To the cat-basket born

Let me tell you of two cats that I have come to know quite well over the last year or so. Doctor Poo and Mister Hanky of Oud Zuid, Amsterdam. Doctor Poo is an academic. A feline entomologist. Softly spoken and reserved, he shies from the public eye and spends most days working on his collection of spiders and bugs, and some other things that look a bit like insects, but we can’t be entirely sure. In his enthusiasm for study, Doctor Poo is not always as careful with his collection methods as he should be.

His brother, Mr Hanky, while not so academic, is a keen sportsman. He takes part in regular hunts and will play mouse for hours on end. He is highly regarded for his airborne acrobatics and his singing voice, which he likes to exercise just before breakfast. The twins as they are known together, for they were born on the same day, are both British Shorthairs of good lineage. If peerage could be bestowed about a cat, they would probably be Cat Commanders of the British Empire by now and have a seat in the House of Lords. In short, they are very posh cats.

To help them with their day-to-day affairs, they have two live-in servants. One of them being me. Yes, I know my bio up in the corner says that I am a world famous artist and a renowned British wrestler but I am not. I am doorman, errand-boy and general dog’s body to Doctor Poo and Mister Hanky. While my wife, Sarah, is cookgirl and housemaid to their needs. Being British and possibly of ex-navy stock, the masters of the house run a very tight ship. They like things to be regimented and done by the book. Breakfast must be served at no later than 7.15am. Even in the hardest and darkest days of winter, when the mercury has all but frozen, Mister Hanky will come in from an early morning hunt and begin practising his vocal scales, gradually increasing his pitch until breakfast is served. The twins are of the belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, with dinner being the second most important meal of the day. And neither is to be scrimped on and certainly not bought from the supermarket. Not that the twins would know what a supermarket is since they have never been to one but they don’t want their food coming from there. Those garish labels with their cartoon cats and names like GoCat are all far too common for them. No, they like their meals to be fresh and organic. And purchased from a feline grocery (or as we call it, a pet shop). Their favourite being Pet Essentials by Bert — a small family-run boutique where photos of regular customers line the walls. Like Boffie the longhaired Teckel and Skatje the Holland Lop rabbit.

The Twins’ preferred choice for breakfast is Applaws Natural Cat Food. One 156g tin of tuna fillet and prawn supplemented by a side bowl of dry British Shorthair no.34 kibbles to provide fibre and good dental care. Some mornings they will switch it up and eat Royal Canin ultralight chunks in gravy. Doctor Poo, not being as athletic as his brother, does have the potential to fall victim to what is known politely in the cat world as “small head syndrome”. A friend of his named Minty, who has since fled to Cape Town, was afflicted with the disease and had to endure all sorts of ridicule over her portly body. Lord knows how she must be adapting to the cutthroat body culture of the mother city.

After breakfast, the Twins usually retire upstairs for a brief nap. Doctor Poo likes the comfort of the office, enjoying the company of books and having a good view on to the street below, While Mr Hanky prefers his bed, usually propping himself up on the pillows to get in a good clean. He is also partial to a sheepskin rug — it reminds him of days spent on safari hunting the illusive seagull. While not your traditional game bird, the gull offers much sport for the avid hunter. One day Mr Hanky will bag himself one. One day.

How the Twins spend the rest of their day is not really known to us because like good serfs we spend our days working in the proverbial fields, providing labour to various cartels to help offset our masters’ lifestyle.

Upon our return from the fields and once we have prepared their dinner, the Twins like to focus on their life pursuits. Recently, Dr Poo has been tinkering about with a new collection of araneus diadematus, or as Latin-illiterates call them: European garden spiders — an orb-weaving spider that is native to our house. Why it is called a garden spider and it lives indoors, I wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask Dr Poo, he’s the expert. Mr Hanky, on the other hand, likes to practice his hunting skills, making me drag around the house a toy mouse attached to a bamboo pole by string. He then performs daring and brave raids on the tattered beast (nearly all its hair is gone from previous encounters), diving out from behind corners or doing large aerial attacks that involve somersaults, backflips and some other cat-obatics that defy naming conventions.

On nights when they are not hunting or tending to entomological matters, the Twins like to read. Any open newspaper, book or magazine they find, they will go sit on it and read for hours. Sometimes they can become so enthralled by what they are reading, so excited by this or that matter that they’ll rip up the pages with their claws and teeth. Just last night I found Mr Hanky really getting into an article, just tearing through the text. Curious, I went over to see what he was reading. It was some sort of story about poverty. Apparently close to 50% of world’s population lives on less that $2,50 a day. Poor sods, I thought, that wouldn’t even cover the Twins’ breakfast. But never mind, we shouldn’t complain. After all we can’t all be born British Shorthairs.