Caturday felid trifecta: Another official cat: the U.K. Embassy’s mouser in Jordan, Felicette gets a memorial, and lovely entrants in the 2017 UK Cat Fanciers Show

This will be the last Caturday Felid post till I return to the U.S., and I’m proud that, as I recall, we haven’t missed one for several years. (Now whether anyone actually READS these posts is another matter!)

The first item of the trifecta comes from author Gershom Gorenberg, who reports the existence of a new diplomatic cat in Jordan. (We were down one after Paddles, the First Cat of New Zealand, was killed by a car at the age of only one.)

UK Embassy in Jordan has a new staffer. A cat. His Felineness is responsible for mousing, and for tweeting at @LawrenceDipCat. (Video is in English, despite Hebrew tweet).@AdamSerwer @rabiasquared @NaomiPaiss https://t.co/zVF0hCEuxf

— Gershom Gorenberg (@GershomG) November 28, 2017

Here’s the video (English starts halfway though).

הכירו את הנציג הרשמי החדש של בריטניה בירדן: חתול. כן, השגרירות מינתה חיית מחמד לתפקיד רשמי, והם מאוד רציניים לגבי זה: pic.twitter.com/5otMTZv3zd

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) November 27, 2017

I don’t think countries realize how beneficial it is for a country’s image to have an official diplomatic cat (the UK, of course, has Larry, the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office).

The cat in Jordan is named Lawrence of Abdoun, described in the YouTube video below like this:

Meet Lawrence of Abdoun, a furry feline who is the first “diplo-cat” to be appointed by the British Embassy in Amman. Rescued from an animal shelter in October, Lawrence was chosen as the first overseas envoy to Palmerston, the chief mouser at the United Kingdom Foreign Office in London. The black and white fur-ball is named after T.E. Lawrence, a British military officer who fought alongside Arabs in the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Abdoun is the neighbourhood where the British embassy is located.

*********

From the Atlas Obscura we learn that the first cat in space, Félicette, launched by the French in 1963 for a brief space flight and successfully recovered, will get her own memorial. It will be a bronze statue financed by a successful Kickstarter campaign that, to date, has accrued more than £43,000. The campaign was begun by a French advertising director, Matthew Serge Guy. You can see some proposed designs for the statue on the Kickstarter page.

If your French is even reasonably good, you should be able to understand this video about the brave tuxedo moggie. Sadly, the cruel French “euthanized” (e.g., killed) Félicette a few months after her return to examine her brain. HOW COULD THEY?

*********

Finally, the Guardian gives some lovely pictures of entrants in the 2017 UK Cat Fanciers show. These are my favorites, with the Guardian’s description:

Puritsokatz Jack Be Nimble. Blue Point & White Male Ragdoll He is six months old and currently weighs 5.3kg – fully grown he will be up to 12kg. He lives in Birmingham with his owner Mr Waseem Azam, and devoted pamperer Sarah Azam.

A red male Abyssinian, Almaros is two years and two months old and lives in Mosel, Germany, with his owner, Alice Rosol.

Savannah Destiny. A black spotted tabby and white female Norwegian forest cat, she is one year and six months old and lives with her owner, Issy Grenville-Payne.

Paolo, a male sepia Singapura, is two and a half years old and lives in Norfolk with his owner, Kinsey Foster.

Fairy 4 U Cupcake. A tabby and white female American shorthair, she is four months old and lives with her owner, Ulrike Knüppel, in Hagen, Germany.

h/t: Matthew Cobb, Randall, Ronaldo