As many of you all know by now, our little lot of “Oriental ‘orrors, Scatcat Siamese and heavyweight HPs” have feline fun from time to time! Were certainly not called THE CAPRICCIOSA CAT-CLAN for nothing - naughty but nice, sort of sums us up fine!! Anyway, despite my being rather renowned for doing the ‘daft decorated posh pens thing’ at cat shows - we never expected that it would be one of our ‘manic moggies’ that would make the ‘grade’ (a-la-the-late-and-great-Sir Lew Grade variety!) by becoming INFAMOUS through starring on TV!

Well, Cesare did just that - because this oversized, over gorged and enormous ginger neutered male HP, actually starred in the BBC ONE TV series “INSIDE OUT”! Many months ago, the BBC faxed all around the East Midlands area to try to find a fat cat that was dieting with the help of a vet. Dutifully, our own vets decided to volunteer me and our cat (called “CESAREBORJA COUCHPOTATA”) for a filming session and some weigh-ins for twelve months. EEK ! At first, we thought that it was a “get-our-gang-back-for-the-one-who-once-bit-the-vet-nurse-babdy-stunt”, saved up for this unsuspecting “Mumsie”, as a wind-up… but it

wasn’t! It was true - for, when I phoned the telephone number they gave me, it really was the BBC! I did not let onto them that I had once worked in local radio, especially since it was the IBA. So it was then, that one day last summer, I was filming with Cesare and the boys from the BCC, at the vets’ surgery. We did this at an off-peak time, between clients, of course.

 

It took two and a half hours to collect a few minutes of film time. The Vet Nurse was a natural before the cameras, but I was nervous, as filming is a far cry from speaking into a microphone. The BBC crew then came back to our house, to have a peek at or ‘show-pussy-cats’. In the end, they even got Chiara, (our late Gr Pr Chocolate Point Siamese) on the finished edition. This, of course, has become a forever-treasured tape.

Cesare started his weigh-in at a whopping - wait for it folks - TEN POINT TWO FIVE KILOS !! We always suspected this super-cat would be a ‘biggie’. Ginger male neuters are notorious for this, but he was also a rather idle cat, eating everything in sight, including the houseplants and Peter’s ‘Readybrek’ and of course, it wasn’t all that good for him (the cat, not Peter)! So Cesare went on a special reduction regime, which really ruined his feline fun - he got so grumpy, blamed the other “babies”, and really rang rings around us. He waddled on a cat harness and lead up the garden, grimacing like an over-gorged Cheshire Cat. It was all such a worry and very hard work keeping him and his daily diet separate from the other felines foods! But persevere we did, and he is down to about nine kilos by now. This is not slim enough, but spring is coming and we are moving to a bungalow, There we will have more space to separate the ‘little rascals’ out!

I did tell the BBC about my media days and they asked me to e-mail them some background research about fat cats. This was then picked it up by the press and the cats were in the newspapers too. We are still awaiting a call from Max Cliford… but you can bet we won’t get any royalties!

It was all just a really interesting time. Please, if you also have a heavyweight HP, do persevere, it takes time because you cant swift-track or Aitkens-Diet a cat! Do talk to your vet about dieting your cat. If you missed the show, you can still see it on the ‘Inside Out’ website - see ‘previous stories’.