Meowseley

A site for reviews of cats from all around the world. Not just Moseley.

Archive for November, 2008


RIP: Socks

We’re very sorry to have to tell everyone but it seems that Socks has died.

Socks’ owner has got in touch to say that she was found by somebody walking a dog. We don’t know how this happened.

 

We are all very sorry to hear this as we really liked Socks.

New Contender: Grey

Name: Name: Grey (Identity confirmed)

  1. Agility – 4/10
    • Grey’s athletic endeavours appear to extend to “a little light climbing” but only before lunch. This is not satisfactory. Kittens should have boundless energy and should spend their days getting into all manner of scrapes. Kitten scrapes should always include, though not exclusively, an element of climbing.
  2. Health & Vitality – 7/10
    • Grey is only young but so far hasn’t demonstrated any adverse reactions to being alive. A healthy little cat gets a healthy little score.
  3. Home invasion – 1/10
    • Grey has never left the house yet. Pathetic. You can’t invade somebody elses house if you can’t even get out of your own. We’re seriously thinking of taking this point back as it really isn’t good enough.
  4. Meow – 7/10
    • Grey’s meow has been described as a “poor squeaky kitten meow”. We think this is unfair. It takes a bit of time for a cat to find it’s voice and making such an effort at a young age certainly bodes well for the future. He clearly has something to say and we want to hear it.
  5. Fighting Ability – 2/10
    • Kittens are shit at fighting. What may appear to us as playful rolling around is in fact just playful rolling around. Grey is never going to have the respect of his peers (or us) until he’s killed something. Or at the very least maimed it. Harsh but fair.
  6. Overall cuteness – 8/10
    • Grey is undeniably cute. We’d go as far as to say Grey is very very cute but as we’ve said before all kittens are cute. That’s their job. So once we’ve adjusted his score to exclude the kitten factor he gets a not unreasonable eight points.
  7. Friendliness – 6/10
    • Grey is apparently friendlier than his mate Brown. We don’t have an objective bench mark of how firendly Brown is, so calculating a score has been somewhat tricky. It’s a bit like one of those puzzles where X amount of parrots dig Y amount of holes so what value is Z? We’re not very good at those so we just pulled a figure out of the air.
  8. Dignity – 3/10
    • We’ve never met a kitten yet with any sort of dignity. It’s not within their gift. The gravitas of dignity is only gained through much sleeping and hopefully a little bit of fighting.
  9. Intelligence – 4/10
    • Grey chases his own tail and tries to catch light. This is the sort of thing that moths do (apart from the tail chasing thing). Moths aren’t very clever.
  10. Remaining lives – 2/10
    • In many ways it is cause for celebration that Grey hasn’t done too well in this section. We would be a little worried if at this tender age he had dangled with death.

Summary: 44%

As a rule we see scores awarded to kittens as more of a personal development plan than a judgement. We think Grey should prove to be quite a good cat once he gets out and about a bit. Until then there is certainly room for improvement.

New Contender : Charlie

Name: Name: Charlie (Identity confirmed)

  1. Agility -9/10
    • Charlie isn’t just agile he’s a veritable catrobat. We honestly don’t understand the convoluted passage of staircases, flat roofs and very high walls that he navigates on a daily basis to get home. Suffice to say we’re impressed with his commitment and think he’s set a very high standard for other cats to live up to. Actually he has not only set a very high standard but he’s probably jumped over it.
  2. Health & Vitality – 3/10
    • As far as health and vitality goes Charlie is big old lump of contradictions. In a way he should be rewarded for simply being alive. Reading his battle for life is a bit like an episode of ER. Admittedly an episode of ER with more of a cat focus than normal. In summary he’s got a dodgy eye from some sort of infection, his kidneys don’t work very well which means he once needed a catheter (obvious pun ignored) and he was once shot. Think about that last one for a bit. He was actually proper shot and is still alive. We’re intrigued to know how you get a catheter into a cat though we probably wouldn’t want to watch it happen.
  3. Home invasion – 2/10
    • Charlie doesn’t invade homes. We’ve heard that he got locked in a shed once but that really isn’t the same.
  4. Meow – 4/10
    • On the one hand Charlie does meow. On the other hand it’s a bit of a rubbish meow. His lack of vocal ability is apparently due to having been shot in the neck. We’ve been asked whether we’d be cruel enough to mark Charlie down for his bullet in the head situation. Well, basically yes. We don’t think it’s cruel, it’s just the way it is. We’ve given Charlie a few points because at least he has a valid excuse as opposed to some of the lazy cats we’ve come across in the last few months.
  5. Fighting Ability – 8/10
    • Charlie is a brawler. He’s chased off all the other cats in his manor and once walked the mean streets of Nechells. Clearly he did come off second best against the bloke with a gun, well we assume so anyway. Charlie disembowels mice like a proper little psycho and likes to leave behind little treats like kidneys. There is a certain irony that his kidneys don’t work very well yet he won’t eat the kidneys of other animals. It’s either ironic or a really twisted message. Oh and he once punched another cat in the face, brilliant.
  6. Overall cuteness – 9/10
    • We think Charlie has got a really cheery little face.
  7. Friendliness – 4/10
    • Charlie doesn’t like women. We have absolutely no time for this sort of rampant misogyny and we are not going to let it go. It’s this sort of behaviour that undermines the egalitarian principles of our so called society.
  8. Dignity – 7/10
    • Charlie is not a cat to be tickled when he doesn’t want to be. That’s fair enough. His owner also mentioned that he once had a film written about him. They didn’t know what category that would come under and we have to admit that we don’t either. It is worth noting and we’re noting it here. We imagine the film was a bleak tale of the dangers of inner city gun crime but from a cats perspective. We hope it was actually better than that sounds.
  9. Intelligence – 7/10
    • At this point it is worth noting the afore mentioned shed incident. In itself getting trapped in a shed is not a very clever thing to do but having the ability to escape, like a feline David Blane, is quite good. We assume he dug a tunnel. There is no evidence to suggest he did dig a tunnel but he does look a tiny bit like Charles Bronson in the Great Escape so it is probably true.
  10. Remaining lives – 10/10
    • We’ve never come across another cat with so much documented evidence of cheating death. He would have got full marks for just being shot but there is much more to this little bloke. Apparently he was nearly run over by his Auntie Kati though we have no idea what irresponsible fool was letting a cat drive a car. The whole shed debacle could have ended in tears. Having a catheter must have smarted. All round Charlie is survivor and we salute him.

Summary: 59%

When we first saw Charlie and heard his life story we thought that he was going to be the best cat that we have seen to date. It was only on delving deeper into his story that we realised that he demonstrates some serious character flaws that have let him down badly. Sorry Charlie, we like you but you’ve let yourself down.