'Casper the Commuting Cat' reviewed by Fester

Like I’ve got time to go reading and reviewing books. There’s loads of good stuff to do, specially in our garden at this time of year. There’s drinking pond water and sleeping on cushions on the veranda of my beach house. And there’s sitting on planks and glaring at squirrels to be getting on with. And trotting in now and then for a snack. J and Paul, who share this place with me, they’ve got this running buffet going for me most of the time and it’s pretty good. Pouches and fancy biscuits and all that.

Anyway, this was Paul’s idea. We were sitting in the beach house and he was like, hey, you should review this for my blog. It’s a book some woman’s written about her cat, Casper, and how he became famous for travelling around on buses. And i was like, what? What are you on about? I narrowed my eyes at him in that way he thinks is me being friendly, but it’s usually more like, ‘What the hell are you on about?’

He fetched out that book, which wasn’t easy, because i was lying full stretch on his chest along with his laptop, on top of the fold-down settee in the beach house. i didn’t move much to help him, because i wasn’t keen on this book he was on about. It was probably just some bloody awful sentimental piece of crap like that Dewey thing he loved so much last year, and just about wept over. Did you read that? About the cat who lived in some library and made everyone fall in love with him. It was rubbish. That cat couldn’t even talk or anything.

I can say a few things. I can say ‘ham’ very loudly, when i know they’ve got some in the fridge. And I can shout, ‘paul’ too, in a bloodcurdlingly loud way when i’ve lost track of him around the house.

You could do a guest blog spot about it, if you like? Paul said. Well, i’ve seen his blog and it’s just rubbish. Except when he has a picture of me on it, which he does sometimes. But it’s mostly boring – mostly about those crappy lightweight novels he reads. And it’s even worse when he gets onto the lightweight shite he actually WRITES! As a cat, i can’t STAND writers who use the internet / twitter / facebook and all that bollocks to publicize themselves and their own rotten work.

It’s like cats who spray all over the place. See? Common.

So i had a flick through this cat book anyway. It made me sigh with impatience on just about every page. There were chapters written from the point of view of the cat and you could tell they weren’t real. It was cracking on like it was the cat writing it all up in heaven. Sitting on a rainbow bridge or summat. Well, i’ve got a plank down the middle of our garden and that’s pretty good. Very comforting, planks are. Maybe that’s what this rainbow bridge thing is, but really, it sounded a load of shite to me.

I’m a materialist, I think. I think you have your bit run around the garden and you lie out in the sun, waiting pointedly for a tummy tickle or your ears rubbed or whatever. But when it’s all over, it’s over. I mean, christ, if there was a cat heaven, could you imagine? it’d be fuller and noisier than the home of the wife who looked after Casper. It sounds like she’s down the cat home every year bringing back more unfortunate moggies.

Well, that made me warm to her, actually. i liked her for that, even if she sounds a bit soft, like. Cos I was a stray, you know. I was nowt when i came round here the first time. Fur falling out, skinny as a get. So, really, i appreciate people who take cats in. Mind, i wouldn’t like to be in a home with loads of cats. I can’t stand other cats. I didn’t mind Aunty Bessie (with the great big bollocks) when she moved in here for  bit. And poor little Barrie, of course. But most of the other cats you see round here? Forget them. Rough as owt.

Huh. Paul’s had a look over my head and he reckons i’m not saying enough about this frigging book. Well, it’s all right if you like that kind of sappy-dead-animal-funny-habits-heart-warming crap. I don’t think i’d like going on the buses like this Casper fella did. Specially round here. You get all sorts on those buses into town, i hear.

Yeah, i’m not bothered really about getting out and seeing the world. I had enough of that when i was a stray. I can’t see the appeal of sitting on a bus with all those strangers. Some of them can be quite stinky and rude. You’ve got to watch out with humans, i reckon. I mean – everyone was supposed to love Casper and he was a big fave around town, the book says. But some bastard taxi driver still ran him over, didn’t they?

So I’ve had a good flick through, anyway, and I thought it was all right. I suppose Casper was pretty good, really, and i thought it was sad at the end. And he was black and white, wasn’t he? So, course he was all right.

I’ve done now. Paul better put a nice piccy of me at the top of this.

See ya.

Ungow!

Fester.

'Casper the Commuting Cat' is by Susan Finden and Linda Watson-Brown