Only In Essex!
Everywhere else uses guard dogs, but in Essex they do things in a more secure way and use guard cats. Perhaps, that is the reason, why a lion is now on the loose in the county near St. Osyth. One must have escaped or snapped his chain!
But then the brave boys in blue from the Essex Constabulary can handle a lion. After all, they get enough practice in some of the towns every Friday night.
Top Cat Returns
It would appear that the latest film is a remake of the kids’ cartoon, Top Cat. It’s so old, I used to watch it as a child. Although, they had to call it Boss Cat to avoid conflict with a tinned cat food of the same name.
Top Cat Returns
Judging by the number of buses, they’re advertising it on, it isn’t going to do very well.
More On The Scouser Mouser
There are some good pictures and video of the cat at Liverpool last night, that some of the Press are now calling the Scouser Mouser.
Just type Liverpool Cat into Google. There was this report with a video from the Telegraph. Obviously, cats sell newspapers to those who live in Tunbridge Wells. The Sun also has a nice graphic entitled, Move of the Match, showing where the cat went.
Rumour has it that Millwall fans have rung up the London Zoo to enquire about borrowing a lion.
Liverpool Bring On A Cat Against Spurs
After a few minutes tonight, a cat managed to get on the pitch at Anfield. It’s part in the game is summed up in this text commentary from the Guardian.
16 mins: “Would it be unfair to say that the stray cat has already shown more awareness in the penalty area than Andy Carroll?” asks Michael McCarthy, not alone in comparing the two. It showed a good turn of pace and its movement was decent if unconventional, but it also showed a very limited grasp of the offside law and offered limited aerial ability. I’m giving Carroll the nod here.
13 mins: The cat has now been removed, quite gently, by a burly steward. Carroll celebrates this with a couple of tasty touches.
11 mins: There’s a cat on the pitch. It’s currently settled in Tottenham’s penalty area. Not a fox in the box, but not too far off.
I can’t ever remember seeing a cat on the pitch before, although a fox did sneak into the Oval.
How Real Printers Catch Rats
My father was a real letterpress printer and his works was a rather decrepit building with a rodent problem.
Over the years he told me various stories about how they dealt with them
In the 1930s, he’d lived with his widowed mother above the shop, so to speak, and they’d employed a traditional solution; a cat.
According to my father, who was not unknown to embellish a good tale, the cat was an enormous ginger specimen. And as was typical of those days, he was a proper Tom.
Whether he was any good in the ratting department never entered the story But above the shop next door lived a posh lady with a pedigree Siamese female.
One morning my father was confronted by the lady, saying that his mother’s cat had fathered a litter of kittens, that her Siamese had just produced. On inspecting them, there did seem to be a large number with a ginger hue.
The lady said that her cat never went out and he knew that his family cat was always shut in to deal with the rodent infestation.
So how did the two cats do it?
One hot night, my father was returning from the Jolly Anglers opposite. All the top windows were open and he saw the ginger cat balance along the parapet on the wall and hop in next door to see his lady friend.
His other method of catching rats, relied on those things that were always around in a print works. He would take a quad box and prop it up at an angle over the rat hole with a pica reglet. They’d then all wait in the dark for action. When the rodent disturbed the reglet, the box fell and trapped the poor animal underneath It was then a matter of switching the lights on and moving the box gently to the middle of the room, keeping the rodent trapped Everybody, then grabbed something suitable, like a small coal shovel before the box was removed
It was a quick end. And as my father told it, a fun tale
Kitler Finds a New Home
Enough said!
Are Cats Taking over the World?
It would seem so on Syros. There were a lot last time and there are more now! Most seem well fed. But are there any bords and rodents left?
The Search for the New Ratfinder General
Rats have been seen scuttling around Number 10 Downing Street, for the first time since Cherie Blair was rumoured to have banished the last Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, Humphrey, to another place.
The real problem is not finding the cat, but giving the new appointee, a suitable name.
The World’s Bravest Cat
Pogo the cat tests the suitability of dogs for living with felines for the Dogs Trust.
There’s a video here on the BBC.
It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
The Anonymous Widower 