71 thoughts on “Cat quiz”

    2. Not impossible, but unlikely. Radiators are typically white and have finer blades, the heavy paint is not typical, either. Unless you go certain places, Germany is typically more tidy.

      Looks very Eastern Bloc to me. Poland would stand to reason. So I say, it’s either Frankfurt (unlikely), or New York City (more likely) as possible stops.

  7. Hello Jerry! My best guess – that poor poor gorgeous kitty could be somewhere in a public place (possibly washroom) in Russia, Ukraine or one of the former Soviet Republics. I had to kiss my kitten more than usually.

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

    3. I used to have a d*g named Ouagadougou, which is the capital of Purina Faso ( formerly Upper Volta).

  16. Don’t know ’bout the country, but it’s clearly the state of “Jesus Christ, Man — you forgot to pay the heating bill AGAIN!?”

    Must be in one of those colder climates, such as Bakersfield or Egypt or Florida or the like where the high temperatures in the summer often don’t even break triple digits. Brrr!

    b&

    1. “colder climates, such as Bakersfield”

      Huh? Is there a Bakersfield in the Yukon that I don’t know about?

      1. LOL – my thought too. I actually lived in Bakersfield, CA – the weather was pretty wild there and it would get down below freezing in winter. There were also crazy windstorms – the whole sky would turn this ominous red and we would just wait it out. But the heat was never far away and that was highly unpleasant to say the least. We had several school days cut short due to power outtages and 115F on the thermometer.

        1. Ha ha! My family in California complains when they have to turn on the heat in the winter. It makes me sad since there are times where it is -20C for a couple weeks here (and the rest of the country calls us “snow wimps” except for Vancouver – we usually shift the blame by saying, “nuh uh, Vancouver is!”)

        2. Yes, exactly — that’s what I’m referring to. One of those chilly places that hardly ever makes it even to the mid-teens, and that’s considered crisis conditions. Brrr!

          b&

  17. That looks like a classic pre-WWII radiator installed in aunts apartments when I visited Poland in 1980. At the time the housing ministry (or whatever) of the city was coming to peoples apartments to replace these with “modern” plastic radiators of some sort. In many apartment complexes people rebelled against this and had public demonstrations and successfully prevented the replacements. The reasons were that the old radiators worked, and it would take a month to effectuate the replacement at which time you had to have someone at home to prevent the workmen from stealing your stuff, and if the new radiators worked it was not for long and would have to be replaced. Why were the radiators being replace by the ministry? Because one third would be stolen by the party functionaries to install in their dachas outside of Warsaw, a third would be sold on the open market by the ministry, and the rest would be stolen outright by the functionaries.
    There were two other household items that my aunts lauded at the time. Small refrigerators that were built in the USSR that worked just fine for ever, and USSR alarm clocks that did the same. Evidently the Russians did manufacture some good stuff built to last. Also, if I understood correctly Warsaw had central heating from three plants that piped steam everywhere.

    1. My (drunk) brother says, “You have clearly not lived in Poland for you have not differentiated between Eastern and Western Polish radiators. As they say in Poznan, ‘Asia begins in Warsaw.'”

      Cześć!

      1. I did live in Poland from 1938 to 1945
        but radiators were not on my radar at the
        time and visited for three weeks in 1980.
        I never heard the “Asia begins in Warsaw”
        story. One of my aunts could have used the renegade plumber depicted in the movie Brazil. She had a copper pipe full of hot water running from one wall, along the front of the bath tube to the other wall. You had to be careful not to touch it because it was super hot. But if the radiators I saw are examples of the Asian style they were clearly preferred to the new plastic ones when I was there.
        Is your brother drinking Polish vodka??

        1. Guinness, and he’s gone to bed, thank Ceiling Cat. It was a joke, of course. But he did live in Poland for quite a few years – about 1990-98.

          I visited around 1993 and he and his gorgeous Polish girlfriend, Alicia, met me at Poznan station. We walked to get a taxi; the front passenger door fell off in my hand. Alicia was mortified; mind you, those Polish sausages are to die for.

          Cheers, Steven.

          1. I also remember from Poznan, under late Communism and into the early nineties, that the central heating in every apartment was turned on centrally, that is, city-wide, from November, I think it was, until March. You, as an individual, could not turn off the heating. The winters were cold and I bet it saved a lot of lives.

            Steven’s right. How civilised.

  18. Judging by the heater, steam, the photo could originate anywhere in Greater Krautland or adjacent territories. The cat is pretty generic although she has some Egyptian in her.

  20. The radiator does look very 1930-1960-UK-ish, though other people say they look very like other parts of Europe, so I guess that the physics of heat transfer and the chemistry of casting iron lead to convergent design (yes, NOT “convergent evolution”).
    The green wall paint looks a bit too intense for the normally pallid colour schemes of Institutional UK, which argues slightly in favour of it being somewhere “foreign”.

    1. Pretty much my thoughts. Gloss-painted rough walls and a sloping skirting don’t look very British either, unless that’s the way we decorate Victorian jails.

      1. I didn’t notice the “skirtings”.
        I’ve never been in a Victorian jail to comment on the construction detail. It is fairly common in hospitals and the like to have a rounded edge to linoleum (or related) floors, which allows dust to be swept into the centre of the floor for pick-up more easily. Same for blood and gore. So, in pre-lino days, I don’t find it incredible for prison cells.
        It is a peculiarly stomach-turning shade of green, isn’t it ; just what the Workhouse Doctor might order for the infirmary, to try to drive the thieving beggars (literally, in Victorian public opinion) out of the place.

  23. Sorry, but on second reading of the headline, I think “where are the cats with their paws poised over the answer buttons?”
    Isn’t that what “cat quiz” means?

  24. Where ever it is, it looks like it is or was a government institution of some kind. The sloping wall bottoms and the institutional green paint (though too bright a green for England as previously noted) make it unlikely to be a personal home. So prolly an Eastern European factory of some sort.

  29. If this were an extremely high resolution photo, it might be possible to read a brand name from the cigarette butt. There is also what looks like a wadded-up newspaper between the two radiator vanes, but again, the resolution is not high enough to make out any words to guess at a language.

  31. I don’t know, but she is sure pretty like my Bianca was 🙁 I miss her so much. http://tinypic.com/r/34pnviq/6 she was SO very gregarious and friendly. Not shy at all. She loved kids and always wanted to inspect everyone’s faces up close and personal. She would follow me on walks – like a dog. She slept on my ribs every night and it took years before I stopped thinking she was still on me. I haz teh sadz now.

    1. If that cat sleeps on your ribs then he is a lucky cat (:

      I would be careful with your daughter, though. Cats are big relative to infants and it wouldn’t take much for your cat to spread out over your daughter’s face ):

      BTW, our cat does the same to my wife – I always find it perched up high on her…um…ribs (;

      1. I had to give up Bianca to move to my current location. I was locked into a deadly daily commute (Hwy 80 Bay Area, CA) and an affordable place became available less than a mile from my job. The kind of place where you have to wait for someone to die to become available – there are only 6 units in this complex. I begged and pleaded with the landlords but they refused to allow her. I gave her to a close friend who had just lost his cat of 17 years – but he wanted more from me than friendship and so I basically lost my “visiting rights”. I know she is loved and that makes me happy, but I miss her so much. She was my only friend through a very dark period. She cared for me and loved me and was always searching my face to see if I needed her affection. She talked to me all the time – as soon as I would come home she would just talk and talk…not whining, not complaining or begging for food – she wasn’t a big eater – very dainty – but just really welcoming me home. Oh – and my kid is pretty – but he’s a boy lol…and 3 yrs old 🙂 But yeah..I’m a side sleeper and she always nestled onto my ribs and we would fall asleep with the sensation of each other breathing – it was so relaxing and comforting and I never stopped marveling that two completely different animals could find such comfort and peace with each other.

          1. Thank you 🙁 I wonder if I made the right choice – I mean, I wouldn’t give up a child to move somewhere more convenient. But man, that commute was seriously deadly. The stretch I did has some of the highest highway fatalities in the state. I knew it was a matter of when, not if, and I only hoped it would be something I survived. My job was in Napa, which has some of the more expensive housing outside the Bay Area so when a decent 2 bdrm apartment came up in a nice area for under $1000/mo, I just really had to jump on it. I live here still, 7 years later, and aside from the no pet policy – my landlords are great. I hate myself sometimes for giving her up, but I do know she went to a very good home and he was just as fascinated with her fearless, friendly socializing as I was 🙂

        3. (I’m probably too late for this now but…)

          Sorry about ther misidentification.
          All I can say is that your son looks pretty (:
          But I’m sure he’ll be handsome when he’s older.

          Thanks for sharing your story. It was a nice little interlude on a quiet, sunny Sunday* afternoon and it made me smile.
          (*I live in Australia so it’s already Sunday).

          But sorry about your “dark period”. I’ve been there too, but it seems life has it’s twists and turns and sometimes we just have to wait for it to turn as it does eventually.

          Well, you are a cat lover like me. My wife actually doesn’t like cats so we have a dog as well. The damn thing always stinks, and he barks at every little disturbance real or imagined.

          Cats, on the other hand, are always clean, quiet, and gentle. My wife likes to have…um…a catnap…stretched out on the sofa, and the cat inevitably climbs up and perches itself on her chest. They like soft and warm places.

          For some reason we haven’t named our cat, but she is not white so I don’t think Bianca would work. I’ll have to think about it.

  35. Cigarette butts on the floor, skanky green paint….a prison cell somewhere.

    Obviously somewhere very cold if kitty can handle cuddling up to the radiator – unless it was taken in the summer.

    I’m going to take a wild guess and say, “a prison cell in Krakow, Poland”.

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