Owner of world's TRUE oldest cat didn't bother to apply to Guinness World Records

The true oldest domestic cat in the world (probably) has, according to a report in The Times today, just passed over the rainbow bridge at the age of 33. Her name was Rosie and she lived with her owner, Lila Brissett, in a ground floor flat. 

Lila Brissett and Rosie. Image: The Mirror newspaper.

Rosie turned 33 on June 1 this year which made her 152 years old in human terms. The interesting story for me about Rosie is that Guinness World Records sent Rosie's owner an application form to apply for the world's oldest cat but she never completed it. 🙄😃

Lila Brissett, a widower, said she was heartbroken about losing Rosie. She added that she misses her "so much". Lila says she never wanted to have Rosie euthanised and therefore Rosie died of natural causes. Lila said this about her death: "She wasn't very well and one day she just walked into the hallway of the house, laid it down and passed away."

She added that: "There were lots of good memories though and I'm happy we had our time together."

As you might expect in her old age Rosie became very particular and had a very set routine which was to eat and go to her favourite spot by the window where she would stay all day and sleep and snooze. She insisted on eating Purina One cat food. If she didn't get it she kicked up a fuss.

Lila was naturally concerned about Rosie's passing over the rainbow bridge because she had lived with her for 33 years and "She'll leave a big void".

Rosie was adopted as a shelter kitten from a rescue centre because the family who own Rosie had a cat allergy we are told.

She was approached by the rescue centre because she had previously rescued an abuse cat and dog from them.

Rosie's mother was a grey Ragdoll according to this report (The Times) who mated with a ginger tom. Rosie was a longhaired cat with a very fluffy coat.

The oldest domestic cat ever was called Creme Puff from Austin, Texas, USA. She was born in 1967 and died in August 2005 having lived an impressive 38 years and three days.

The story implies that the Guinness World Records reports of the oldest cat are not necessarily the true oldest cats because it does rely upon an application being made by the owner. There will probably be thousands of very old cats out there right now who could be in the Guinness World Records book but are not. The current oldest cat is 28 years old. Her name is Flossie. It's probably true that another cat somewhere is older than that.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

From the outside Polish firefighters rescue a cat stuck in a window on the 7th floor

Polish firefighters rescue a cat stuck in window on 7th floor of an apartment block from the outside of the building which is very unusual. Some fighters don't do this as it is expensive and for some administrations a waste of public funds.

The rescue looks tricky. I have estimated that it is the 7th floor. I don't see a cat carrier on the cherry picker. And we don't know why the cat needed rescuing except to guess that the owner was away and the cat somehow became trapped in the window. He/she was released with the help of a metal bar.

My guess is that the window opens by rocking around a central axis and the cat walked on the window to get out because the owner was away for a long time. The window rocked on its axis and trapped the cat between the window and the frame. The cat then cried out and the fire service was called by a neighbour in the block. Just guessing and speculating.

Polish firefighters rescue a cat!Thank you heroes!👨🏻‍🚒🧡 pic.twitter.com/O27lD5AYAX

— No Cats No Life (@NoCatsNoLife_m) September 12, 2024

Separately, there is currently severe flooding in parts of Poland so there will be many pets who need rescuing and who have been rescued and probably some who've died. Let's think of them and wish them the best of luck.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

JD Vance pours gasoline on the Haitian cat eating story and gets badly burned

Surprisingly, and in another poor decision by the Trump/Vance partnership, JD Vance has continued to pour gasoline on the discredited migrant cat eating story by posting on his Twitter/X feed (with 1.9 million followers) a video of poultry being cooked on an outdoor grill while claiming that domestic cats were being cooked in preparation for an outdoor meal in Ohio!

JD Vance. Image: Wikipedia.

The video accompanied the following words: "Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves. Another debunked story that turned out to have merit."

Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves.

Another "debunked" story that turned out to have merit. https://t.co/dOyh9oTXhb

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 14, 2024

You may remember that JD Vance had claimed falsely that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were stealing domestic cats and eating them. There are many Haitian immigrants (I believe that they are legal immigrants) in Springfield, Ohio a town of 58,000 citizens. And I believe that the indigenous citizens have become annoyed by this 20,000 influx and have created this false scenario on social media which went viral.

Trump and Vance grabbed hold of it is a useful story to emphasise their desire to stop illegal immigration and that they are the duo best suited for this task. But they dug a big hole for themselves. And in this instance JD Vance has apparently got burnt by throwing gasoline on an already simmering fire.

The Independent newspaper tells us that this video was originally posted by the right-wing Manhattan Institute's Christopher Rufo, who apparently offered a $5,000 bounty to anyone that could provide proof of cat eating migrants in Ohio.

The newspaper is able to tell us that the footage was filmed last year in Dayton according to Rufo who has spoken to the person who made the video. The person who shot the video said that "some Africans that stay right next door to my kid's mother". And Rufo insists that the claims were verified i.e. that cats were being eaten, by "multiple witnesses and visual cross-references." 

His article states that the video shows "a pair of flayed cats on a blue barbecue in Dayton Ohio".

Note: Haiti is not in Africa! It is in the Caribbean.

The reaction was rapid on social media. The general tenor of the criticisms is that chickens were being cooked and they were surprised that Rufo and JD Vance was unable to tell the difference between chickens and cats who reposted the video.

Here's an example: " “I find it strange that a self-professed ‘hillbilly’ doesn’t know what whole chickens look like."

And another example in capital letters to emphasise the point!: “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT CHICKENS LOOK LIKE WITH THEIR LEGS ATTACHED YOU F****ING DIPSHIT.”

The Independent reached out to Rufo for a comment but he did not respond. Also, the JD Vance campaign declined to comment. And an expert at the National Chicken Council did not reply to requests to comment.

However, somebody close to JD Vance told the newspaper that they did not believe the carcasses to be grilled were chickens. The Independent newspaper journalist writes that "a visual comparison of skinned cats prepared for laboratory use and whole plucked chickens suggested the animals in the video are almost certainly not feline."

The story is both bizarre and sickening actually. We have to discuss, in this story, skinned cats being grilled in a backyard in Ohio. It makes me want to puke.

This is another escalation in this ridiculous story and it very strongly appears that JD Vance is digging a bigger hole for himself and the Tramp campaign. He's thrown gasoline on the embers of a fire that was fizzling out nicely and now it is back in flames in the headlines.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Pope Francis asks America's Roman Catholics to vote for Harris or Trump based on WHO IS THE LESSER EVIL!

OPINION: Pope Francis has unexpectedly and uncommonly dived into the American presidential election campaign and suggested that America's 52 million Roman Catholics should make a decision about who to support on the basis of the presidential candidates' views on abortion and immigration and who therefore is the 'lesser evil'.

Pope Francis pontificating about God knows what. Excuse the double pun. Image: Reuters.

We know that Kamala Harris has vowed to sign any legislation passed by Congress that would restore national protections for abortion access which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years ago under the then President Trump.

In Trump we know that he is very strong on illegal immigration. He has consistently said that he will crack down on illegal immigration and deport millions of immigrants who made it to the United States.

And Pope Francis said that both issues are about life. The lives of unborn babies and the lives of immigrants. You decide what's more important. He doesn't know the answer. He said that Roman Catholics must choose the lesser evil.

"You must choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don't know."

So he's asking people to decide whether Harris is better than Trump or Trump is better than Harris in terms of overall character. But to refer to Harris as evil is mad. 😎😒

Well, Pope Francis is entirely wrong in asking Roman Catholics to decide on the character of Trump and Harris on the basis of their policies on immigration and abortion.

You have to decide on a person's character on a full spectrum of behaviours. On what they say and do over a long period of time.

And when you do that you are forced to come to the only possible conclusion namely that Kamala Harris is a far better person than Donald Trump.

I realise that a lot of Americans worship him (I respect that) but Donald Trump has clearly demonstrated that he lacks integrity. For example, you might think it minor but he cheats at golf. Anybody who does that lacks integrity. And we know he lies. And we know that he is a misogynistic egocentric twit. Plus he is a convicted criminal for God's sake. We know is a bad decision-maker judging by the last presidential debate. What more do we need?

And we know that Kamala Harris has a very strong record on animal welfare throughout her personal and professional life - a sign of a good character. She has a good face. She has a face which beams integrity in my view. I think we can read faces and I think faces project a person's personality. That's why I say she has a good face. She has integrity. She is normal. She is balanced. She wants to do the right thing. She hasn't got an ego as big as a house. She isn't narcissistic. She is decent.

These are the issues when deciding who the better person is. Donald Trump wants to build a wall to block immigrants to America. I understand the concerns about mass illegal immigration to America. They are very great concerns but I think we have to ask ourselves whether we would do the same thing as these immigrants if we lived in crappy countries and wanted to improve our lives. I would certainly go north from South and Central America and try and get into the US. It's normal.

As for abortion, this is a very polarised topic. But the general consensus is that abortion is acceptable provided the foetuses is below a certain age. Deciding what that ages is complicated. So abortion per se according to the vast majority of people is not evil or bad. It is a natural extension of humankind's carelessness in having a child that they don't want.

I agree with the Pope in one respect in that in a more ideal and better world there would be no need for abortion because people would be far more careful and there would be no unwanted babies. But we have to accommodate humankind's sloppiness and bad behaviour. Abortion is a very bad compromise accommodating humankind's poor behaviour but it has to be acceptable because you have to respect women's rights as well. And the welfare of a child brought into this grim world when unwanted.

As I said, Pope Francis has got this wrong. And as I also say it's obvious who the better person is. And for the Pope to even suggest that Kamala Harris is evil is ridiculous. You might say that about Donald Trump! But it depends upon your political affiliations.

Some people worship Donald Trump. There's a kind of cult worship for him which is disconcerting. But neither person is evil really. But neither person is perfect. It's just that Kamala Harris is in a different league in terms of decent behaviour.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

According to Ian Murray, a Scottish Labour politician, Larry the Cat is a "little shit"

NEW AND VIEWS: Ian Murray is a Scottish Labour politician who has represented the Edinburgh South constituency in the UK Parliament since 2010. He grew up in Edinburgh and is a football fan. He is an advocate for Unionism and he dislikes Brexit. He's a centrist and a resilient and experienced politician.

Larry the Cat photographed at Downing Street outside No 10. Don't know who the photographer is. Sorry. Please tell me in a comment.

After the recent landslide Labour Party victory in the general election, he went to Downing Street after the office called the Scottish Labour Party politicians to get them down to number 10 as I understand it.

In a speech at the annual dinner of CBI Scotland in Glasgow he said the following about that visit:

"We were initially like kids in a sweet shop. Because the first thing we all did, we had the election, we had the overnight counts, the 37 Scottish Labour MPs got their photographs taken in Glasgow, we darted to the airport, we got to London, just made it to London in time. Downing Street rang, and all of us who pretty much knew inevitably that the Cabinet was going to be as the shadow cabinet was with a few exceptions, walked to Downing Street really excited and all we wanted to do was, not get the chat with the Prime Minister to be appointed [Sir Kier Starmer] but was to try and get a picture with Larry the cat."

He continued:

"And without putting too fine a point on it, Larry the Cat was a little shit. So none of us got a picture with Larry the Cat. Larry the Cat is the most miserable animal you'll ever meet in your life. I'm not surprised given who he's had to live with for the last 10 years."

Of course, he was making a funny speech or trying to be funny! So we have to forgive his criticism of Larry the Cat. But clearly the criticism is incorrect because why should Larry the Cat want to cooperate with the demands of a bunch of politicians who charge into number 10 Downing Street looking for a photograph. Many cats don't even like being photographed never mind with strangers.

Ian Murray. Image by Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street - Number 10 Flickr page, OGL 3, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150064834

He should have realised that domestic cats in general don't like the presence of entire strangers on their territory. And let's be clear, number 10 Downing Street is the territory of Larry the Cat. It is his home range including the environs. He's not going to cooperate. He no doubt scarpered and disappeared as soon as possible.

Without wishing to be too serious because this is a funny story (really), I think Ian Murray should do a little bit of judicious studying about cat behaviour at which point he wouldn't be so critical of our beloved Downing Street mouser.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.