What is ailurophilia?

Ailurophilia is the love of cats. A person who loves cats is an ailurophile. Authors are predisposed to being ailurophiles. Many famous people have loved and love cats. Many celebrated figures were and are dedicated to felines. I myself am an ailurophile. However, I like all animals more or less equally. It has to be equally otherwise I would be criticised for speciesism.

Portrait of Shelley, by Alfred Clint (1829). 

Source: Wikipedia.

I can't produce a complete list of famous ailurophiles so I'll select some authors initially. Here they are:

Kingsley Amis, Emily Brontë, Lord Byron, Raymond Chandler, John Cocteau, Colette, Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, Ernest Hemingway, and Frank, Aldous Huxley, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, HG Wells.

Here are 10 poets who were or are ailurophiles:

Matthew Arnold, Cecil Day-Lewis, William Butler Yeats, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, John Keats and TS Eliot.

Here are half a dozen artists who were or are ailurophiles:

Edward Lear, Leonardo da Vinci, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

Here are some heads of state and cultural leaders who were or are ailurophiles:

US Pres Jimmy Carter, King Charles I, Sir Winston Churchill, US Pres Bill Clinton, US Pres Calvin Coolidge, King Edward VII, US Pres Gerald Ford, Pope Gregory I, US Pres John F. Kennedy, US Pres Abraham Lincoln, US president Ronald Reagan, US Pres Theodore Roosevelt and Prime Minister Harold Wilson and lastly Queen Victoria.

Here's are some composers and musicians who were or are ailurophiles:

Alexander Borodin, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Chopin, Ravel.

A philosopher who was a cat lover: Jeremy Bentham.

Some scientists who were ailurophiles:

Erasmus Darwin, Albert Einstein, Thomas Huxley and Isaac Newton.

Humanitarians who were ailurophiles:

Florence Nightingale and Albert Schweitzer.

Sportsmen and women who are ailurophiles: Frank Bruno, Sally Gunnell and O.J. Simpson.

Stage and screen stars who were or are ailurophiles:

Fred Astaire, Tallulah Bankhead, Bridget Bardot, Kim Basinger, Warren Beatty, Doris Day, Melanie Griffith, Charles Lawton, Janet Leigh, James Mason, Robert De Niro, Beryl Reid, Edward G Robinson, Elizabeth Taylor and Franco Zeffirelli.

Julian Assange dresses up his cat in collar and tie

This is not live, current news, not at all as it harks back to November 2016. And I am not even sure whether Julian Assange still has a domestic cat at the Ecuadorian embassy. I think he has. He was gifted him/her by a friend as a companion and I believe that his Internet access has been denied him. If this is true it would be a great loss to him.



In any case, the photograph caught my eye. Either he or somebody else at the embassy is dressing up his cat companion in collar and tie. All cat lovers won't like that. It's not a good idea. It is also slightly sad, perhaps hugely sad, that his cat is confined to a very small space at the embassy because Julian Assange occupies quite a small part of it. I don't think this is right either.

I know cats sometimes live in apartments but as I understand it Julian is living in an area not much larger than the size of a bedsit or studio flat (in UK parlance) which I think is too small for any domestic cat. It really must be.

I'm not even kidding. Assange's cat is now wearing a collar and tie. pic.twitter.com/ZdaMeRS3aW

— NickdMiller (@NickdMiller) November 14, 2016

My First Cousin Is Billy Idol and He Brutally Killed a Kitten

My first cousin is Billy Idol. He was having an argument with his then girlfriend and this is back in the 1980s as I understand it, and I suppose in order to get at his girlfriend he allegedly threw his girlfriend's kitten against the wall of the room and killed the kitten. That's about it. It's in complete contrast to me because I am an animal advocate.






I hate animal cruelty. It is obviously entirely unnecessary. It is objectionable. It is horrible. It is criminal behaviour but there is little chance that he will be prosecuted because it happened such a long time ago.

The information comes from a memoir by a guy called Adam Bomb. He refers to Billy Idol's then girlfriend Claire O'Connor. It was Claire O'Connor who owned the kitten as I understand it. She disclosed the information to Adam Bomb. She said that Billy could be nasty sometimes. This was an example of that behaviour. But this is an allegation let's not forget.

We don't know whether Billy Idol was drunk or drugged at the time but what he did was unforgivable quite obviously. I am ashamed of him. I am connected to him because Billy Idol is the son of my late father's brother (also now deceased). He is therefore my first cousin. My name is Michael Broad. Billy Idol's name is William Broad.

As I recall, I played with William many years ago when he was a teenager or even before that. I can't recall. I could have met him at a party that he attended which was a party to celebrate Billy Idol's father's life because at that time he was dying. He did not come down from a bedroom in his father's house so I was unable to meet him.

Two photos of Palmerston the house cat at the UK's Foreign Office

They are not great photos; more snapshots. But it was all I could get on a recent visit to this vast, ornate building near the Palace of Westminster. Palmerston is named after a former Prime Minister. His job is to keep down rodents. He has caught 22 mice since being hired not long ago.

He wanted some peace a quiet so slopped off to a quiet corner where the public could not go. He is very laid back. As you can see he is a random bred black-and-white; a tuxedo cat.

"Pompous Albert" Is a Purebred Haughty Version of Grumpy Cat

I think that Pompous Albert is the first purebred celebrity cat as far as I'm aware. Not only that, he is quite a rare purebred cat because he is a Selkirk Rex. Not many people look after a Selkirk Rex. They look a bit like sheep! They have this thick wavy coat and their appearance underneath the coat is somewhat like a British or American shorthair.



Talking about appearance, Pompous Albert, certainly has his own distinctive look which as his name indicates is pompous with a certain amount of grumpiness combined with a haughtiness resulting in a unique un-catlike appearance.

When some visitors see him they ask whether he is actually a domestic cat such is his arresting appearance. He lives with Susan and Michael Singleton of Salt Lake City. He is seven years old. His appearance has remained unchanged since the day he was born.

He spends his days in the offices of the Singletons' fine art publishing business with two cat companions. Cats are great in the workplace. He is named after Albert Einstein apparently so we will have to assume that Albert Einstein was quite pompous.

He has the grumpy cat glare, while the haughtiness comes from the upward turning eyes, I would say. The Is
eyes are marked out very nicely with heavy black eyeliner. It's more a glare actually, a glare which says he does not suffer fools gladly.

He is a typical cat with one or two small exceptions. For example he likes to be vacuumed! Most cats run away from vacuum cleaners but apparently he likes to be vacuum cleaned. Rarely cats like this because it feels good but normally the noise terrifies cats. He attacks paper shredders and photocopiers and printers. He likes kids (that's an excellent quality).

He has 30,000 followers on Instagram which is fantastic but it's a long way short of the fame of the all conquering Grumpy Cat. Grumpy Cat has earned an estimated hundred million dollars for her owner, Tabatha. We don't know the exact amount but that's a guesstimate. No cat is going to beat that ever.

Justin Bieber's Fake Penis

Forgive me for the title and that there isn't a cat in sight.  It is just that this is so modern. The fakery.

Apologies for the rude title but it is honest.

It is isn't just fake muscles and fake chest and whatever else has to be fake in a fake world. Bieber has to make his penis look bigger in his underpants.

Big deal. I don't know whether he agreed to this Photoshopping. He should have vetoed it. He should have asked questions. He seems to have let his "advisers" take charge and make him look silly, to be candid.

When this sort of fakery dominates the online media there is little chance for people to comprehend the reality of the current situation regarding the plight of the wild cat species. Their conservation is failing but few people have registered that.

Whoops....I have mentioned a cat.

Dolly Parton Offers to Adopt Dolly in the UK

Dolly

You have probably heard about this story but if you haven't it is about a dog that was abandoned at the recent Glastonbury Festival and is now being cared for at a rescue centre. Dolly Parton, who sang at the Glastonbury Festival and was probably the main attraction, heard about Dolly and these are her own words on her Google plus account page:

Well, I heard about the dog that was abandoned after Glastonbury Festival this year that's since been named after me... I had my manager call the Happy Landings Animal Shelter to make sure the dog is being treated and cared for properly, and if nobody claims her, I will take her back home to America with me!

Ain't she cute? :)

I wonder if her manager wrote those words. Quite possible but they are meant to be from her. I don't think you can add much more to the post and that. It's rather strange that nobody as far as I'm aware has come forward in the UK to adopt Dolly who indeed is a very cute long-haired random bred dog as far as I can tell (no, I am told she is a 7 year old lurcher - possible a lurcher mix).

I realise of course that this is not about cats but I couldn't resist and in any case it's about companion animals so it is a very similar subject.

Karl Lagerfeld's Siamese Cat

Karl Lagerfeld has that robotic looking face and style. Apparently he is a man of deeply entrenched habits. Perfectly understandable. He is the designer for Chanel. He is very rich. He has a rich man's habits. He was asked to look after a Siamese kitten for the model Baptiste Giabiconi - his 'muse'. What is a muse? A person close to you who inspires your creative process. I think that is right.

Mr Lagerfeld liked the Siamese kitten too much to give her back. She was too cute, he says. His muse accepted his wishes. The cat is called 'Choupette'. You can see a picture on Twitter here.

Naturally, Choupette has everything a cat desires and more. She has two maids to look after her and who write a diary about her every move. It is already 600 pages long and will be made into a book (possibly).

Choupette likes to use an iPad along the lines of what we see on YouTube. She eats with her human companion on the table. Mr Lagerfeld makes sure she eats cat food and not his food. I sense that he is a very good cat caretaker. He's a cat person! Great. This has to be good for cats.

Choupette likes to use an iPad

Of all the cat breeds the Siamese is the breed most attractive to celebrities and the rich. There is a long history of this. Why? Well they were called the 'Royal Cat of Siam' as they originally came from the royal palaces of the King of Siam (now Thailand) - history. That may be a factor. They are still a glamorous looking cat and still in the top three of the most popular cat breeds. However, the Siamese is no longer considered exotic. That accolade belongs to wildcat hybrids today (2012).

Associated:

• Film Stars and Siamese Cats
• Amy Winehouse and her cats (not Siamese as far as I am aware).