flats, usually in an impoverished environment. There's nothing to do. Nothing to hunt. Admittedly, meals are provided. There is also the companionship (if you can call it that) of a human being who returns at night for about ten hours before leaving again. Oddly enough even in this situation some cats are inspired to turn round the relationship. They obedience train their human who comes home earlier giving up chances to socialise in order to be with the cat. Thye often rule their human's relationship - seeing off competition from boyfriends. Does this mean the human is enslaved by the cat? That the dulosis is, so to speak, two way? A feline anthropologist should do some research on this. Is this kind of relationship healthy for the cat? Well for a young vigorous cat like me, it would be incredibly frustrating. My hunting instincts would be almost unexpressed. For an older cat, or a disabled cat, this may (with prper environmental enrichment) a suitable environment. Is the relationship healthy for the human? For a young vigorous human probably not. The love instincts are being expressed across the species at the expense of human-human relationships. For an older or disabled human this may be a suitable relationship.

Teaching a human to eat mice

I have a sense of responsibility towards my humans. I am trying to train them out of human dsfunction into feline competance, so I brought in a mouse for them. It was pretty good hearted of me, as it wasn't one of the small long nosed voles that I usually spare for them. Frankly these don't taste good to cat so I tend to give them to my humans, who are much less fussy about what they put in their mouths. It's never worked. Even humans dislike voles. I stay optimistic though.
Today it was a real mouse - large and deliciously fat. My mouth was watering, even as I clambered in through the cat flap and set off to find Celia at her wordprocessor. There was a moment of temptation on the stairs. Would I succumb to a little nibble? Sternly I told myself that I must stay with the original generous impulse. I sprang on to her desk and placed the mouse neatly between her and the keyboard, not far from the hard device that humans call a mouse.
At first her reaction seemed appropriate. She too sprang up from her chair with what seemed like a delighted shriek. Then, as a series of completely inappropriate vocalisations followed, I realised that an emotional sympton of musmalfunction ( a disordered reation to mice) had taken over. She threw herself out of the office then came back with yards of lavatory paper - just too late. Realising what had happened, I had smartly picked up the mouse and was legging it down the stairs to the cat flap and out on the lawn for my delayed meal.
My generosity ignored and insulted. Not a word of thanks.

Wimpy William

My companion cat is William the Wimp. Humans seem to think he is more beautiful than me. He's as hairy as a Sxities hippy and tabby with it. That white and mottled look goes down well with the human race. Research has proved that humans are colour prejudiced when it comes to cats. Georgeous slinky blacks like me are often left unchosen in the rescue pens while gingers, tabbies, and whites are snapped up quickly. Humans can't understand that what matters is grace, elegance, sleekness, and temperament rather than mere colour. Celia, my carer, claims she chose me because she knew black was unpopular. I don't want to be pitied and I am too polite to tell her that the boot is on the other paw. I pity her. She looks awful. She's got a horried pinky sort of face not nearly as beautiful as my jet black one. No whiskers at all just a few over the eyes. Nothing as gorgeous as mine. Same with her paws - sort of pinky and soft. Mine are black leather. Very dashing.

My other pet

My other pet is the larger older human, Ronnie. Before I arrived, he also fell short of the proper behaviour of a companion animal. He had a territory problem. With the arrogance typical of homo sapiens, so called, he took the whole world as his territory. Always running off to some far flung place. A sort of war junkie or self styled foreign correspondent. While more sensible humans stayed at home, he was out in the Middle East, North Africa, etc looking for trouble. He would go missing for weeks at at a time then turn up at home through the big cat flap known as the front door looking for dinner and love. Without so much as an apology. Like cats, humans fight over territory and compete for goodies like food and love. But, unlike cats, their fights are massed ones. The whole pack/nation joins in or they make special packs, with terror names, and work together. This is the instinct for pack life gone very wrong indeed. Us cats know better. We don't do packs. We fight our battles as single heroes. To the feline mind, human behaviour is dysfunctional anyway.
Ronnie is now quite a good pet as he has settled down. Nothing to do with neutering. He was never fixed, as pets really should be in an ideal world. It's just age brought him to his senses. No more notes left on the kitchen table saying "Off to Algeria" or Iraq, or Israel, or Lebanon, or some place with fighting. He's settled down - though there were other worse moments in the cat-human relationship which I will save for another post.

My name is George

Humans! Don't you find them a pain at times. My whole kittenhood was shaped by the moment when some rescue humans grabbed my mother, fed her, and stuck her in a Cats Protection pen. From then on I became the kind of cat that lives with this odd species. Naked as the day they were born, they never grow real fur. They're huge, ungainly, and in every way ridiculous. But they make great pets. Literally.
So this is my take on life with a domesticated human. Mine is Celia. She'd have made a great pet in her early life if only some cat had her neutered. But they didn't. So she really wasn't suitable as a pet then - always out late at night, bringing back human toms, making loud music (they can't caterwaul properly), and with only one thing on her mind. A quick trip to the human vet and she'd have been a much calmer better human.
I got her when she had settled down. She's now the right kind of pet for any cat. Anxious and willing to go hunting for the right kind of cat food. Ready to warm my bed in the main bedroom (only she takes up a lot of room at night). Sometimes if I need the extra room she'll even get up in the early morning and go to the spare bedroom.