PRIMAL SCREEN
Not into the World Cup? Maybe you should check in with your cat. Donal O’Donoghue reports
“There’s nothing on the telly” says the wife. “ e cat is!” says I. He was too: the feline nagler clinging onto the box like his life depended on it. England versus Panama was the game and in his excitement he very nearly climbed into the contraption.
“C’mon Engerrland!” cried Zorro (he’s a rescue cat, provenance unknown, but we have our suspicions).
“Get o that telly!” cries my wife. “Meow!” says Zorro who reverts to cat talk when he pretends he doesn’t understand you.
We love the football in our house. By ‘we’, I mean me and the cat and by football I mean the World Cup. Sat on the couch, me with a few tinnies of XXXX, Zorro with a few tins of dolphin-safe tuna, we shoot the breeze on the big issues. “What do you reckon of that Harry Kane?” and so on. Zorro, who fancies himself as a bit of a footy purist, reckons it’s in his blood.
“Do you know I’m related to the great Chelsea goalkeeper who only played in a single World Cup Final,” he says one a ernoon. “Do you mean Peter Phillip Bonetti aka e Cat?” says I (for all his talents Zorro is somewhat lacking in imagination).
“ e very man,” says Z.
We watch the pundits too (Dunphy and Co more than the other lot) and Aprés Match of course, although one time I caught Zorro zapping into a foreign channel. “SHEARER!” he cries in that football terrace chant he has to a T. I eye him suspiciously. “What age are you?”
“I mean the pundit not the player.” Zorro is fond of getting up on his high horse now and again. Sometimes he gets stuck up there and I have to call the re brigade. He says that watching the footy keeps him o the streets. No, I tell him, the cars keep you o the streets. But he’s a mystery cat alright.
Just the other day there were feathers poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Pardon me,” he says as he gingerly dabs his face, “hair of the dog.” I doubt that. Zorro is the original Scaredy Cat and couldn’t save a penalty for nuts (we usually have a kick-about a er watching a game).
But I’ll tell you this: he sure knows his football.