Until this week, I dismissed Mariah Carey as a diva for having a concert rider which, along with Cristal champagne and an assistant just to dispose of her chewing gum, demanded 20 white kittens. Now I think: go, Mariah!
Why would anyone spend a day without kittens? When I was introduced to our two impossibly sweet, vulnerable baby creatures — progeny of a pure white Persian female who likes a bit of rough — I was almost tearful. (Yes, I know, but it’s been a very long year…) Now, instead of doom-scrolling Twitter for Covid variants, my husband and I sit watching kittens skid after a ping-pong ball.
While they adjust to their new quarters, Teddy and Tony (named after Millwall FC legends Sheringham and Cascarino) are confined to one room. And wow, the smell hits you when you walk in. But I don’t care. Because Teddy clambers up into the pool table, walks around inside then jumps out of a random pocket on to an unsuspecting Tony. I haven’t laughed like this since before the pandemic. Get a kitten. Though Mariah can keep off mine.
To cut or not to cut
I spent the previous week in Suffolk with my younger son and his four friends. Five 23-year-old blokes: a jolly household of beery farts, size 13 trainers and uncomplicated pleasure in huge, meat-based meals. Discussing Teddy and Tony’s imminent arrival, I mentioned they’d have to be castrated. “But why?” cried the horrified lads.
The US journalist Katie Herzog writes a fascinating blog called Moose Nuggets about the ethics of giving her goldendoodle the chop. Suspicious owners of female dogs scrutinise Moose’s testicles in parks and ask when she’s going to get him “fixed”? But if all bitches are spayed, she ponders, isn’t universal castration unnecessarily cruel?
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Likewise if all female cats are neutered must Teddy and Tony be denied their manhood? I read that male cats are cleaner, less odorous and better self-groomers when relieved of their gonads. Perhaps the same applies to men, although no one suggests castration as a means to make them take more showers and tidy the bathroom.
So which counts more, Teddy and Tony’s bodily autonomy or their responsibility as male creatures (who cannot use contraception) to prevent unwanted pregnancies? I haven’t yet called the vet.
Bore Island
The lads made me watch my first ever episode of Love Island. I realise I sound like a High Court judge peering over his pince-nez to ask, “what is a Beatle?”, but I’d managed to shut out this phenomenon until now. OK, I said, what are the rules?
My five guides explained. The nubile people in Casa Amor do nothing all day except lie around suckling water bottles — hydration is a big deal with the youth — groom each other like primates and discuss their “relationships” with people they’ve barely met.
“Then at night they have to couple up in bed.” So they have sex? “No, they just spoon or cuddle. They only touch over the covers or the cameras zoom in.” So do they get drunk and raucous? “No, they’re only allowed two drinks per night and no spirits.”
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Are they given horrible challenges like in Big Brother, where they’re starved of food so they turn feral or have to pretend to be cats and lick up milk? No. I was ready to be outraged at this whorehouse of a show. Instead, I was monumentally bored.
Cheese surprise
Back in London, I rang Casa Bloke and my son said “that cheese you left, it’s full of maggots”. What? Three days before I’d splashed out on some fancy French stuff in a circular wooden box then left it in the pantry to go gooey. I ate it every day — stinky, deep umami, yum — always replacing the lid. So had flies somehow got into the box or were eggs already there, waiting to be left unrefrigerated to hatch? Anyway, it was delicious.