From Thai Visa we learn about a Thai man who makes a 70 km daily commute—on a motorcycle—with a cat holding onto his back!
Reporters found Wisit Nuttaphon or Tom, 52, going to his job as usual and there was his two and a half year old cat “Talok” (Funny) holding on for dear life on the back, reported Thairath.
Tom who works as a caretaker at the Wat Sala Mechai School said that he found his friend a couple of years ago while tidying up and decided to look after her. He said that he didn’t want to leave her home alone all day – he has a 70 kilometer round trip to work – so he decided to take her with him.
A string helps ensure that they can doesn’t lose any of her nine lives on the journey.
Tom said it wasn’t cruel to the cat – and he really had no other option than to take her with him as he would hate to lose her.
A string? I beg to differ; if the cat falls off, will the string save it? At the very least, Mr. Nuttaphon needs a ventilated backpack. So, although I present this story, I disapprove of the treatment of the cat, and hope only that it survives:
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Here’s the Mother of All Lost Cat stories. As reported in many places, including The Times, a cat named Moon Unit (Frank Zappa fans will recognize the name) was just found in Paris after it went missing in London eight years ago. The paper reports:
Marna Gilligan and Sean Purdy had given up hope of seeing Moon Unit again, so when they received an email saying that she had been found they did not believe it. “We thought, ‘It can’t be her — not after all this time’,” Ms Gilligan, 39, told the Evening Standard.
Last Friday Moon Unit’s owners, who had split up since she disappeared, made the journey on Eurostar to bring their cat home.
She and Mr Purdy, 46, adopted their pet when she was about five months old but she disappeared after a New Year’s Eve party in 2008. “We searched for months and had numerous tip-offs but they were never her,” Ms Gilligan, who now lives in Kent, said. “We moved on eventually, and she was just part of our memories.”
Last month they received an email from Petlog, a microchipping database, to say that a shelter in Paris had taken in a cat found at a suburban railway station. Photographs proved Moon Unit’s identity and it was decided that Mr Purdy should resume ownership. They have set up a crowdfunding page for Aide et Défense des Animaux en Détresse, the shelter that found her.
Two questions arise. Was Moon Unit on her own all that time? It’s hard to believe a city moggie could survive eight years in the wild, but, given that she was missing almost all her teeth when she was found, it’s likely that she spent considerable time as a stray.
More pressingly, how did she get from London to Paris? At first Matthew Cobb surmised that she may have walked through the Chunnel, but if you think about it for a moment, that couldn’t have happened. Britain is absolutely paranoid about rabies coming from the outside, so the Chunnel has extensive barriers against animals getting through it, including visual inspection and electric fences. And so far those have been successful, for there have been no cases of rabies in Britain since the Chunnel opened.
That leaves only the possibility that Moon Unit was either carried to France or hitched a ride on a plane or boat. We’ll never know. If only cats could talk!
Here’s Moon Unit being taken back home. (I wonder how the Brits let her in given the six-month quarantine requirement.)
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Finally, we have a brand new version of Simon’s Cat, called “Fish Tank.” It’s a good one.
h/t: Kevin, Rodger
Simon sure ends up with mischievous animals! Even the fish!
Tales of heroic cats from Aunty today, too: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36987284
The rabies quarantine in Britain was relaxed five years ago – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16347725
there is a card game based on Simon’s Cat. Just saw it here at Gen Con: http://www.sjgames.com/simonscat/
After my dog died I had months of re-occurring nightmares of him getting lost and not being able to find him.
It really messed me up for a while.
Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes Related Poem Content Details
BY THOMAS GRAY
’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.
Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
A Favourite has no friend!
From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.
Thank you so much! I haven’t seen that since English class at school, more than fifty years ago. I love the totally over-the-top style in contrast to the subject matter, and the line that ends the second last verse is worth remembering.
Yes! And I love that ‘conscious tail’!
“That leaves only the possibility that Moon Unit was either carried to France or hitched a ride on a plane or boat.”
Or, much more likely since Moon Unit was found in Paris, a train – specifically Eurostar.
A boat is unlikely – she’d have to find her way 80 miles to Dover (or other English channel port), stow away, and then all the way from Calais (or other French channel port) to Paris – another 180 miles.
Whereas, if a cat sneaked onto Eurostar at St Pancras, I doubt if anyone would take very much notice, and it would deliver Moon Unit direct to the Gare du Nord in Paris.
cr
As against that, Aide et Défense des Animaux en Détresse has its headquarters in Gif-sur-Yvette, a small town on the outer fringes south of Versailles, and has as its aim the protection of animals in the Departement of Essonne, which covers a wide area of partly-urban, partly-open or wooded countryside just south of Paris. (I drove across it four weeks ago). Whereas Gare du Nord is in the northeast of the city. It would be nice to know which ‘suburban railway station’ Moon Unit was found at but newspapers never bother with potentially relevant details like that.
cr
That was my first thought too. I don’t know if containerised freight gets loaded onto Chunnel-bound trains anywhere in the Great Wen, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve had to help exterminate rat infestations that came out to islands on containers, and I’ve heard of rabbits and mice getting out to oil rigs on a regular basis. So I’d look there first of all.
Where around London (and Paris) are the passenger cars cleaned between journeys? Probably not on expensive city-centre railway sidings, but on cheaper out-of-town sites.