Tag: writing

Palmerston, UK Feline Diplomat And Rival To Larry The Cat, Dies In Bermuda

Named after a powerful prime minister, Palmerston was a hungry stray who was found on the streets of London and quickly made his mark when he was appointed mouser to the UK’s Foreign Office.

Some sad news today: Palmerston, the UK Foreign Office’s strong-willed mouser and foil to Larry the Cat, has passed away.

Palmerston was scooped up in 2016 “as a hungry, underweight stray wandering the streets of London, with no owner traced and no microchip,” London’s Battersea Cats and Dogs noted in a post.

The Foreign Office staff were looking for a new mouser to keep rodents at bay in Whitehall when Battersea recommended the cute tuxedo, and recognizing greatness, the staff brought the little guy on immediately and named him after Henry John Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston, who served as prime minister in the 1850s during the height of the British Empire.

Palmerston the cat, just two years old at the time, took to his new job with enthusiasm — perhaps too much so. The territorial tuxedo quickly developed a reputation for turf battles with his rival mouser, No. 10 Downing St.’s Larry the Cat.

Their skirmishes, which often occurred within the full view of reporters and photographers covering UK government, soon became the stuff of legend, producing several iconic images of the two felines in battle in their eternal struggle for status as top cat in the UK government.

The fearless feline’s hijinx included invading Larry’s inner sanctum in 2016 when he snuck through an open door at No. 10, and while Larry was known for visiting his “lady friend,” Maisie, Palmerston struck up a relationship with Freya, another mouser with a post on Downing Street.

When society’s gears grinded to a halt with the 2020 lockdowns in response to the COVID pandemic, Palmerston “retired” to the countryside with his loyal human, former Royal Navy officer Andrew Murdoch.

Little Lord P enjoyed the quiet life for several years before thrilling fans a year ago with his announcement that he was returning to public life as “feline relations consultant” to Murdoch in his new post as governor of Bermuda.

Admirers followed Palmerston’s antics in the tropical locale via updates on social media. He was living the high life, free of Larry’s evil machinations.

Palmerston patrolling Downing Street.

Palmerston died on Feb. 12, Murdoch wrote in a post on the famous feline’s X account.

“‘Palmy’ was a special member of the Government House team in Bermuda, and a much loved family member,” the post reads. “He was a wonderful companion, with a gentle nature, and will be sorely missed.”

A reply from Larry’s account indicated the former rivals had called a truce: “Farewell old friend,” Larry’s servants wrote on his behalf.

Palmerston, left, and Larry, right, during one of their epic battles while Palmerston was still top cat at Whitehall.
We had a lot of fun with the Palmerston-Larry rivalry here on PITB, admiring both mousers.

While this is sad news, Palmerston will not be forgotten, and we’re confident he’ll take to his new post across the rainbow bridge with the same zeal he applied to his work on behalf of the people of the UK. RIP, little guy.

Hat tip to our friend Platypus Man, who notified us of today’s sad news. If you enjoy photos of far-flung locales, check out his blog, which features posts about his many travels around the world. Thanks, P!

Critics Rave About ‘Alien’ Reboot Starring Buddy The Cat!

A reboot of the iconic scifi-horror film upends the balance of power, placing the feline at the very top where he should be.

The long-anticipated Alien reboot starring Buddy the Cat hit theaters this weekend with audiences flocking to see the modernized classic after effusive praise from critics.

Featuring the new tag line “In space no one can hear you scream — unless you’ve got Buddy on your side,” the reboot reimagines the science fiction-horror classic as a cautionary tale about messing with cats.

“While the original built tension over almost two hours and inspired an overwhelming feeling of dread in viewers, the new Alien clocks in at just 28 minutes and ends right after the iconic chestburster scene,” critic Ferdinand Lyle wrote. “Instead of screeching into the shadows of the ship to commence its turbocharged metabolic processes, only to emerge later as a fully formed creature who terrorizes the crew, this alien is immediately caught by Buddy, who delivers a swift kill bite and deposits it in front of the humans. They reward him with a chorus of ‘Good boy!’ and rub his head while plying him with snacks, and the credits roll. Now that’s efficient storytelling!”

The Alien 👽 was no match for Buddy, who woke from a nap to dispatch the creature with brutal efficiency.

The new version is “the ultimate FAFO flick,” raved the AP’s Misty Lemire.

“The central message here is ‘Don’t tangle with Buddy.’ The apex predator of the cosmos is no match for the apex predator of Earth.”

Other critics were enamored with a post-credits dance scene featuring Buddy, the crew of the Nostromo and dozens of face-huggers who fly through the air, forcing the cast to bust impressive dance moves to avoid the dangerous creatures. At one point Buddy launches into a breakdance routine. The actress who plays Ripley wags a finger at a xenomorph and declares “You just got served!”

“It’s clever, light and wildly entertaining,” one critic wrote. “Buddy’s got some magnificent dance moves!”

Others praised Buddy for his impressive physique. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Buddy said he’d been training non-stop for eight months for the role, eating a high-protein diet and spending five hours a day napping in the gym to accentuate his meowsculature.

“The effort paid off big time,” a review from Calico Critics noted. “Buddy looks more ripped and impressive than he ever has, and he was already competing against a high bar he set during his previous films.”

In the post-credits dance scene, Buddy and the Nostromo crew perform a synchronized routine while dodging facehuggers.

However, not everyone was impressed. Reached this weekend at his New Zealand bunker, where he’s fled “until America isn’t annoying anymore,” director James Cameron called the Alien reboot “derivative, low-calorie cinema junk.”

“Remember when I had characters saying ‘Hasta la vista’ and ‘Adios, muchachos’? That was really cool. I was one bad hombre,” Cameron said. “Audiences might think this is a good film, but that’s because they haven’t seen the wonders of Avatar XVII yet. Just wait, it’s gonna be awesome. And there are no cats.”

‘I Tread Where I Please’ Said Cat Who Left Paw Prints On Manuscript 500 Years Ago

It turns out cats have been adding their special sauce to our communications for as long as written language has been a thing.

Illuminated manuscripts date back long before the printing press, and their manufacture was arduous.

Literacy itself was rare in the Dark Ages and usually only the province of educated nobility and the professionally religious. Most people had no hope of learning to read, so the monks charged with copying religious texts were already practitioners of a rare skill for their time.

They weren’t just writing either. They carefully illustrated each page with drawings, cartouches and other decorative touches, and the text itself was a form of art in its calligraphic symmetry, designed to be beautiful as well as legible.

It took thousands of hours to complete a manuscript. There was no whiteout and no do-overs: a mistake meant the page had to be scrapped even if it represented a week’s worth of work.

So when a Flemish scribe finished a page of his manuscript and set it aside, he thought he was in the clear — until a cat came along and left its own signature in the form of paw prints.

Three of them, in fact, representing one and a half kitty strides. Two of the feline’s little feet found white space, but another landed right on top of the meticulously rendered text.

The feline-marked parchment in all its glory.

It kind of puts keyboard cats in context, doesn’t it? Our four legged friends may occasionally ruin our drafts or emails — or in my case wreck a music recording session with a discordant keyboard solo by walking across a synthesizer at an inopportune time — but at least they don’t cost us dozens of hours of work.

The 500-year-old, kitty-marked manuscript is now the centerpiece of “Paws On Parchment,” a new exhibit at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum.

Click here for more details from the museum, which is open Tuesday through Saturday, with late hours on Thursday evenings. Admission is free.

And if you ever take up calligraphy as a hobby, keep your work hidden from your feline overlords!

Festivus 2025: Sit Down, Because Little Buddy’s Airing Of Grievances Is Extensive!

Another year, another Festivus for the Rest of Us.

This year marks the 29th Festivus of the Festivus Revival Era, when Cosmo Kramer convinced Frank Costanza to bring back the beloved holiday that eschews the excessive commercialism of the modern holiday season.

We enthusiastically celebrate Festivus annually at Casa de Buddy and here on the blog, but if you’re joining us for the first time and you’re not familiar with the tradition, we can help get you up to speed by referring back to the wisdom of Frank Costanza, who founded the holiday:

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way!

Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?

Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that, a new holiday was born. A Festivus for the rest of us!

Festivus was popularized by Seinfeld in the 1997 episode “The Strike,” and presented as a holiday celebrated by the Costanza family under duress, at the insistence of Frank Costanza, the insane father of George Costanza.

But the holiday was not invented for the show — it was a real tradition invented by Dan O’Keefe Sr., father of Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe, in the 1960s. The younger O’Keefe had no plans to work it into an episode of the sitcom, and blames his “loudmouth brother” for bringing it up at a party for the Seinfeld cast and crew.

Frank Costanza holding the Festivus pole.

O’Keefe pleaded with his colleagues not to write it into an episode, but by that point Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, the main creative forces behind the show, were already intrigued and couldn’t be talked out of it.

In a 2017 interview, Dan O’Keefe said he believed his father’s made-up holiday was “too weird” for the TV audience, but Seinfeld has always been about the absurd and the nonsensical.

The audience loved it, and in the almost three decades since, Festivus has grown in popularity. It’s celebrated in homes, neighborhood bars, offices and other places as a non-secular holiday for which people don’t have to worry about bringing gifts and it’s okay to be a little grumpy.

As testament to its widespread popularity and its place in modern American culture, Festivus has been recognized as a culturally significant event by the Library of Congress.

Credit: US Library of Congress

On the surface, Festivus is superficially similar to Christmas. It involves a gathering of family and friends, a holiday dinner and a warm atmosphere.

But in a rejection of holiday consumerism, Festivus is not celebrated with a tree or candles. Instead, the primary decoration is an unadorned Festivus pole, usually made out of aluminum. (“I find tinsel distracting,” Frank Costanza explained.)

Festivus dinner begins with the Airing of Grievances and ends with the Feats of Strength.

The head of the family declares “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about it!”

No Festivus is complete without the Airing of Grievances.

It should come as no surprise that cats, who have high standards for service, would have their owh list of disappointments. Behold, Little Buddy the Cat’s grievances for 2025:

Big Buddy: It has come to my attention that you portray me as a wimp on MY blog! Apparently your claims about me running from vacuums and the rustling of paper bags are running jokes in your posts. These heresies shall not go unpunished! I am a tiger!

Readers of PITB: Et tu, friends of Little Buddy? And here I thought I had admirers who appreciate me for being the dashing, beguiling, intelligent and meowscular feline I am. As punishment, I shall refuse to do anything amusing for at least a month, depriving you of stories about my witty ripostes and magnificent adventures.

Smudge the Neighbor Cat: Your time will come soon, my friend. Very soon. Nobody tangles with Buddy and…uh…gets untangled. Or something. You think I don’t know you’ve been surreptitiously marking my front door with your foul stench? I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, so you’d better not try any of your sneaky stuff!

The Jaguars of the Amazon: Once again, you my homies! You know how to make a fellow apex predator feel at home, and you can be reliably called upon when I need a vacuum destroyed or dogs intimidated. I got your backs! I love you guys.

Santa Claws: Last year’s gifts were a bit sub par, if I’m being honest. I’m a good boy, and as a good boy, I deserve toys! I have left the Christmas tree alone this year, I don’t scratch the couch, and I only puked on Big Buddy’s bed once. It’s technically my bed anyway, so it’s not like I did it on purpose. Trust me, I almost felt bad when Big Buddy had to replace the sheets and wash the old ones twice. And I don’t know what you may have heard regarding those vile rumors about me smacking Big Buddy in his sleep, but they’re really light taps with my paw. Smack is such a harsh word. Can I have new toys now?

“I Am The Very Model Of A Feline So Phenomenal!” Buddy Does Gilbert And Sullivan

Buddy the Cat’s talents are innumerable! In this rousing number he slips into the style of Gilbert and Sullivan and uses verse to tell us what a feline should be.

“I am the very model of a feline so crepuscular
My visage is so handsome and my meowscles are so muscular!
I am a little tiger though the fact may seem improbable
My knowledge is near boundless in all matters gastronomical
I eat six meals a day in circumstances nominal
For serving snacks when I demand, my human is responsible
No challenge is impossible, no problem yet insoluble
I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!

I’m schooled in all biology from macro to subcellular
A meowster of olfactory for every object smellular
My hearing’s extrasensitive in low and higher frequencies
I hear the mice a-chatter but the elephants don’t speak to me
My style is more Big Punisher than Doctor Dre or Easy E
Cuz when it comes to hip hop my tastes all face to easterly
I like to shake my booty, I’m funky when I need to be
I am the very model of a cat who does it easily!

I rule with iron paws be it jungle or the living room
And when I’m finished dining, I am content to sit and groom
When it comes to games I am the ultimate competitor
Obligatory carnivore, I am a model predator
Yet somehow cute and fluffy when I feel the need to be
Mostly when I tell my buddy “Wake up, human, and feed me!

I am well-versed in big cats whether tiger or jaguarian
And qualities of catnip like a feline rastafarian
Intimidating surely, in my home I am the guardian
Look dashing in a tux or the kit of a safarian!
When it comes to ladies all the gents seek my analysis
I designed the Taj Mahal and Cleopatra’s palaces
I drink champagne from bottles and sip water from my chalices
Then ignite sky with a range of borealises!
A champion of Opens like the French, Aussie and Wimbledon
My game is too complex for the tastes of canine simpletons

A predator so optimal, impeded by no obstacle
When I’m roused to anger you will find me quite unstoppable
Stylish with a monacle, calm and rarely volatile
I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!

I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!

[Chorus of girls]

He is the very model of a feline so phenomenal! Find a better cat? Well that is just impossible! He is the very model of a feline so phenomenal!”