> At a cost of about £100 a year (paid for from the Cabinet Office's budget), most of which went towards food, Humphrey was said to be of considerably better value than the Cabinet's professional pest controller, who charged £4,000 a year and is reported to have never caught a mouse.[3]
> Humphrey was found as a stray by a Cabinet Office civil servant and named in honour of Humphrey Appleby, the archetypal civil servant of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.
Love it. Thatcher was famously a big fan of "Yes Minister"
Wonderfully, the official government webpage[1] lists his duties as:
Larry spends his days greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality. His day-to-day responsibilities also include contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house. Larry says this is still ‘in tactical planning stage’.
"The estate had too much construction activity on site to provide a safe living environment for a free-roaming cat.
"The risk of self-closing doors leaving a cat trapped without sustenance for significant periods of time.
"The absence of assured daily arrangements for cat care."
He added: "We continue to work with our pest control contractor to implement targeted and effective regimes across the Palace."
it's a cat! people like cats. they will go out of their way to find and retrieve the cat.
i'm sure there's some boring reason why yes really they couldn't just have a cat but i think it really does speak to a difference between whatever we are now and the victorians (and so on) that we end up with some HR nonsense on this matter.
This compilation video of him chasing a Fox, killing a pidgeon, and fighting with (recently retired) admiralty cat Palmerston is worth a watch (1min 21 sec)
> ... opinion poll from Ipsos showed that Larry had a higher favourability rating (44%) and net favourability rating (40%) than both Sunak (22% and –36%) and Starmer (34% and –7%).
Larry might be the only one who can beat Farage at this point.
> David Cameron has said that Larry is a "bit nervous" around men, speculating that, since Larry was a rescue cat, this may be due to negative experiences in his past. Cameron mentioned that Barack Obama is an apparent exception to this fear: he said, "Funnily enough he liked Obama. Obama gave him a stroke and he was all right with Obama."
> In September 2013 tensions were reportedly growing between Cameron and Larry....
The entire Relationship with other politicians section is a hilarious read.
Correlates to a popular French joke. They bring in a cat to get rid of the mices in a ministry. The cat does wonders and all the mices are gone. A few months later, the mices are all back. The minister asks "what's going on with the mices", "it's the cat, sir, he has been made a full time civil servant".
I always find it incredibly sweet and endearing whenever humans write / document things like this. It's almost like a definition or example of what humanity means.. creatures with brainpower - a organ that's the most complex (and power efficient!) thing in the known universe.
I can't believe how long this Wikipedia article is and complete with sources! Like, it's just a cat! I'm surprised the notoriety police haven't swooped in.
It’s been written about by so many reputable sources that it clearly meets Wikipedia’s peculiar definition of notoriety, whether or not it meets other more normal definitions.
One of my cousins said the following things which is also kinda like what you said haha
When we feed a dog, it thinks that we (humans) are the god, but then when we feed a cat food, it thinks that I(cats) are the god.
And to be really honest, in ancient egpyt or something, cats were really considered close to god (IMO?) and I remember a incidence where people would wrap cats around their shields when battling since both sides didn't want to kill cats.
The Persian conquest of Egypt under Cambyses. Battle of Pelusium, precisely.
>Cambyses captured Pelusium by using a clever strategy. The Egyptians regarded certain animals, especially cats, as being sacred (they had a cat goddess named Bastet), and would not injure them on any account. Polyaenus claims that Cambyses had his men carry the "sacred" animals in front of them to the attack. The Egyptians did not dare to shoot their arrows for fear of wounding the animals, and so Pelusium was stormed successfully.
The real larry is a professional assassin. Literally paid to kill vermin. Something deeply ironic about using him as a vehicle for myopic and smug centrist politicking.
Bear in mind that it's of Georgian construction and Grade 1 listed (so not just a façade), so there is presumably plenty of wood and plaster in its construction with corresponding voids. With humans comes food morsels. Some of the rooms offer doors onto the garden. Mice seem inevitable in those circumstances.
I think that if that is the case, then we might need a "tiny" more security if unsupervised rats could enter into their premise. It just feels kinda weird thinking how we have a country with nuclear power and yet the building where its highest ranking elected official / basically one of the most important buildings where they live can be infected with the tiny rat.
It almost feels poetic. They have the power to bend apple's arm in secret courts and doors to literally backdoor every/(billions?) of apple devices to mass control and yet a tiny rat can escape and enter their most prestigious building where such earlier decisions are made.
I am not sure why but it definitely gives me some david vs goliath the way I am picturing it.
I am not sure if this is such an unsolvable problem given I am pretty sure that there are definitely CCTV's everywhere with people surveilling over them 24x7 right?
If you're thinking of the 5th Element remote-controlled cockroach attack vector ... I think you're over-estimating what's feasible at the moment (even in a mouse sized package).
These buildings are all quite old and in constant use so I'm guessing falling apart inside. The catch foxes in the houses of parliament every now and again
Yes, Number 10 Downing Street is three eighteenth-century houses joined together. When cleaning dirt from the industrial revolution off the building's facade, it was discovered that the bricks underneath were actually yellow, but it was soon painted black because people were so used to seeing it that way on TV.
More generally, Britain and its former empire are and always were governed strictly on a least-effort, least-cost basis. There is a lot of wealth and splendour in this country, but it's privately owned; the public realm is rather run down.
It's kind of unavoidable with those sorts of buildings. Amsterdam (and similar places) get it even worse - all those waterways with buildings of a similar age mean that it's a haven for mice.
"The cats have been present in the museum, originally a palace, since the 18th century;[1] in 1745, Elizabeth of Russia ordered cats to be placed in the palace in order to control the mice"
> Within a month of his arrival at Downing Street, anonymous sources described Larry as having "a distinct lack of killer instinct."[11] Later that year, it was revealed that Larry spent more time sleeping than hunting for mice, and shared the company of a female cat, Maisie.[12] At one point in 2011, mice were so endemic in Downing Street that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, resorted to throwing a fork at one during a Cabinet dinner.[12]
Not to speak well of Britain's current leadership, nor ill of the theory behind it - but they need to split the Chief Mouser office into a symbolic head of state, and an actual working leader. Perhaps "His Meowjesty", and a "Prime Mouser"?
For extra fun - pay for their upkeep via "gifts" from members of the press, who hope to receive juicy leaks and preferential access (both only relating to the cats) in return.
Ignoring that this clearly isn't the whole truth e.g. the liberal world we live in is basically a product of London and Paris, this statistics are always quite vague because london is the place to trade FX, particularly from emerging markets, so the money can't really not flow through it at some point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilberforce_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peta_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_III_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_II_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Mouser
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_(chief_mouser)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_of_England
The "rival" cat at the Foreign & Commonwealth house down the street also has his own wiki lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_(cat)
Where I live its exceedingly rare to have an outdoor cat that lives past 10. And they are not even related to unpopular public figures...
Love it. Thatcher was famously a big fan of "Yes Minister"
It's just Boris!
"The estate had too much construction activity on site to provide a safe living environment for a free-roaming cat.
"The risk of self-closing doors leaving a cat trapped without sustenance for significant periods of time.
"The absence of assured daily arrangements for cat care."
He added: "We continue to work with our pest control contractor to implement targeted and effective regimes across the Palace."
it's a cat! people like cats. they will go out of their way to find and retrieve the cat.
i'm sure there's some boring reason why yes really they couldn't just have a cat but i think it really does speak to a difference between whatever we are now and the victorians (and so on) that we end up with some HR nonsense on this matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnypWoeopNg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_(cat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_(cat)#/media/File:F...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Of...
Larry might be the only one who can beat Farage at this point.
> In September 2013 tensions were reportedly growing between Cameron and Larry....
The entire Relationship with other politicians section is a hilarious read.
⁰ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_mascot
Six! The troublesome times this cat has witnessed from close by...
Served under: Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, and Clement Attlee
When we feed a dog, it thinks that we (humans) are the god, but then when we feed a cat food, it thinks that I(cats) are the god.
And to be really honest, in ancient egpyt or something, cats were really considered close to god (IMO?) and I remember a incidence where people would wrap cats around their shields when battling since both sides didn't want to kill cats.
>Cambyses captured Pelusium by using a clever strategy. The Egyptians regarded certain animals, especially cats, as being sacred (they had a cat goddess named Bastet), and would not injure them on any account. Polyaenus claims that Cambyses had his men carry the "sacred" animals in front of them to the attack. The Egyptians did not dare to shoot their arrows for fear of wounding the animals, and so Pelusium was stormed successfully.
The real larry is a professional assassin. Literally paid to kill vermin. Something deeply ironic about using him as a vehicle for myopic and smug centrist politicking.
It almost feels poetic. They have the power to bend apple's arm in secret courts and doors to literally backdoor every/(billions?) of apple devices to mass control and yet a tiny rat can escape and enter their most prestigious building where such earlier decisions are made.
I am not sure why but it definitely gives me some david vs goliath the way I am picturing it.
I am not sure if this is such an unsolvable problem given I am pretty sure that there are definitely CCTV's everywhere with people surveilling over them 24x7 right?
Probably not too far off though.
More generally, Britain and its former empire are and always were governed strictly on a least-effort, least-cost basis. There is a lot of wealth and splendour in this country, but it's privately owned; the public realm is rather run down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_cats
"The cats have been present in the museum, originally a palace, since the 18th century;[1] in 1745, Elizabeth of Russia ordered cats to be placed in the palace in order to control the mice"
Russian version tells that there are almost 20 km of basement tunnels/hallways there https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Эрмитажные_коты
Not to speak well of Britain's current leadership, nor ill of the theory behind it - but they need to split the Chief Mouser office into a symbolic head of state, and an actual working leader. Perhaps "His Meowjesty", and a "Prime Mouser"?
For extra fun - pay for their upkeep via "gifts" from members of the press, who hope to receive juicy leaks and preferential access (both only relating to the cats) in return.
And then one said, let's get a cat so the old dears think we are more human and vote for us.
It's not really beautiful culture. Just a cat used as a prop.
Oh right because it's "interesting".
When the truth is anything but.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dirty-money-laundering...