12 Types of Cat

‘I love cats. They are cute. They are independent. They can be good companions but they are not needy. Besides nothing says “home” better than a house with a cat in it.’

I could have said exactly that but these are the words of Lingvistov to introduce a series of excellent and amusing illustrations – 12 Types of Cat.

Here are 6 of my favourites:

Lingvistov’s other cat series are great too, including: 15 Truths About Cats and If My Cat Could Speak…

Cats & Japan

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Japan’s love for cats was a fairly new thing, with cat cafés and Internet cat sensations such as Maru (the adorable chubby cat who likes to get into cardboard boxes) and Nyan cat (the animated cat whose song you won’t be able to get out of your head – plus ‘nyan’ means ‘meow’, by the way). But Japan has been a cat-loving nation (mostly) since the animal was first introduced to the country, from China, in the 6th century. One place where cats have had a significant impact on Japanese culture and lifestyle is in art – from pre- ukiyo-e to the modern day.

Tofugu (a wonky Japanese language and culture website) blogger Linda Lombardi has written a great piece on this very subject entitled ‘Printed, Painted, and Sculpted Kitties – Cats in Japanese Art’:

Cats are an obsession in modern Japan. Most people have heard of cat cafes by now, but did you know there are cat shrines and even cat tourism?  Tama the cat was appointed stationmaster of a Wakayama train station and revived the local economy by attracting tens of thousands of tourists a year. There’s a tourist-magnet island overrun with kitties. February 22 is unofficially Cat Day because nyan-nyan (the Japanese “mew-mew”) can also mean “two-two.” 

This may all seem like particularly modern craziness, but in reality it’s just the 21st-century version of something that goes way back, as we can see by looking at the history of Japanese art. Whether ink on paper or pixels on a screen, depictions of cats have been popular for as long as cats have been in Japan.

Read the full article here.

I’m a Cats Protection sponsor

Earlier this month I made the decision to become a Cats Protection sponsor, donating money each month to help cats and kittens in the UK.

Hungry, homeless and alone, every day hundreds of unwanted cats arrive at Cats Protection. Sponsoring one of our cat pens is one of the best ways you can help, providing them with shelter, warmth, food, medical care and the love they need.

I received my starter pack in the post last week, including a sticker which I promptly put on display in my car. That cute little tabby face you see there in the middle belongs to Luna, the first cat I am sponsoring. She’s two years old, expecting a litter of kittens and looks just like my Cleo.

It’s no secret that I love cats. Cleo, the tabby-cat, is my most favourite furry creature in all of the world but she lives with my parents and I do not any more. I really miss having a cat permanently in my life – although, of course, I see Cleo fairly often. Sadly, I live in a flat where it would not only be far from ideal for a cat (third floor and no garden area, so only suitable for an indoor cat) but ‘NO PETS’ is also stated in my letting agreement. Like many letting agreements…

Cats and housing providers: Government recognition of the needs of people with cats or other companion animals in rented housing and care homes to allow people to keep their pets and avoid heartbreaking separations of cats from their owners. We’d also like to see more local authorities, social housing associations and private landlords having pet friendly tenancy clauses. (96 per cent agreed)

This is just one of the things included in the Cats Protection’s Manifesto for Cats.

This video literally made my cry because I am unable to adopt my own cat right now.
But at least I am able to help in other ways. Are you?

Miscellaneous samurai cats of unknown origin

I started a ‘Cats, cats, cats’ board on Pinterest last week. It was a spur of the moment thing and serves no more of a purpose than my ‘Trees’ board does – I like trees, and I like cats, so I collect images of them. Whereas, at least my food and design boards serve an inspiration purpose. But anyway, it’s my Pinterest account and I can pin what I want!

One of the first images that got pinned to the Cats, cats, cats board features many wonderful samurai or ninja felines. Unfortunately, as is the way with many of the images on Pinterest, I have no idea who the artist is or even where these cats come from. My ‘pin’ is pinned from someone else, who seems to have found the image here – a website that is basically a Chinese Tumblr. I’ve tried a Google search-by-image but it only brings up more Pinterest pages and mystery Chinese or Japanese blogs.

Alas, I tried. Now enjoy the miscellaneous samurai cats of unknown origin in all their glory:

Happy Cats Café

It’s not very often that a completely random follower on Twitter actually intrigues me enough to follow back, view their website (even when the link doesn’t work at first and I have to search for it instead!) and end up ‘pledging’ money to them – all within the space of about half an hour. In fact, the money part has never happened before (I don’t go throwing money around willy-nilly! (Willy-nilly is a ridiculously weird phrase…)).

If you’re a regular user of Twitter and you actually tweet often, as I do, then you’re probably prone to picking up more than a few strange accounts as new followers each week. Most don’t stay followers for long as they probably picked up on a certain word or phrase you tweeted and are trying to promote their own business or just their own personal Twitter account. I normally at least read the bio of new followers, but very rarely do I actually follow back.

Today was an exception. Probably mostly because it involved cats.
Cats and good cause.

(I strongly believe that their logo should use an accent over the e! (I hate it when people pronounce café as kaff. It sounds like it belongs in Eastenders, which is certainly not a good thing! I’m pretty sure that this Happy Cats Café is indeed intended to be pronounced café.) But cute coffee-bearing cat here anyway.)

The Happy Cats Café is, or at least will be, a cat café in Birmingham – the first of its kind, at least in that area of the UK (there’s definitely one cat café in London, I haven’t been, but I’m not sure about anywhere else in the UK). At the minute it is running as a Kickstarter campaign and needs to reach its goal of £10,000 if it is going to become a reality. I really hope it does!

I’d heard of Kickstarter before today but didn’t really know how it works. Basically you pledge (meaning you don’t actually pay right away) whatever amount of money you can to a cause you think is worthy. And, assuming they reach their target (that being when you would pay, but only if they are successful), you are rewarded with something when the idea becomes a reality. In my case, and for the money I pledged today, I would get to be amongst the cats at the Happy Cats Café for 45 minutes with whoever I decide to bring along – plus a cuppa each, as it is a café afterall.

Now, ‘what is this cat café thing anyway?’ I hear you asking. It, like many of lifes greatest wonders, comes from Japan. Of course, the Japanese love cats! Look, here’s Maru:

A cat café is a themed café. Apart from the usual servings of a café, the charm arises from interaction with cats that walk around the café. They can be watched and played with if they wish. Cat cafés are often used by those that cannot have cats in their own homes, due to housing restrictions and living situations etc. Cats therefore provide relaxing companionship in what some people experience as a lonely urban life.

Cat cafés are very popular in Japan, with Tokyo being home to at least 39 cat cafés already*. Japanese cat cafés feature strict rules to ensure cleanliness and animal welfare, in particular seeking to ensure that the cats are not disturbed by excessive and unwanted attention, such as by young children or when sleeping. Many cat cafés also seek to raise awareness of cat welfare issues, for example abandoned and stray cats and many often have cats from local animal shelters to help them lose any fear of humans and advertise them for possible adoption. – Happy Cats Café on Kickstarter

* sadly, I didn’t actually visit any cat cafés when I was in Tokyo last year. I know, I know! I should have. I even saw a sign for one in Asakusa… So I’ve never been to a cat café, Japanese or otherwise.

Ally and Damian, the people behind the Happy Cats Café idea, want their cat café to have a Japanese theme in terms of the design and ethic. Which, quite frankly, sounds amazing to a Japanophile-cat-lover like me. Plus it reflects on the origin of the whole cat café idea.

Check out the Kickstarter video, below, and join me in pledging to this great cause… well, if you agree that it’s a great cause!

Didga the Skateboarding Cat

I first watched this video a few months ago. I think it was shared on Facebook or Twitter by some cat profile that I like/follow. I was wowed at the time and I was wowed once more when I watched it again tonight (I’d mentioned it to someone at work earlier today and so found it to share with them). And so, now I’m sharing it here because…

This cat is AWESOME!

Over 5 MILLION [views]!! World’s BEST Skateboarding CAT! Go Didga! The Action starts when Ollie, a skateboard, takes his friend Didga, a CAT, for a ride around the beautiful beach town of Coolangatta, Australia. On the way Didga ‘shows off’ by jumping on, off, up and even over obstacles. One of those obstacles happens to be a large Rottweiler dog. FYI – 18 months of teaching then practicing, 6 months of that for filming and editing, so please, don't try this at home.

I also follow Didga on Instagram – it’s an excellent profile with beautiful photos and video clips of this amazing feline – usually in some stunning Australian settings too. Plus there’s a few dogs there too, if you’re not such a cat-person as me.

Sunday Crafternoon

It’s been a busy weekend for me. Starting Friday, I had a day off work and spent it Christmas shopping, with mama-Prew in Milton Keynes, and then shot off to London to watch Once the Musical, with Becca and Lana. The shopping was very successful and the musical was truly wonderful. Saturday I didn’t do so much but I stuck around in MK and decorated the parents’ Christmas tree among other things.

Today I returned home to Bedford for my weekly pilates class, then spent the afternoon happily out of the cold and busily doing some arts and crafts.

First on my crafting agenda was the WTFest/Menzingers poster-setlist-ticket-wristband combo collage I’ve been meaning to work on since October. Well, I think it was well worth the wait.

I added some ‘polaroids’ of my photos from WTFest weekend, as well.

The next craft is more of a work in progress. I plan to have linocut printed Christmas cards this year and these were my very first attempt. I was intending on this particular lino design being only a tester but I liked my first print so much that I went ahead and produced many more. It won’t be the last linocutting/printing I do this side of Christmas, but I have to wait for all of these mini prints to dry before I do any more! 

And finally, the third ‘craft’ is a bit of a cheat as I simply paper-mâchéd gold tissue paper onto a cardboard reindeer that I bought in Hobby Craft yesterday – on a whim. 

Also worth mentioning: as well as my WTFest collage, I now have these Japanese prints up in my room. The two larger prints I was given by my parents when I moved and the smaller four are postcards that I picked up in Tokyo. All are replicas of ukiyo-e by Hiroshige, my favourite artist.

And it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Both in my flat.

And at the parental home.

Fat Cat Art

Svetlana Petrova is a Russian artist and the owner of Zarathustra. Zarathustra is a very fat ginger cat and Internet star – but for reasons unlike any other feline Internet star.

“I’ve had cats before and included them in my work, like playing in theatre shows and I’ve made costumes for them. But I thought, ‘What can I do with Zarathustra, because my mother spoilt him and he’s so fat’. Zarathustra likes posing and is a really intelligent cat. He likes to lie on his back and make strange faces like he's speaking with somebody, so I began to take photos of him and inserted them into paintings.” – BBC News

Cat Toons

Last night, as I often [sadly] do, I found myself looking at a new cat profile on Instagram. Seriously, Instagram is full of cats, and they’re all wonderful, so it is very easy to get caught up looking at their cuteness – especially when my own kitty is 20 miles away. Also because, y’know, I’m what you might call a crazy cat lady. But this particular Instagram profile is cats with a difference.

Custom illustrated cartoon portraits of your feline friends, Cat Toons is the successful side project of graphic designer and illustrator Tim K, from Philadelphia. The illustrations capture each individual cat’s personalities and they certainly don’t all look the same (which is probably what would happen if I attempted something like this!).

The Cat Toons store offers various different options for your cat’s portrait, ranging from a single cat crest to a trio of cats. Each crest is unique in design and includes a stylised name plate, making it not only each cat that is individual.

The illustrations are produced in Adobe Illustrator with a Wacom intuos tablet and, as a customer, you receive not only a copy of the digital file but also a 4x6 print.

Tim, of course, is a cat owner himself and his cat Junior (and his crochet partner in crime, Floppit) has his own Instagram account too.

It is very tempting to send a photo of Cleo over to Tim. She’d look marvelous in her own Cat Toon, don’t you think? Although I’d have to find a more face-on photograph (or visit my parents’ house and Cleo to take a new one).

World Cat Day

A lunchtime spent browsing through my Twitter-stream told me that today is, apparently, World Cat Day! How did I not know?!

I had a read/look at this Best Cats on the Internet post by i100 – a website I keep finding myself linked to (via Twitter) lately. The website seems, to me, to be a more respectable version of Buzzfeed – from The Independent newspaper – with lots of Top 10 articles and weird/interesting news stories.

And so I read the article, featuring their Top 13 cats on the Internet, but found myself disagreeing with the list. Some of the cats I haven’t even heard of or seen before – Snoopy? Brother Cream? And Maru should definitely be a lot higher up the list!

I decided, as the crazy-cat-lady that I am, I should make my own list! Not just Internet cats, however. Because all cats are awesome whether they are of Internet fame, fictional or just a random kitty you see walking down the street.

TOP 9 CATS

(because 9 lives, y’know.)

9 Tara the heroine
The cat that saved her young human from a dog attack.

8 Nyan cat
The rainbow-pop tart cat with an incredibly catchy soundtrack.

7 Pusheen
The adorably animated fat cat.

6 Street Cat Bob
The ex-stray cat who found his human busking on the streets of London.

5 Keyboard cat
The most talented of musical cats.

(Also, seen in the cinema last night… this is amazing!!)

4 The Bear
The world’s most melancholic cat, literary and Twitter star.

3 Catbus
Everyone’s favourite animal/vehicle, from Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro.

2 Maru
The box-loving cat from Japan.

1 CLEO
The [cat] love of my life and feature of many-a-Instagram post, my tailless-tabby-cat.