Under The Paw Fans Captain Jim Barbee And "World's Smallest First Mate" Princess Sugar Pie

Sometimes, Cat Men who've read Under The Paw send me pictures. Sometimes, these pictures are very good. Very rarely are they as awesome as this...

August 30th: A Farewell

So goodbye August 30th, 2010. Many will forget you, and cast you heartlessly into the winds of time, but for me you will always live on strong in the memory as "The Day My Lodger Almost Smoked A Bag Of Catnip By Mistake."

Possibly My New Favourite Website

I love finding old photos that have been mistakenly left in secondhand books. I think my ultimate dream is that one day someone leaves a photo as good as those on www.awkwardfamilypetphotos.com in a copy of Under The Paw or Talk To The Tail.

Negotiations Become Tense Between The Mouse And The Frog That Hang Out In My Parents' Porch

On Cats And Singleness (longer version of something I wrote for Cats Protection's The Cat Magazine)

As regular readers of this blog might have gleaned, I became a single person last year (I haven't wanted to make too much of this, but since my ex, Dee, was a fairly sizable part of the story in Under The Paw, it would have been an insult to readers not to mention it in Talk To The Tail). As a state of being, it's actually not without its perks – sometimes, I’ll throw a wet towel on the floor and leave it there for a whole four minutes before picking it up - but it’s also been a slightly bewildering phenomenon at times. Of course, I’ve been single before, but since that happened in 1647, I’m not sure my memories of it are at all relevant to the present day. There’s also the fact that, last time I was single, I was not living alone with four cats: a domestic set up that can be a huge drawback in the dating world, or a major plus, depending on who you ask.

I’m told by cat-loving female friends that being a man who owns multiple felines marks me out as "solid boyfriend material", but then they would say that: they like cats, and are being nice to me, because they are my friends, and know I’ve been through a relationship break-up in the not too distant past. Am I really more "sensitive" because I like cats? I suppose I have a sensitive side, but I also probably like beer, big boobs and loud rock music no less than many manly men who wouldn’t allow a feline in the house. I’m also aware that there’s a flipside to the perception: that there are also women, even women who like cats, who will immediately start asking themselves questions about a man living alone with that many sets of paws. Why four moggies, and not just one? On a deeper level, what do the cats “represent”? If he has that many animals, does it mean he can’t relate to humans?

If I were to answer these questions, I would say it’s as simple as this: I like cats, my ex also likes cats, so we ended up getting a lot of cats, then, when we split up, I ended up keeping slightly more cats than her. But as we all know, that kind of explanation might not cut it in the real world. Another single friend recently signed up to one of the more wholesome Internet dating sites and showed me her profile and asked me whether there was anything I thought she should add. “You haven’t mentioned that you like cats, have you?” I said. “No. She replied. That’s because you don’t, if you’re a girl. It’s The Rule.” I noticed that in one of her photos she had cropped out Bob, her chunky tabby. I felt sorry for Bob. Had he had any say in this?

“But you wouldn’t want to go out with someone who doesn’t like cats, though, would you?” I asked. “No!” she replied, horrified.

I’m not sure that single men would worry quite so much about having a moggy slinking in the rear of their shot on a dating site, but Crazy Cat Woman is now so ubiquitous, she is altering the way we all think about our pets, whether we’re male or female. She’s been here forever, yet she seems to be particularly prevalent in modern culture – on The Simpsons, on sitcoms, endlessly referenced in daily conversation. “You want to be careful. You’ll turn into the lady with all the cats and no friends!” “Uh-Oh. You’ve got hair on your jumper. Mad Cat Woman Alert!” Certainly, there are people out there who project too much onto their animals, and start to let their hygiene standards slip as a result of being around them, but they are in the minority, and it seems sad that we are going to quite such lengths to hide our cat love because we’re worried what the world thinks? Surely loving cats says more good things about a person than it does bad ones: that they’re patient, an appreciator of beauty, open to a challenge? There’s the possibility that it might just say plainly that they love cats. Having said that, I will confess that I met a girl recently who talked a lot about how much she loved the smell of cat food, and I found it hard to view it as a plus. But let's face it: that’s just plain weird, isn’t it?

Excerpts From A Cat Slave's Diary

11.12.07
Cat with extremely messed up meow was meowing outside the back door today. Felt glad for not having cat with meow like that. Went outside. Was my one of my cats, meowing like that.

1.3.08
The Bear ate the last tin of his special Applaws catfood today. He meeooped all the way through it, as if to confirm just how mandatory it is that I reorder some of it at the earliest opportunity. I have known cats to meow for food before, but he is the first I've known to meow during it.

13.3.08
When I see my cats smelling one another's noses, I can't help wondering: “What exactly is it you think might have changed, since last time?”

4.9.08
Lots of bands "work on a new sound" late in their career. What is more surprising is when your cat starts doing the same thing.

14.9.08
In her column in the Mail On Sunday's You Magazine, the infamously divorced, infamously childless, infamously cat-loving Liz Jones observes that her old English sheepdog has begun to misbehave. "He jumps at me all the time," she complains, "even when I am wearing my Dries van Noten jacket, which I have just had dry-cleaned." This is an intriguing sentence on a couple of levels, but in the end it's the use of the word "even" that really does it for me. One would have thought dogs would know a top designer jacket from normal daywear, but no. Cultural cretins! It's a bit bitchy to say it, but between you and me I wouldn't be surprised if that sheepdog hadn't even read the September issue of Vogue.



18.9.08
I'm still not sure I can believe it myself, but I really did just use the term "flailing paws" in a warning note to my cleaner.

19.9.08
Signs that another market town summer is ending: 1. The air is suddenly fresh. 2. Apples are falling. 3. The Bear is not wandering so far from home. 4. Summer Pablo is beginning to bulk up. 5. Nobody kicked my car in last night.

13.10.08
2 cats now "working on new sound". House starting to resemble Iggy Pop and David Bowie's 70s Berlin, but with less clawing.

15.10.08
I note with some interest that The Bear is now cultivating his own special "piss meow". I'm not necessarily looking on it as a bad thing, as it serves as more of a warning system than anything. I suppose it's a bit like a smoke alarm - except with piss, instead of smoke, obviously.

21.10.08
Given the reputed commonness of the activity, it is surprising more celebrities don't reference their Daily Cat Puke Cleaning Session in The Sunday Times Magazine's A Life In The Day column.



24.10.08
I love my cats, and I guess they think I’m okay. But I do sometimes get a very strong sense that they are purring at me, not with me.

5.11.08
Received missing parakeet missive through letterbox. Immediately went to check cats’ muzzles for feathers. Seemed clean. Parakeet in question answers to the name Charlie, talks and is "very tame". Religious flyers sticking out of my letterbox I can cope with of a morning. This level of emotional turmoil I cannot.

13.12.08
Starting to regret jeering at Janet for falling off the banister earlier. Just spotted him walking towards golf bag, with distinct "wee face".

16.12.08
You know your cat's got a lot of Facebook friends when he knows four cats called Chairman Meow.

4.3.09
Have been smelling the downstairs of my house and checking for dead things for last few days. Has been a bit of a mystery. Ended up thinking "only explanation is that there's a dead fish, being eaten by maggots, in the catflap tunnel." Turned out there was a dead fish, being eaten by maggots, in the catflap tunnel.

14.5.09
Favourite cat name of the month: F Cat Fitzgerald (from Garrison Keillor's novel, Pontoon).

15.5.09
Walked across kitchen. Accidentally knocked pillowcase off radiator. Pillowcase fell onto most dignified cat, giving appearance of superheroesque "bumcape". Most dignified cat walked across kitchen, visibly less dignified. Confession: did not rush to retrieve pillowcase.

24.6.09
Earlier today, I stroked my beard. Not the most riveting anecdote, I grant you. What does make it marginally more interesting is that the beard in question was false, sitting on my bedroom floor, where I'd discarded it after he previous night's fancy dress party, and at the time I had mistaken it for one of my cats.

28.6.09
They say that some days you eat The Bear, and some days The Bear eats you. What they fail to add is that some days all that happens is that The Bear eats a tray of Sheba Rabbit And Chicken Tender Terrine, while you sit nearby, attempting to eat a jam sandwich without choking on mechanically recovered meat fumes.

17.7.09
Friend of a friend at the Latitude music festival, in Suffolk, today: "Oh you're the cat bloke!". Me (hurt): "Well, not JUST that." Logo on umbrella above my head at the time: "PURINA ONE - FOR FELINE NUTRITION!".

20.7.09
Have bought job lot of Felix As Good As It Looks - aka As Bad As It Smells - cat food by mistake. In bulk. Cats looking like they might call the RSPCA.



25.7.09
To manufacturers of Felix As Good As It Looks – aka As Bad As It Smells - cat food: I sense you tell no word of a lie (and not in a good way).

4.8.09
Think I have just invented new foodstuff: the scromelette. Like most culinary revelations, it’s hard to think why it hasn't been invented before. NB: I will not accept "because it's just like rubbish burned scrambled eggs with one single cat hair in them" as valid reason.

6.8.09
Odd: Could swear I set a Google alert for "cat" but it seems I must have actually set one for "all the bad news about cats imaginable".

 


8.8.09
Ralph bit me quite hard today, when I made the unforgivable error of only using the pet mitt on him for seven minutes, instead of the twenty presumably stated as required in The Big Book Of Spoilt Oversensitive Feline Idiot Therapy. More effective than a brush, the pet mitt elicits very different responses from all my cats, but each has the common factor of being extreme. Janet mewls helplessly at its merest touch, before lying on his back and trying to bite it. The Bear runs away from it in a manner that, even for him, is notable for its campness. Bootsy and Pablo seem to simultaneously like and hate it, scarpering from it but also returning to ask for more of its sweet embrace. Ralph and Shipley just want to be mauled by it on a round-the-clock basis. I haven't tried it on myself, since I'm a bit worried about the results. In every way aside from the fact that it cost more, this current pet-mitt is a cheap imitation of my original one, which was two-sided (one side tough and dimpled, the other soft and felty) and which Dee made me throw away because it had got "too skanky". I can see that it's effective, but I could live without the puncture wounds. When I looked down at the two small but surprisingly deep holes in my finger, I pictured a couple of furry ears and a small-twitching nose above them, and was able to feel new empathy with the wretched hand that the south Norfolk vole is so often dealt in life.

17.8.09
Many people might think it impossible for a grown feline to burst into tears. None of these people, uncoincidentally, have met my cats.

1.9.09
Have received message from my uncle Paul and auntie Jayne, who woke up yesterday to find their bath-loving black demon cat Eddie sitting upright in the bed between them, his head on the pillow and the duvet pulled up to his shoulders, “like a little bloke”. This is perhaps as impressive as the time Paul was gardening and got a face full of nextdoor’s hose spray, only to realise the liquid in question came from Eddie, who was on the other side of the bush Paul was weeding around, marking his territory. It is, however, arguably not as impressive as the time Paul woke up to find the family hamster had escaped from its cage, crawled into bed with him and gone to sleep in his armpit.

11.9.09
Tomorrow's Times newspaper includes a piece by me on corrupt ex-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian. Actually, that's not true. It's about cats.

14.9.09
Watched Whistle Down The Wind. Saw scene with kittens in a box. Missed next 3 scenes as was pondering fact that kitten actors now dead.

18.9.09
I remember those heady, footloose times, 13 to 14 minutes ago, when my kitchen floor wasn't completely caked in cat puke.

20.9.09
Received letter from Italy, where my book Under The Paw has just been published. "I buy your book THE MAN WITH 24 PAWS... come soon in Italy... Thank you to love all cats like us". I think I would like to move to Italy.


 
 


22.9.09
The Bear just got absolutely battered by a dog in his dream. Hard to tell, but I’m sensing Yorkshire Terrier.

7.10.09
Woke up to find a damp, halfheartedly chewed dead mouse outside my bedroom door this morning. From this, I can deduce that today is a day of the week.

1.11.09
Bought cats wholesome, “natural-looking” catnip mouse. Cats rejected wholeseome, “natural-looking” catnip mouse. Echoes of mum trying to convince me halva "as nice as chocolate" but with tables turned.

7.11.09
Dear my cats: Purring? Good. Padding? Also kind of okay, in the right circumstances. Getting all up in my face and shit when I'm trying to watch the red-haired one off of Mad Men? Not so good.

17.11.09
Think there has been a significant household misunderstanding in my house today. When I said "cats can be gits sometimes" I wasn't granting official permission.



30.11.09
Cats have been leaving perfectly severed vole faces and entrails outside the spare room again. Have warned my forthcoming houseguests to wear slippers. Houseguests: “Why’s that then?” Me: “It’s just very cold and I worry about you.”

4.1.10
Noting the scenes inside and directly outside my house today, I cannot help but be reminded of that well-known Nordic proverb "Show me a dusting of snow, and I will show you a bunch of cats acting like complete and utter tools."

15.1.10
Saw ornamental egg on living room carpet. Thought, “Those bloody cats have knocked that ornamental egg off the shelf again.” Picked egg up. Was real egg. Washed egg off hands.

2.2.10
Found a note in my cat notebook which says, "Mouse. Local Conservative Club. Second wang!" Have absolutely no idea what it means.

7.3.10
Just rescued a duckling. I say "rescued". I actually lifted it off the carpet away from 4 bored, hot cats. It then fly-waddled into a bush.



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Someone Drew A Picture Of Me

I very much like this picture of me in my six cat days (Bootsy and Pablo now not living with me any more), which was drawn by Helene Weston, an illustrator who follows me on Twitter, though I think the look is perhaps a little more "Man At Gap" than the reality (I don't think I've been this knowing underflared for about a decade and a half).

Check out more of Helene's work here: www.helenetheillustrator.co.uk.