Agility is the very bread and butter of being a cat and we think Towser has more than enough to make a sandwich, to pointlessly extend a metaphor. His owner has sadly undersold Towser’s ability at agility, but we can see lashings of potential. Towser is adept at running the length of a fence. There are few sights as satisfying in life as a cheeky cat running along the top of fence, his (or her) tail all over the place, will he (or she) fall? We hope not. Towser can also jump in and out of boxes. Many people would discount this sort of activity as some sort of modern cat fad, we don’t, we can’t think of many things that make us chuckle more than a cat leaping into a box (especially if it is too small).
Health & Vitality – 6/10
We know he’s healthy, we can see he is quite shiny. These are all good things, but we also know he is prone to bringing his dinner back. This isn’t an act of selfless devotion to his owner. It’s unthinking greediness or an underlying bowel condition. We’re going to be coming down hard on this in the coming year.
Home invasion – 2/10
There doesn’t seem to be anything to substantiate any latent invasion ability. He once threw up on a neightbours doorstep, whilst amusing this is a rubbish example of breaking in. Invasion is about stealth and subtelty, projecting your dinner on the boundary has nothing to do with either of these things.
Meow – 4/10
Unfortunately Towser is weak with the meow. He can muster basic communication when he is hungry but little more than that. It’s those cats that have a story to tell that do well in this section and cat based hunger is not a compelling tale. We’ve given him a few points because he does squeak out a little greeting when he sees you, manners should always be rewarded.
Fighting Ability – 7/10
As a kitten he took on four bigger cats and battered them all, at once. We weren’t there but we imagine it was like Mortal Kombat but with more contenders and all of those contenders were cats, in fact very little of it bears any similarity to Mortal Kombat.
Overall cuteness – 10/10
Don’t look at the picture too long. What? You didn’t listen? You know what that sound is don’t you? Yes, it’s your heart melting.
Friendliness – 8/10
Towser hangs around outside school gates and lets children tickle him for cash. Whilst this might be seen as some sort of feline Glitterism we think his intentions are entirely benign. If Michael Jackson taught us anything it is that spreading the love with the children of the world will bring peace and harmony and an end to war. Towser in his own small way is bringing an end to war.
Dignity – 6/10
We know that Towser lets anyone tickle him and that has to harm his diginity. We also know that he can shake his head from side to side much like he is saying NO. Does he understand our mannerisms? Does he have a mind of his own? Being able to know what you don’t want is a key element of self determination. Whilst it will take millions of year of evolution for cats to have free will, maybe Towser is one of the first steps on that very long road.
Intelligence – 7/10
Now here’s a quirky thing, Towser has a penchant for escapology. This is a skill that is largely underatted in human society after Noel Edmonds ruined it for everyone else. We understand that as a compliment to his skill at jumping into boxes he can also escape from them. This brings to mind our favourite physicist Mr Erwin Shrodinger. His thought experiment that posited that a cat could exist within a box being both alive and dead simultaneously was bound to interest us. Though we would take Shrodinger to task on the wisdom of trapping cats in boxes with radioactive isotopes we appreciate that it was only a theoretical experiment and it did quite alot to prove how useful cats are. The correlation with Towser is that once he gets in a box he can poke his head out and look quite cute. Therefore Towser is cleverer than Shrodinger as he is in no confusion about his current state. As an interesting aside Noel Edmonds now makes a living our of whoring boxes, let’s hope he doesn’t break those too.
Remaining lives – 7/10
Once Towser vanished for three days. On his return he was soaked and had tiny cuts around his mouth like he had eaten his way out of danger. Do you remember that episode of Batman where he was stuck in a box that was slowly filling with water? Yeah, that happened to Towser (we think)
Summary: 65%
A very good score for Towser there. It’s not just based on looks, he has some solid life experience and we have gone a little giddy with our first cat of the New Year.
Every now and then a cat comes along that touches the lives of everyone that it meets. A cat that makes you spontaneously clap your hands with glee. This is just such a cat.
Agility – 9/10
We won’t beat about the bush here, look at the picture, he’s on the bloody roof. How did he get up there? We don’t know, people can’t get onto that roof, it’s like he has done the impossible. What we do know is that Hobbes just fancied a bit of a sleep, ON THE ROOF. This is just one example of how Hobbes rolls. You might be wondering why he only got nine points, well we did observe Hobbes fall off the top of a car once. This isn’t very cat like behaviour. Though we should add that it was a car he was trying to steal at the time.
Health & Vitality – 7/10
We know nothing about his medical history and he always appears fairly healthy. He’s got a shiny coat and a glint in his eye which is surely a good sign. We know, for a fact, that any mischievous twinkle is surely yet another madcap caper hatching in this most extra ordinairy of cats.
Home invasion – 15/10
Normal rules don’t apply. We’ve had to push the envelope and call on every cliche we can think of. Let me tell you a story about Hobbes, one day I woke up and found Hobbes sitting next to my bed staring at me. HOBBES IS NOT MY CAT, he doesn’t even have a key. A thorough investigation provided no clue as to how he got in or how long he had been there. This was a new development as usually Hobbes would knock on the front door if he wanted to come in. Since the bedroom incident he likes to break in and have a bit of look round quite regularly. As mentioned before he also tried to steal a car once. Not the whole thing, what would he do with it? No, he took a fancy to the windscreen wiper and pulled it off, it resulted in him falling flat on his arse but he had a go, and that’s the important thing.
Meow – 8/10
Absolutely nothing wrong with his meow. If knocking on the door doesn’t work he’ll sit and meow until someone opens the door. Not of his own house, oh no, he works his way down every house in the street.
Fighting Ability – 1/10
We’re disappointed to say this but quite frankly Hobbes is rubbish in a fight. We’ve regularly seen him getting beaten up by other cats. We imagine that breaking into their houses and stealing their dinner hasn’t helped this situation.
Overall cuteness – 6/10
He’s quite cute, better than average but we don’t want to overboard. This isn’t some sort of Hobbes fan site.
Friendliness – 8/10
Can a cat be too friendly? No, what a stupid question (though we have vague recollection that we might have marked cats down previously for this before) Hobbes shows definite warmth and compassion when he meets you in the street. He really cares about your day and will drop everything to hear about it. Once you meet Hobbes you can be certain that you finally know what true friendship means.
Dignity – 7/10
Sitting on a roof that nobody else can reach? That’s dignity.
Intelligence – 3/10
Getting into seemingly inpenitrable houses clearly shows some intelligence but if you’re doing to just steal food off other cats that will then give you a right kicking…. that’s not clever. We still don’t know what he was going to do with that windscreen wiper.
Remaining lives – 5/10
Although we know so much, we still know so little. We can’t imagine that a cat with this level of confidence hasn’t brushed death but we have no evidence of it either.
Summary: 79%
That’s a giant score (even though we acknowledge that we have messed with the criteria). He isn’t just better than all other cats that we’ve come across previously, he has redefined the very principle of assessing the quality of cats. Henceforth Hobbes shall be the basis by which all cats are judged.
What’s this? The third or even fourth cat this year? Yes indeed, this is what it’s like at the cutting edge of the world wide web.
Agility – 3/10
We’re used to owners embellishing their cats agility but Doris makes a refreshing change. Apparently she can’t be arsed. Fair play to her, jumping over things is overrated. Unless, of course your judging a cat on agility then such abilities are very much rated.
Health & Vitality – 10/10
Doris is polydactyl, we were very excited when we found this out, mainly because we thought it said pterodactyl, we did wonder why a prehistoric flying lizard had been submitted to a cat review site. Once we realised our mistake we were again very excited. Doris has got thumbs. This means she is the next stage of feline evolution and could, at a push, open her own tins of cat food. Apparently she does wheeze a bit but we’re ignoring this because she has thumbs.
Home invasion – 6/10
Although she doesn’t have a great history of breaking into other houses she has lived in a fair few places. She once lived with Len but he got rid of her because she tripped him up. It doesn’t seem very tolerant but also fairly short sighted by Doris. She’s lived in Tidbury Green and Whitlocks End which sound like completely made up places. She also lived in Sid and Linda’s conservatory. We have absolutely no idea who any of these people are but it’s good solid background.
Meow – 6/10
With a fair vocabulary she can wax lyrical on a variety of topics. It’s nice to meet a cat with a decent range. Too often cats are entirely food focussed. Doris lets people know when her water bowl is empty. This is very good because decent water intake is good for her kidneys.
Fighting Ability – 2/10
We don’t really know enough to cover this. We assume that other cats recognise who evolutionary superiority and respond accordingly. We know she doesn’t back down from cats trespassing in her garden but that’s what they’re supposed to do.
Overall cuteness – 5/10
Leaving aside the evil green eyes we think Doris is quite cute. She’s getting on a bit (is she? We’re not sure how old she is) so has the look of a well lived cat. She’s got a nice face. We’ve been told that her quiet snores are endearing but with the fact she is prone to wheezing this might be dodgy lungs. Dodgy lungs aren’t cute.
Friendliness – 6/10
We were going to ask Len to mark this section but given the way she tripped him up we thought he might be a bit biased. She seems to have made a number of human friends over the years so we’ll give her quite a good score.
Dignity – 1/10
She once went to Scotland, on holiday, and pranced round a motorway service station in a harness. Funny? Yes. Dignified? No. She has been penalised for the harness rather than going to Scotland. If cats want to go to Scotland than that’s fine with us.
Intelligence – 5/10
Her submission implies she can read. We doubt this. In all the years of doing this we haven’t come across a single cat that could read. She fell for the whole harness thing so we think she isn’t too clever. Having said that she apparently used to busk. This indicates a grasp of commerce.
Remaining lives – 5/10
She’s done well for herself. A number of different homes but still seems to be a settled individual. As far as we can work out she hasn’t really had any substantial brushes with death but she should get those lungs looked at.
Summary: 47%
Doris took a hammering in a few categories there, particularly dignity, agility and fighting. This proves the genius of this system, an active cat with a disdain for the world (and prone to violence) is purity of the feline species. If Doris is going to lead cat kind to the next stage of life on earth then she needs to up her game and jump about a bit more (and possibly punch something).
It’s only been a few days but Ruby’s been found. Actually she hasn’t been found, she came home of her own accord.
If previous experience is anything to go by then we assume that the Birmingham Post will be clamouring for a press conference.
We don’t know where she’s been but apparently she looked a bit thin, was very hungry and quite tired. Though cats tend to be quite tired from the moment they get up.
Fortunately it’s been quite a while since we’ve heard about a cat going missing.
Unfortunately it looks like Ruby has gone missing. As you can see from the picture Ruby is both quite small and quite cute. A dangerous combination when you’re a cat out on your own.
She lives right in the centre of Moseley, around the Farquar Road, Leighton Road and Tudor Road area. We know her well her enough to say hello to and she is a very nice cat.
She’s been gone a few days so it’s likely she has gone to have a sleep in a shed or is trying to live in another house for a bit.
So check your shed, and if you do happen to be living with a cat you don’t recognise then let us know and we will let her worried owner know.
There has been a typical media flurry about the good news that Beauty had been found, with everyone more than pleased with a happy ending that nobody expected. The Birmingham Post particularly added to the coverage with some excellent pictures of Beauty. For all of us that had been worried about her fate, over the last eleven months, it was great to see her and hear some of the details of what she had been up to, clearly blissfully unaware of her new national profile.
Unfortunately the pictures also tell us something else. The new cat doesn’t really look like Beauty. She looks similar but has some quite different markings.
We can’t find any scientific reason why she would have suddenly grown white feet. Cat experts (Google) seem to be of the opinion that cats don’t really change their markings dramatically.
Although we happily run a web site devoted to cats we really don’t know the first thing about them. So, cat experts of the world, judge our Beauty Pageant. Tell us what you think.
Though we are cynical about the provenance of this particular cat we are glad it has found a home. If people want to call it Beauty and give it a loving home then this can only be a good thing. We just hope it will pass the Twinkle test.
Surely we can’t be the only people who’d come to the conclusion that this wouldn’t end well. In fact for months we’d been telling anyone willing to listen that little Beauty had obviously been eaten by a fox.
The quote from John Hemming, in relation to Beauty’s current living situation, appears to make little sense:-
“I went to see the cat last night and indeed it was Beauty. We, however, think that she is feeding kittens at the moment so she has been returned to the lady who had kindly looked after her for a year so that we can try to track down the kittens.”
And Mr Hemming added: “It seems that Beauty has been looked after by two households at the same time. I think one of those households also has her kittens (more likely than they are outside).
“We need to track down the other household that is looking after Beauty. If they have her and a litter of kittens I would not be surprised if there was some form of arrangement we could come to. In any event I don’t want to take her away from her kittens. (If indeed there are kittens which I think there are).”
But confusion seems to have been a fairly consistent part of this entirely sordid affair.
Obviously some would question the coincidence of Beauty rolling up the day after Christine Hemming was sentenced for her theft, but knowing how notoriously publicity shy all parties have been throughout this story such suspicion would surely be misplaced.
The most important thing is that Beauty is alive and maybe, one day, we’ll get to review her. We are considering inventing a whole new scale to accommodate her.
You will probably remember that it took us over four months to review our last cat, Barry, well this one has taken even longer. Arwen was submitted in April of this year but we have delayed the review in order to avoid potential accusation of contempt of court due to Arwen’s ownership.
We are familiar with embellishment but the claim that Arwen can leap to the top of a conservatory are beyond credulity. Obviously with the statutory limit of a lean-to conservatory being four meters you’re talking about a fairly tasty leap. We don’t believe Arwen can leap four meters. There is an equally outlandish claim that Arwen can sleep on a two inch wide fence. A two inch wide fence? What sort of building regulations are these people working to?
Health & Vitality – 7/10
Arwen once had a litter of kittens, we like this. As far as we can remember this is the first time that we’ve ever reviewed a cat that has realised the full potential of motherhood. She had a litter at 6 months which is a little young (probably, we know very little about how cats work) but we make no judgements on this. She also once had cat flu, it has been proven that there is nothing more cute than a cat sneezing, except when they follow through with their dinner.
Home invasion – - /10
No really, where the hell are we supposed to go with home invasion and cats? This is ridiculous. The sheer volume of startlingly amusing and potentially illegal puns and quips is mind blowing. For the sake of good taste and poor little Beauty we’ll leave this one.
Meow – 4/10
She meows when she’s hungry, in fact we’re not convinced it is even a proper meow, more of a mew. That sounds a little bit superior, dismissive even.
Fighting Ability – 10/10
This is probably the single most worrying sumission that we’ve ever had in this category. We will let you judge what it might mean, “If we don’t respond quickly she kills her own …” Own what? Kittens? Dinner? A cat that kills its own kittens is about the most ruthless thing that we can imagine. This is qualified by the information that Arwen once killed a squirrel and her owners have kept part of the tail. It must be a little bit like the last days of the Congo in Arwen’s house.
Overall cuteness – 2/10
Unfortunately we can’t look at Arwen without the mental image of the blood of her own kittens dripping from her mouth. Not the cutest image in the world.
Friendliness – 7/10
Apparently Arwen is well regarded in the neighbourhood and isn’t adverse to popping into other peoples houses whether they’re in or not. Ok…..
Dignity – 6/10
Is known to perch on a wall. There is something dignified about a cat on a wall. Also coughs up fur balls. It is a problem that is largely peculiar to cats but spending most of your life like Princess Diana after a big pie is not that dignified.
Intelligence – 2/10
The only information we have on Arwen’s intelligence is the somewhat bolshy question, “Can you catch a squirrel?” Well, in answer to your question, yes we reckon we could, they’re not that clever, though how is it relevant? Can Arwen make a cup of tea? We doubt it so we’ve penalised her.
Remaining lives – 8/10
Arwen survived cat flu, has had kittens and performed unimaginable horrors on them. This cat has lived a life that would make most people weep.
Summary: 53%
Arwen doesn’t lose out because of the lack of a home invasion score, oh no, we calculated the percentage using a base of 90 rather than 100. We used a calculator to do this, it might be wrong as we’re not very good at percentages. Arwen appears to be a cat of extremes, she was also in the Daily Mail once, none of our other cats can claim that.
Barry was first brought to our attention in July of this year. That means it has taken over four months for us to review him. Now you might think it has taken so long because the review has been lovingly crafted out of gold. If you did think that you would be mostly wrong. We have just been very lazy.
Agility – 4/10
We are getting increasingly worried about the amount of cats that aren’t allowed outside. It isn’t natural to keep a cat inside and it makes it very difficult to get a sense of what they can or can’t do. We do know that Barry can leap on top of the fridge in one jump. Not very impressive really. We have a feeling that at a push we could do that as well. Though obviously that would be frowned on in a human. Having said that letting your cat climb on your fridge does raise similar questions. Though it is Barry we are here to judge.
Health & Vitality – 4/10
Although Barry should be rewarded for getting as far as ten and a half years old we feel we must deduct points for only having two teeth. This is rubbish. If only we had a section for pretending to be a vampire.
Home invasion Pretending to be a vampire- 10/10
As Barry isn’t allowed out, ever, we’ve given him full marks for pretending to be a vampire.
Meow – 8/10
Barry has a worrying vocal range. He can go like “meeeaaaaaahh” and like “brrrrrrrrp”. He even sighs when he needs attention. This is great. What wonders he must be trying to communicate to us. Sigh.
Fighting Ability – 6/10
Apparently Barry once “took down a big dog”. We can only assume this so called “big dog” was in his house at the time. We shudder to think what “took down” really means. It sounds a little bit WWE to us. Let’s hope this wasn’t one of those stage managed events just get some more points off of us.
Overall cuteness – 6/10
We’re not sure about Barry. He does look quite shiny and he likes a bit of a tickle but look at those dead eyes. It has been suggested that the fact his tongue is hanging out makes him look cute. We think it makes him look thirsty.
Friendliness – 3/10
He is very friendly to people he knows. Which is just as well as people he doesn’t know shouldn’t really be in his house.
Dignity – 4/10
He sits with his tongue hanging out and pretends he is a vampire.
Intelligence – 4/10
There is just too little to go on. His fascination with the occult has not demonstrated a clear grasp of the rational.
Remaining lives – 7/10
Like so many cats these days he was rescued from a life we can only imagine and has survived until a good age. We hope that at some point cat technology develops to such a point that someone invents a cat straw for the more dentally challenged.
Summary: 55%
We freely admit that Barry’s score got a substantial bump because we made up a category for him. On the whole a nice enough cat but evidence that merely jumping on household appliances and imaginary fights with dogs is not enough to get to the top.
Doesn't it piss you off when you are sitting in a pub telling people about a cracking cat you met that there isn't an objective standard to gauge how good it is against another cat? People can rate hurricanes but not cats. That's ridiculous, I see loads more cats than hurricanes. I intend to redress this imbalance by making a universal standard of cats.
One of the things were are frequently asked is "do cats need to come from a specific post code?" Our answer is "no", cats don't respect post codes, cats don't understand post codes. This is a resource for all the cats of the world.
Name: Towser (Identity confirmed)
Name: Hobbes (Identity confirmed)
Name: Doris (Identity confirmed)
Surely we can’t be the only people who’d come to the conclusion that this wouldn’t end well. In fact for months we’d been telling anyone willing to listen that little Beauty had obviously been eaten by a fox.
Name: Arwen (Identity confirmed)
Unfortunately we need to let you know that Yoda has died.
Name: Barry (Identity confirmed)