Meowseley

Name: Jasper (Identity confirmed)

1. Agility – 8/10
• Jasper lives on a shed. Getting on top of a shed requires agility therefore Jasper is agile. It is a simple equation that is old as sheds (the word shed came into common parlance in 1481, Jasper is not that old).
2. Health & Vitality – 7/10
• Look at his fluffy coat, that’s surely a sign of health isn’t it? We’ve lost track of whether we like long haired cats or not. Apparently the vet thinks he is in excellent condition. Well the vet should know, having skills in cat physiology that we can only dream of.
3. Home invasion – 0/10
• Jasper’s “visiting” is frankly rubbish. We never see him out and about he seems to make no effort to get into other houses. Though does that mean he is so stealthy that we just haven’ t noticed him? No, he’s rubbish.
4. Meow – 8/10
• This is a rarity, Jasper bearly shuts up. We’ve heard him, sitting in the street banging on about God knows what. Based on these antics we’ve seriously considered re-evaluating the concept of this category and penalising the meow. On balance we decided that this would be rash.
5. Fighting Ability – 5/10
• Although Jasper bears the scars of battle we don’t think he’s very good at it.  Apparently he once fought Edward for dominance of the shed. Can you imagine that? What a battle, we think it must have been like Gladiators, not that recent rubbish from Sky but proper Gladiators when Wolf was  in it.
6. Overall cuteness – 7/10
• He is cute, especially for an old cat. Hoovering up after him must be a pain but that has no impact on how cute he is.
7. Friendliness – 3/10
• He gets on very well with other cats but that’s not really the point. This is about how he gets on with humans (or catfood monkeys, that came from Jasper’s owner, we like that a lot).
8. Dignity – 6/10
• From his humble beginnings he has developed a quiet dignity. Well not a quiet dignity as he is unrealistically noisy. He was born under a shed in Balsall Heath, apparently. In cat terms this is literally the worst start in life you can have. It does explain his preoccupation with sheds.
9. Intelligence – 6/10
• He values the high ground, that’s pretty clever.
10. Remaining lives – 8/10
• I’m sure Jasper won’t mind us mentioning this but he is old. Very very old (we don’t know this for a fact but it sounds fairly convincing). He started his life, unwanted, under a shed. Now he owns his own shed. This is a genuine rags to riches story that warms our heart.

Summary: 58%

A good score for Jasper. It just shows that getting a bit of life experience under your belt makes all the difference.

It has come to our attention that one of our oldest cats Steven, is actually called Lucy. This means that we got both gender and name wrong. The churlish amongst you might ask, “what qualifies you to run a cat review web site when you can’t even get the gender right?”. It’s a fair question, we would say “there aren’t qualifications in reviewing cats, we’re breaking new ground here, we’re living on the edge, there will be casualties.

Lucy isn’t a casualty, she’s fine. We might look at her scores again but probably not.

Name: William (Identity confirmed)

1. Agility – 8/10
• Now William isn’t the sort of cat you’re going to see navigating an upstairs window nor a large tree but he does have a unique agility. You see, he has a lovely trot. He scampers along like he is walking on rainbows.
2. Health & Vitality – 5/10
• We worry about William. He gives off the sort of air that he is too good for this life. We’re not implying he’s sick or anything, how we would we know? We know literally nothing about cat physiology. It’s more of a feeling possibly best summed up by the wise words of Art Garfunkel, “How can the light that burned so brightly Suddenly burn so pale?” Ok, he was singing about a large rabbit and has little relevance to what we’re talking about but it makes you think doesn’t it?
3. Home invasion – 5/10
• William has so much untapped potential but just isn’t willing to go that last yard. He’s not a cat that’s going to sneak in through the back door. No, he’s brazen enough to sit outside a strangers house and asks to be let in, unfortunately he is too wary to follow this through. This could be sign of a greater intelligence, although we’re happy to reward cats for paying a quick visit, it is quite the most ridiculous activity their species engages in.
4. Meow – 6/10
•  William has a unique meow, it’s shrill but has a soft tone to it. He frequently uses it to let people know he’s about, looking.
5. Fighting Ability – 3/10
• We’ve never seen William fight. We’ve seen Edward punch him in the face a few times. He didn’t fight back. He might be a pacifist. Pacifism in cats is not something we want to see encouraged, we don’t want to see cats leaning towards any sort of philosophical bent. To be fair to William every time he has taken a bonk on the nose he’s done so with fairly good humour.
6. Overall cuteness – 7/10
• Up there with the best. Though we accept that the picture above does very little to do him justice. Put your bits away William.
7. Friendliness – 6/10
• Although he isn’t a cat  that is prone to stopping people in  the street for some random stroking he does have a lot of cat friends. William has a ridiculous number of cat friends, he can often be found lying about in the street snuggling a large tom (in this case we mean a male cat rather than the cockney colloquialism for a prostitute, this isn’t The Bill)
8. Dignity – 8/10
• William has a quiet dignity which is best summed up in his ability to observe. At any given time we challenge you to drop to the floor and just look under that car (this usually only works if you’re outside). There’s William, he’s a keeping a close eye on things and quietly making sure it doesn’t all spin out of control.
9. Intelligence – 7/10
• William has seen so much we imagine he has substantial files on just about everyone, a bit like the Stasi but possibly less malevolent. We think William’s files would involve a very complicated system that uses numbers.
10. Remaining lives – 3/10
• We don’t believe that William has ever been in any real danger, if he was he’d probably try and play with it.

Summary: 58%
Now that’s quite a respectable score.  Well done William.

Name: George (Identity confirmed)

1. Agility – 6/10
• The one thing we can say with some certainty about George is, he can run. We know this as we frequently see him running. Every time we see him running it always seems to be away from something else, another cat, a car, a carrier bag that dances in the wind. He is terrified of literally everything. This has meant that he has a admirable ability to get from one place to another, quickly. If only we could harness this ability (metaphorically, we don’t believe putting a real harness on him would do much good, he’s quick but he isn’t strong enough to pull a tiny wagon or anything like that).
2. Health & Vitality – 8/10
• George is a picture of health, as you can see he has the most fluffy of coats. Actually we think we might have done him a disservice in the previous category questioning his strength. We think George is probably one of the strongest of cats as when ever he goes out in the rain we think his fluffyness must increase his body weight by nearly 200%.
3. Home invasion – 0/10
• George is so scared of everything we cannot imagine a situation where he would break into someone elses house. Oh no, that’s not true, there is one situation where he might, if he thought for one minute that you had some tasty rubbish in your house then he would be round like a shot. George really likes to eat rubbish.
4. Meow – 4/10
• Only a little squeak but given his timidity this might be for the best.
5. Fighting Ability – 2/10
• George’s owners think he gets on with all other cats. We don’t know how to put this but…… he doesn’t. Hmmm, actually all other cats pick on him so in a sense this is sort of true.
6. Overall cuteness – 8/10
• We’ve said it before but we just don’t like long haired cats. Well we didn’t like long haired cats until George came along. It might be just us but we always imagine that George looks a bit like a wizard. We would clap our hands with sheer delight if once, just once, we could see him wearing a tiny wizards hat and some pretend glasses.
7. Friendliness – 4/10
•  We’ve tried with George, oh God we’ve tried. Every attempt at friendship is just thrown back in our face, we can only give so much, is your heart hewn from stone?
8. Dignity – 3/10
• So George, do you want to be known as the sort of cat that slopes off down a dirty alleyway and peeks out of the long grass? Do you? You’re going the right way about getting just that sort of reputation.
9. Intelligence – 7/10
• Becoming a master of magic is no small feat even if this only happened in our imagination.  We understand that George likes to bury food, this is very unusual behaviour (again we should stress we are no experts on cats or their behaviours), cartoons have led us to believe that it is just dogs that bury their dinner.  We will give points for an attempt to learn the ways of the oldest enemies of cats.
10. Remaining lives – 5/10
• We don’t know enough to go high or low on this. On the one hand his pampered appearance makes us think he couldn’t comprehend the word peril but on the other hand we know he is the subject of constant bullying.

Summary: 47%

This is really awkward. There isn’t any other way to put this, 47% is a terrible score, one of the worst (probably).  You can see that all of George’s failings come from an unwillingness to get in there, get his paws dirty and make some noise. We had hoped he would do better as we do have a bit of a soft spot for him. Unfortunately science says no.

Name: Kit (Identity confirmed)

We usually refrain from commenting on a cats name, after all a cat doesn’t pick its own name. In the case of Kit we hope he is named as a tribute to Knight Rider rather than a poor chocolate based pun. A cats identity should not be the basis of a pun.

1. Agility – 7/10
• Kit takes an active interest in building, he doesn’t build but he does supervise. He once helped a roofer build a conservatory. Imagine, you’re completely lost in a world of roofing tiles and a little cat comes trotting along the very apex of the roof to see how you are. Wouldn’t that be about the most gratifying point of your roofing career? Apparently Kit did this all the time and really annoyed the roofer, but the first time, that must have been brilliant.
2. Health & Vitality – 4/10
• There is absolutely no polite way of putting this. When Kit was born, it was difficult to tell what sex he was/is. Now we can understand that gender ambiguity in the first few days and weeks does happen, but six months? This clearly doesn’t mean that Kit is unhealthy, but you have to remember this is vitality as well. We think his coat is very shiny if that helps.
3. Home invasion – 8/10
• He will hop through anyone’s window. This is not a euphemism. This could actually be considered the very definition of reckless. Interestingly he really likes to have a look round in cars and vans. We like this as it shows a determined sense of adventure. Stowing away in a car would probably be tricky but nip under a box in the back of a van and try and imagine all the places you could end up? Probably none of them good if you want to be back in time for tea.
4. Meow – 7/10
• Kit’s owners misrepresent his meow as a bit shrill. You can’t silence a cats voice. It is rare that they ever see a need to communicate with us, so to then discount that as shrill or squeaky is grossly unfair. Maybe he is pretending to be a little mouse, maybe it is a finely honed predatory instinct, maybe it is an unintended consequence of inappropriate gender assignment. Who knows? We do know it probably means you have to spend less money on whistles.
5. Fighting Ability – 8/10
• He catches and eats rabbits. Rabbits are massive (well some rabbits are massive), he even once caught a hare. Hare’s are as swift as the wind and as dangerous as a……. we have no idea whether or not they are dangerous, we imagine they are a bit dangerous. We do know that they use greyhounds to catch hares and they’re very quick. Kit is quicker.
6. Overall cuteness – 5/10
• He’s alright, we don’t wish to generalise but we’re not that taken with long haired cats. Having a bushy mane seems a bit redundant now we have central heating. Conversely we find the cats with no hair a bit creepy, there you go, somewhere in the middle is just right for us.
7. Friendliness – 6/10
• Politeness is something that should always be rewarded, be it helping out with visiting trades people or just a general visit to see if you are OK.  Kit is known to sit on random strangers laps and whilst some might see this as  friendly in all likely hood it is little more than a quest for warmth.
8. Dignity – 3/10
• Kit once ended up at the vets because he got the packaging from a Christmas Tree stuck in his throat. Eating stuff that isn’t food is ridiculous behaviour, especially if it results in a general anaesthetic and being cut open.
9. Intelligence – 6/10
• We don’t really know what to make of this, we like to imagine that every cat has a secret power that sets them apart from all other cats. It’s a reckless fantasy but has been suddenly  given some credence by the arrival of Kit. Kit, apparently, is very aware of prawns. He just knows….about prawns. Imagine if that power got into the wrong hands, what utter mayhem could happen?
10. Remaining lives – 8/10
• A close encounter with a Christmas Tree, a desire to see the world from the back of a van, no fear of the mighty hare. Kit lives life on the edge, as you can see from his rooftop antics sometimes literally.

Summary: 62%

We hope that Kit doesn’t take some of the comments to heart. This is a very good score and puts him firmly into top percentile (we don’t really know what this means) of all cats. There is room for improvement though we admit some of that comes from our own prejudice.

Name: Towser (Identity confirmed)

1. Agility – 8/10
   • Agility is the very bread and butter of being a cat and we think Towser has more than enough to make a sandwich, to pointlessly extend a metaphor. His owner has sadly undersold Towser’s ability at agility, but we can see lashings of potential. Towser is adept at running the length of a fence. There are few sights as satisfying in life as a cheeky cat running along the top of fence, his (or her) tail all over the place, will he (or she) fall? We hope not. Towser can also jump in and out of boxes. Many people would discount this sort of activity as some sort of modern cat fad, we don’t, we can’t think of many things that make us chuckle more than a cat leaping into a box (especially if it is too small).
2. Health & Vitality – 6/10
   • We know he’s healthy, we can see he is quite shiny. These are all good things, but we also know he is prone to bringing his dinner back. This isn’t an act of selfless devotion to his owner. It’s unthinking greediness or an underlying bowel condition. We’re going to be coming down hard on this in the coming year.
3. Home invasion – 2/10
   • There doesn’t seem to be anything to substantiate any latent invasion ability. He once threw up on a neightbours doorstep, whilst amusing this is a rubbish example of breaking in. Invasion is about stealth and subtelty, projecting your dinner on the boundary has nothing to do with either of these things.
4. Meow – 4/10
   • Unfortunately Towser is weak with the meow. He can muster basic communication when he is hungry but little more than that. It’s those cats that have a story to tell that do well in this section and cat based hunger is not a compelling tale. We’ve given him a few points because he does squeak out a little greeting when he sees you, manners should always be rewarded.
5. Fighting Ability – 7/10
   • As a kitten he took on four bigger cats and battered them all, at once. We weren’t there but we imagine it was like Mortal Kombat but with more contenders and all of those contenders were cats, in fact very little of it bears any similarity to Mortal Kombat.
6. Overall cuteness – 10/10
   • Don’t look at the picture too long. What? You didn’t listen? You know what that sound is don’t you? Yes, it’s your heart melting.
7. Friendliness – 8/10
   • Towser hangs around outside school gates and lets children tickle him for cash. Whilst this might be seen as some sort of feline Glitterism we think his intentions are entirely benign. If Michael Jackson taught us anything it is that spreading the love with the children of the world will bring peace and harmony and an end to war. Towser in his own small way is bringing an end to war.
8. Dignity – 6/10
   • We know that Towser lets anyone tickle him and that has to harm his diginity. We also know that he can shake his head from side to side much like he is saying NO. Does he understand our mannerisms? Does he have a mind of his own? Being able to know what you don’t want is a key element of self determination. Whilst it will take millions of year of evolution for cats to have free will, maybe Towser is one of the first steps on that very long road.
9. Intelligence – 7/10
   • Now here’s a quirky thing, Towser has a penchant for escapology. This is a skill that is largely underatted in human society after Noel Edmonds ruined it for everyone else. We understand that as a compliment to his skill at jumping into boxes he can also escape from them. This brings to mind our favourite physicist Mr Erwin Shrodinger. His thought experiment that posited that a cat could exist within a box being both alive and dead simultaneously was bound to interest us. Though we would take Shrodinger to task on the wisdom of trapping cats in boxes with radioactive isotopes we appreciate that it was only a theoretical experiment and it did quite alot to prove how useful cats are. The correlation with Towser is that once he gets in a box he can poke his head out and look quite cute. Therefore Towser is cleverer than Shrodinger as he is in no confusion about his current state. As an interesting aside Noel Edmonds now makes a living our of whoring boxes, let’s hope he doesn’t break those too.
10. Remaining lives – 7/10
    • Once Towser vanished for three days. On his return he was soaked and had tiny cuts around his mouth like he had eaten his way out of danger. Do you remember that episode of Batman where he was stuck in a box that was slowly filling with water? Yeah, that happened to Towser (we think)

Summary: 65%

A very good score for Towser there. It’s not just based on looks, he has some solid life experience and we have gone a little giddy with our first cat of the New Year.

Name: Hobbes (Identity confirmed)

Every now and then a cat comes along that touches the lives of everyone that it meets. A cat that makes you spontaneously clap your hands with glee. This is just such a cat.

1. Agility – 9/10
   • We won’t beat about the bush here, look at the picture, he’s on the bloody roof. How did he get up there? We don’t know, people can’t get onto that roof, it’s like he has done the impossible. What we do know is that Hobbes just fancied a bit of a sleep, ON THE ROOF. This is just one example of how Hobbes rolls. You might be wondering why he only got nine points, well we did observe Hobbes fall off the top of a car once. This isn’t very cat like behaviour. Though we should add that it was a car he was trying to steal at the time.
2. Health & Vitality – 7/10
   • We know nothing about his medical history and he always appears fairly healthy. He’s got a shiny coat and a glint in his eye which is surely a good sign. We know, for a fact, that any mischievous twinkle is surely yet another madcap caper hatching in this most extra ordinairy of cats.
3. Home invasion – 15/10
   • Normal rules don’t apply. We’ve had to push the envelope and call on every cliche we can think of. Let me tell you a story about Hobbes, one day I woke up and found Hobbes sitting next to my bed staring at me. HOBBES IS NOT MY CAT, he doesn’t even have a key. A thorough investigation provided no clue as to how he got in or how long he had been there. This was a new development as usually Hobbes would knock on the front door if he wanted to come in. Since the bedroom incident he likes to break in and have a bit of look round quite regularly. As mentioned before he also tried to steal a car once. Not the whole thing, what would he do with it? No, he took a fancy to the windscreen wiper and pulled it off, it resulted in him falling flat on his arse but he had a go, and that’s the important thing.
4. Meow – 8/10
   • Absolutely nothing wrong with his meow. If knocking on the door doesn’t work he’ll sit and meow until someone opens the door. Not of his own house, oh no, he works his way down every house in the street.
5. Fighting Ability – 1/10
   • We’re disappointed to say this but quite frankly Hobbes is rubbish in a fight. We’ve regularly seen him getting beaten up by other cats. We imagine that breaking into their houses and stealing their dinner hasn’t helped this situation.
6. Overall cuteness – 6/10
   • He’s quite cute, better than average but we don’t want to overboard. This isn’t some sort of Hobbes fan site.
7. Friendliness – 8/10
   • Can a cat be too friendly? No, what a stupid question (though we have vague recollection that we might have marked cats down previously for this before) Hobbes shows definite warmth and compassion when he meets you in the street. He really cares about your day and will drop everything to hear about it. Once you meet Hobbes you can be certain that you finally know what true friendship means.
8. Dignity – 7/10
   • Sitting on a roof that nobody else can reach? That’s dignity.
9. Intelligence – 3/10
   • Getting into seemingly inpenitrable houses clearly shows some intelligence but if you’re doing to just steal food off other cats that will then give you a right kicking…. that’s not clever. We still don’t know what he was going to do with that windscreen wiper.
10. Remaining lives – 5/10
    • Although we know so much, we still know so little. We can’t imagine that a cat with this level of confidence hasn’t brushed death but we have no evidence of it either.

Summary: 79%

That’s a giant score (even though we acknowledge that we have messed with the criteria). He isn’t just better than all other cats that we’ve come across previously, he has redefined the very principle of assessing the quality of cats. Henceforth Hobbes shall be the basis by which all cats are judged.

Name: Doris (Identity confirmed)

What’s this? The third or even fourth cat this year? Yes indeed, this is what it’s like at the cutting edge of the world wide web.

1. Agility – 3/10
   • We’re used to owners embellishing their cats agility but Doris makes a refreshing change. Apparently she can’t be arsed. Fair play to her, jumping over things is overrated. Unless, of course your judging a cat on agility then such abilities are very much rated.
2. Health & Vitality – 10/10
   • Doris is polydactyl, we were very excited when we found this out, mainly because we thought it said pterodactyl, we did wonder why a prehistoric flying lizard had been submitted to a cat review site. Once we realised our mistake we were again very excited. Doris has got thumbs. This means she is the next stage of feline evolution and could, at a push, open her own tins of cat food.  Apparently she does wheeze a bit but we’re ignoring this because she has thumbs.
3. Home invasion – 6/10
   • Although she doesn’t have a great history of breaking into other houses she has lived in a fair few places. She once lived with Len but he got rid of her because she tripped him up. It doesn’t seem very tolerant but also fairly short sighted by Doris. She’s lived in Tidbury Green and Whitlocks End which sound like completely made up places. She also lived in Sid and Linda’s conservatory. We have absolutely no idea who any of these people are but it’s good solid background.
4. Meow – 6/10
   • With a fair vocabulary she can wax lyrical on a variety of topics. It’s nice to meet a cat with a decent range. Too often cats are entirely food focussed. Doris  lets people know when her water bowl is empty. This is very good because decent water intake is good for her kidneys.
5. Fighting Ability – 2/10
   • We don’t really know enough to cover this. We assume that other cats recognise who evolutionary superiority and respond accordingly. We know she doesn’t back down from cats trespassing in her garden but that’s what they’re supposed to do.
6. Overall cuteness – 5/10
   • Leaving aside the evil green eyes we think Doris is quite cute. She’s getting on a bit (is she? We’re not sure how old she is) so has the look of a well lived cat. She’s got a nice face. We’ve been told that her quiet snores are endearing but with the fact she is prone to wheezing this might be dodgy lungs. Dodgy lungs aren’t cute.
7. Friendliness – 6/10
   • We were going to ask Len to mark this section but given the way she tripped him up we thought he might be a bit biased. She seems to have made a number of human friends over the years so we’ll give her quite a good score.
8. Dignity – 1/10
   • She once went to Scotland, on holiday, and pranced round a motorway service station in a harness. Funny? Yes. Dignified? No. She has been penalised for the harness rather than going to Scotland. If cats want to go to Scotland than that’s fine with us.
9. Intelligence – 5/10
   • Her submission implies she can read. We doubt this. In all the years of doing this we haven’t come across a single cat that could read. She fell for the whole harness thing so we think she isn’t too clever. Having said that she apparently used to busk. This indicates a grasp of commerce.
10. Remaining lives – 5/10
    • She’s done well for herself. A number of different homes but still seems to be a settled individual. As far as we can work out she hasn’t really had any substantial brushes with death but she should get those lungs looked at.

Summary: 47%

Doris took a hammering in a few categories there, particularly dignity, agility and fighting. This proves the genius of this system, an active cat with a disdain for the world (and prone to violence) is purity of the feline species. If Doris is going to lead cat kind to the next stage of  life on earth then she needs to up her game and jump about a bit more (and possibly punch something).

It’s only been a few days but Ruby’s been found. Actually she hasn’t been found, she came home of her own accord.

If previous experience is anything to go by then we assume that the Birmingham Post will be clamouring for a press conference.

We don’t know where she’s been but apparently she looked a bit thin, was very hungry and quite tired. Though cats tend to be quite tired from the moment they get up.

We think she’s been to town.

Fortunately it’s been quite a while since we’ve heard about a cat going missing.

Unfortunately it looks like Ruby