by Chris Pascoe
As if these terrible ants weren't danger enough for Brum, he can choose from rattlesnakes (the rattle would be bound to interest him), water moccasins (snakes that don't even try to warn you off, just want to fight you to the death for a laugh), coyotes, black widow spiders, all manner of malicious plants, even alligators.
For a lad who's grown up with nothing much more dangerous than grass snakes, mice and sparrows, and still come off worse, I wouldn't bank on him ever needing to present his Pet Passport back in the UK. I think they could pretty much write him off the moment he landed at Dallas International.
So, cross out Greece and America.
How about Egypt? A popular destination for cats for over 4,000 years. The cradle of cat civilisation. What a great cultural holiday for a cat. He could gaze at cat statues (some still survive) and visit the site of the temple of the cat god Bastet.
But is Egypt as hospitable a place for a cat as it was in 2500 BC?
Now, in keeping with the people of Slough, Egyptians don't
worship cats any more. The majority of the population are apparently unaware they're supposed to. But they are still very polite to cats and generally provide food to cats that ask.
Urban cats are very popular. The fact that the people are so fond of cats and seem to still feel protective towards them has led to Egyptian cities having an enormous, out-of-control cat population. I once read an article saying that cats roam about in most public buildings and are all over the stage in concert halls and theatres, often proving more interesting than the action going on around them. They are even rumoured to have infested the Halls of Power in Egypt and sit in on most Government meetings (possibly they are still in charge?). I've since seen this report denied by an Egyptian Government official, who did however admit, after appearing to consult with a small, pointy eared, furry colleague, that there is indeed a bit of a problem with the huge quantities of homeless cats in Egypt.
An Egyptian city for your next holiday Brum? No, too overcrowded.
Many parts of the Egyptian countryside have an entirely different attitude to cats, however. Whereas Egyptian townies will happily stroke and pet cats, country folk tend to still treat them with a degree of reverence. Many villagers believe it is wrong to touch a cat. I would say it's okay myself. Wrong to touch cobras. Okay to touch cats. But there is still an uneasy superstition surrounding them that has kept cats sacred if not worshipped.
Brum wouldn't care for their attitude at all. He'd take it as a personal affront. Good place for Sammy to reaffirm her opinion of herself as a demi-god though.
Greece, America and Egypt not suitable. Where next?
How about Australia? Cats officially arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, although it's now believed that castaway cats from Dutch shipwrecks probably got there first RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET with maybe a particularly stinky, tough and immortal one among their numbers? It's possible that some may have arrived even earlier with Indonesian fishermen.
Australia wanted more cats a little while back. In the late
nineteenth century they imported as many as they could and let them loose in the bush and outback. Why? To try to kill off the rabbits they'd already imported and let loose in the bush and outback, where they'd bred to epidemic proportions and started eating the entire country. Attack of the continent-eating bunnies.
The cats (and imported foxes) killed plenty of them, but not enough. Various viruses have also been used and the latest Calici virus is doing the job. Unfortunately as Calici dramatically reduces the rabbit population, it also reduces the amount of food available for Australia's five million feral cats. These cats will eventually have to start eating other Australian species to make up the shortfall. Taking the rabbit population down was intended to have a knock-on control effect on cat and fox populations, which it probably will have, but the cats and foxes will go down fighting and take many others with them.
A bit of a feline battleground. You don't want to go on holiday to the only cat warzone on the planet, do you? Okay, that's exactly where you'd expect to find our Brum, but I can't see him liking the outback much in any case. He does actually have the natural equipment to survive there should he wish to. Cats take enough moisture from their prey to enable them to go without drinking water, so they can survive those arid and inhospitable conditions.
But why the hell would he want to? He'd never catch anything. If he'd been one of the first new cats out there, hunting in a landscape absolutely wall to wall with rabbits, he'd be jumping around arch-backed all over the place without ever catching a damn thing.
And then he'd get stomped by a kangaroo in a cork hat.
Despite cats threatening to destroy their ecology, Australians in towns and cities tend to love them to bits. One in three homes have cats. So Sydney or Melbourne would be fine, but the local deadly wildlife count is Texas times ten.
Everything on and around the Australian Continent seems geared to killing everything else. Australia is home to the world's top ten deadliest snakes, the world's deadliest spiders, instant-
death jellyfish, toxic octopuses, tons of lethal insects, killer fish, poisonous plants, venomous crustaceans, man-eating crocodiles, vicious birds, Australian Rules Football and one of the most inhospitably suri-baked climates on the planet. Take an environment where absolutely everything is trying to kill you, and place into it a cat determined to kill himself (albeit unintentionally) and you have a recipe for instant destruction.
Forget Australia.
Oh, and if anybody from any Australian Environment committees is reading, here are some unnecessary tips:
1. Don't release rabbits into your countryside.
2. Don't try and correct your first mistake by releasing other mistakes into your countryside.
3. Don't hide behind true excuses like 'some pillock of an English landowner started it all, not us'.
4. Don't tell me my advice is over a hundred years too late.
5. And if you ever have rabbit problems again, you only need ask. We'll send you Peanuts. Not only would he solve your problem in weeks, he doesn't tend to breed too much any more and you'll have a 'lucky rabbit foot' trade that's second to none. When you've finished with his services, just litter the Outback with office swivel chairs and he'll trouble you no more.
Really, these colonials. Leave 'em to their own devices and look what happens . . .
Right, so the Australians and Greeks don't like me or my stinking opinions (or my cat and his stinking opinions), America's too dangerous and the Egyptians have got enough cat problems without my inflicting Brum on them. Okay, grab another brochure, plenty more world yet.
Mexico? No. Latin American fire-ant dancing is even more embarrassing than its Hillbilly cousin.
Russia? Russia, now there's a possibility.
In Russia, to have a cat in the house is seen as a sign of good
luck (they haven't met Brum, have they?). Cats are very popular pets, and in Moscow there is a Cat Museum, showing permanent displays of cat art, the cats being in the pictures rather than having painted them.
What's more, the Russians seem to be genuine cat lovers.
They have an abundance of cat fancier clubs, many of whom have recently been celebrating the recognition of the 'Siberian' as a 'Standard Breed' by Federation International Felines (FIFE), which I've never heard of but presume they oversee worldwide feline football events. The tabbies versus the white cats, that sort of thing.
The Siberian is a fluffy type of tabby that looks incredibly, amazingly like Brum. I saw it described as 'sweet natured'. Could they mean daft and dopey, possibly? I decided to find out more about this breed. If they do mean daft and dopey, could this be what Brum is, and not a prehistoric missing link after all?
Are there thousands like him in Russian Asia, blundering across the Tundra, walking into wind blasted trees and falling down Mammoth excavation pits?
The first details I found were encouraging:
1. Thick coat, full ruff: C
orrect.
2. Doglike: Author didn't elaborate on what he
meant by 'doglike' but if he meant doglike as lacking the balance and agility of a cat, then correct.
3. Oily coat: I'm not sure about this one. He isn't
exactly oily but I wouldn't say he feels beautiful and clean either.
4. Not fond of other cats' That's right, company:
5. Loyal and affectionate: Yes, he is!
I looked up another site and the results weren't so good, they did however explain some rather vague descriptions in the first.
i. Thick coat, full ruff: Yes, yes, we know.
2.. Large, strong: NO WAY!
3. Oily, water-resistant coat: WATER-RESISTANT!! No.
4. Kitten is size of a What? The pictures I saw must have normal cat: been of kittens then. What size do
they grow to for goodness sake, are we talking about Siberian Tabbies or Siberian Tigers here?
5. Fearless: No. I'm getting depressed now.
6. Guards house like an Losing interest. Alsatian dog:
7. Used to live in the high ! rafters of monasteries, skipping expertly between the thin beams, always on the lookout for intruders:
Okay, that's enough. Until I hear anything to the contrary, he's a miacis. I tried'.
The info I obtained may have been useful in some respects however. If Brum is going to Russia, he's going to be dwarfed by the locals. From the description of the Siberian it sounds like he'd be best advised not to get into any fights unless he's heavily armed.
Another angle he should consider here is espionage. I know the Cold War is officially over, but there still lingers that slight air of suspicion.
He does, however much he differs in size, look incredibly like a Siberian. When the Russians see him they're immediately going to suspect him of being a Western spy in a silly Siberian disguise.
Sean Connery disguised as Japanese in Diamonds are Forever springs to mind. He was about two foot taller and wider than everybody he was with. He looked ridiculous. Brum would look just as odd hanging out with a bunch of Siberians. He'll be like a perfectly proportioned miniature. He'd never pull it off.
Amazingly Sean Connery did fool the bad guys for a while in his disguise, but he certainly didn't fool anybody else.
Right, Russia's off the list, he'd be arrested or torn to pieces by huge effigies of himself. There must be somewhere he could
go-There is ... my mum's. It's about the only safe option. They're aware of what he's capable of, so have extensive medical supplies available for when he comes to stay. And they don't have alligators lurking in their fish pond.
Even if we had found a suitable destination for him, he'd have never got travel insurance. They'd have asked questions such as: Will you be participating in any dangerous activities . . .
Yes. Everything he does is a dangerous activity. Walking is a dangerous activity. Massively dangerous. Eating and sleeping are an absolute minefield.
I can't help feeling as if we're giving up too easily here. Copping out. Maybe we're not trying hard enough. If we paid more for insurance and racked our brains for a place he wouldn't definitely get himself killed in ...
What time shall I drop you off at my mum's, Brum?
The Anti-Sunday Boy
'The height of cleverness, is to be able to conceal it.'
Due de le Rochefoucauld
One major thing with many of Brum's accidents is that they don't always have the effect that he so richly deserves them to have, i.e. he gets hurt, others don't.
With one simple action, Brum is capable of setting into motion a chain of events that lead to calamity. The first that springs to mind happened just the other day . . .
It was a relaxing Sunday morning. Lorraine was reading the newspaper and I was chatting to my Mum on the phone while having a coffee. Sammy was out cold beside the fire and baby Maya taking a nap in her room. It seemed a scene of domestic bliss, but Brum was looking twitchy. Sitting alone in an armchair and nervously watching everybody in the room, he had that look about him. It's a look that most cat owners may be familiar with, a sort of 'Oh my God, I've just realised I'm sitting on a landmine' type look.
And in much the same way as you would if you had just sat on a landmine, Brum suddenly and without warning shot high into the air, landed on my lap and sprung on over my shoulder at desperate speed.
This would have been fine except that he neglected to avoid the telephone handset cable, thus taking the receiver and my right hand with him.
That my mouth was at that point connected to a full cup of hot coffee made things much much worse.
One moment I was sitting, chatting on the phone and calmly sipping coffee, the next my hand shot up and backwards over my head, the other hand automatically trying to go with it and pouring a full cup of coffee straight into my face.
In considerable pain and swearing loudly, I hopped up and
_ y" __
down. My Mum put the phone down, disgusted by my language, a startled Sammy left the room without touching the floor, Lorraine's newspaper was smothered in coffee and a little voice boomed WAAAAAAAAHHH over the monitor.
Laughing boy, meanwhile, was calmly washing his arse in the kitchen.
So you see what I mean. That's what he's capable of. Another incident involving liquid in much larger quantities occurred during the summer.
This incident also happened on a Sunday. I don't know if Brum hates Sunday morning rituals, such as the following, and makes it his sworn duty to disrupt them, or it's just that I happen to see more of him on Sundays and he's always like this.
I was out in the drive washing the car with sponge, bowl and hosepipe whilst chatting with my neighbour who was doing much the same sort of thing RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET washing his car-cum-cat-surfboard.
Brum was out there with me and enjoying a little game of snakes and tabbies. Snakes and tabbies is a simple game. It occurs because I have to leave my hosepipe nozzle half on. If I don't, pressure builds and rips the other end of the hose from the tap. This practice causes the hosepipe to slither around like a snake as the water slowly escapes, thus causing the tabby to chase it.
All was well until about the third time I lifted the hosepipe and turned the nozzle to jetblast. It appears that Brum hadn't quite finished with it and launched himself at a piece of hosepipe about six inches off the ground and just behind me, gripping it and hauling it to the ground.
The effect on my nozzle was quite dramatic.
The hose being suddenly ripped from my hands made me grab at it and pull it up and forwards, sending a sudden stream of water towards my totally unaware neighbour, whom it thankfully missed, hitting an old lady square in the back as she walked past his drive.
I meanwhile stepped forward into my bowl of water, tipping it up and drenching my trouser legs.
The sudden explosions of water sent Brum running for cover
whilst I headed inside for a change of clothing. Behind me I could hear the old lady remonstrating with my neighbour about soaking her coat, something which he seemed to be confessing to. I think this was probably because he was holding a hosepipe and felt an innocent plea would have looked ridiculous.
Nobody saw the dodgy-looking bloke sneaking away in his sodden trousers, or the tabby beneath the bush, grinning happily, his secret objective achieved - another peaceful weekend tradition had been sabotaged by the Anti-Sunday Boy.
A Chat With a Cat
(A Fantasy Interview)
'Ain't it grand to be blooming well dead.' Leslie Sarony
The setting: a weird, 'afterlife'-style, foggy, surreal room. Brum's latest disaster has resulted in the untimely demise of both cat and owner in annoyingly ridiculous circumstances.
CP:Good evening, Brum.
B: Good evening, Chris.
CP: Now that you've finally managed to kill us both, and we find ourselves strangely able to communicate with one another on more than a 'feed me/get down' level, I thought it might be a good idea t
o look back over your life, your highs and lows, your viewpoints and perspectives, how a cat sees our world . . .
B: Your world?
CP: Sorry?
B: You said your world, I presume you mean that the world belongs to human beings. That's a little species elitist, isn't it?
CP: Okay, sorry, point taken. Anyway, my idea was that we conduct a formal interview. I've a set of questions already written out.
B: Good evening!
CP:Er right, the questions I've set out are aimed at establishing an in-depth picture of how a cat thinks, of your dreams, aspirations and ambitions. Some of the questions may be fairly provocative but . . .
B: I'm not answering anything about the white cat.
CP: Okay.
B: Proceed.
CP:What would you say was the best pair of shoes you ever
owned? *
B: What?
CP: Your best ever pair of shoes?
B: Where did you get your questions from?
CP: Okay, what's your favourite colour then?
B: Oh, I don't know . . . white.
CP: White isn't a colour.
B: Of course it is.
CP:It's not actually.
B: Look is this question relevant, I mean, I'm a cat. I don't even
see in colour.
CP: Oh yeah, that's right isn't it. What do you think would be
your favourite colour if you could see in colour.
B: Can we just move on please.
CP: Who is your all-time favourite pop star?
B: Have you got the right set of questions?
CP:Yes.
B: Sir Cliff Richard or Eminem. Both really. I'd like to have seen
them do a duet.
CP: What would you say was the greatest day of your life?
B: The day you took me away from Slough.
CP: That's very nice of you, thank you.