Cat Flaps!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”


 Believe me when I say that when I started this blog that the farthest thing from my mind was cat flaps. Why would anyone, except a real cat fanatic ever blog about them? They are surely one of the most awful things ever invented. Yes, they let your cat in and out, if you are too lazy to open the door. But if they let your cat in, they'll let other cats in as well, and small dogs, rats the size of cats, foxes too perhaps, who knows. All in all, a bad job. In my opinion, of course. I suppose its fortunate that this blog is about my opinion ;o)

 One thing there can’t be any argument about however is that cat flaps aren't designed for, or to be used by, humans - not by normal sized ones anyway.

 Oh yes, that's why they're being written about in this blog. I knew there was a reason.


 First of all there was Jason Evans, of Eastleigh, Hampshire. Poor Jason managed to spend six hours stuck in one after using it in an attempt to get into his house. He was eventually cut free by firemen.

 The indignity of that was bad enough, but that was nothing to what happened in Germany, where apparently they have them too.

 "In retrospect, I admit it was unwise to try to gain access to my house via the cat flap," Gunther Burpus admitted to reporters in Bremen, Germany. "I suppose that the reason they're called cat flaps rather than human flaps is because they're too small for people, and perhaps I should have realised that."

 Intellectually challenged Mr Burpus had been trying to use the cat flap because he had mislaid his keys. He got stuck, as someone a bit smarter than Mr Burpus would have realized beforehand, and remained wedged there for two days because passers by thought he was a piece of installation art. What??

 Unfortunately for Mr Burpus – or maybe I should have said, more unfortunately, because he was already stuck in a cat flap for goodness sake - he was spotted by a group of student pranksters who removed his trousers and pants, painted his bottom bright blue, stuck a daffodil between his buttocks and erected a sign saying 'Germany Resurgent, An Essay In Street Art. Please give generously'.

 "I kept calling for help," he said, "but people just said "Very good"! Very clever! and threw coins at me." Passers-by just assumed Mr Burpus' screams were part of the act.

 "In fact I only got free after two days,” he said later, "because a dog started licking my private parts and an old woman complained to the police."

 He went on, “They came and cut me out, but arrested me as soon as I was freed. Luckily they've now dropped the charges, and I collected over DM3,000 in my underpants, so the time wasn't entirely wasted.”



 Post script:

 I actually don't know if the Burpus story is true or not, but it did appear in several newspapers and in Private Eye magazine in Britain. Some people say it is, some that it isn't but might be based on a true incident. In any case it doesn't matter. It's a good story and it made me laugh. I hope you enjoyed it too. 


Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.