Larry (cat) | Hacker News Reader

Larry (cat)

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350 pointsdcminter74 comments

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See also previous Chief Mousers to the Cabinet Office, going back approx 100 years:

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

I like how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Of... has a timeline and highlights if the Chief Mouser was under a Conservative or Labour government.

Of course, as a civil servant, the Chief Mouser is expected to implement government policy impartially.

> 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"

Reassuring to see none of them were intentionally killed and only Peter II passed due to an accident.

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...

> 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]

Aww :)

The "rival" cat at the Foreign & Commonwealth house down the street also has his own wiki lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_(cat)

A know a person at the FCDO who had to routinely write letters in correspondance to those who'd sought Palmerston's advice on various matters. A hilarious internship.

You should check the See Also section on the following article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Of...

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’.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/history/10-downing-street#larr...

Putting the "Larry with Boris Johnson in 2019" photo under the heading of "Relationships with other animals" is hilarious, intentional or not.

Boris the animal?

It's just Boris!

Rather cutely, "Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office" is an official title, dating back to the 16th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Of...

> the first one to be given the official title of chief mouser by the British government was Larry in 2011

That's the difference between the cabinet office and No 10.

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)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnypWoeopNg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_(cat)

Trying to get a pigeon. It escaped.

Yep, he got it pretty good but clipped claws probably saved the bird. Or he was doing it for sport.

Palmerston does look like a boss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmerston_(cat)#/media/File:F...

Brave cat going after a fox!! My money would be on the fox but Larry does more than hold his own.

Wild foxes often fear the cats because they have more pointy ends. There are no guarantees of course.

Interesting, must be a regional thing since my grandparents had several cats eaten/chased by foxes over the years.

In typical fashion, Canada had a similar, though more feral, version of this at our Parliament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Hill_cat_colony

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjqrddnldgo The state is no longer capable of keeping a cat as a mouser!

"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.

In the victorian era the attitude would have been that it was "just a cat" and if it got killed they'd just get another one.

We're a little more humane nowadays. Towards animals (cute ones) at least.

> ... 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.

If you're in the UK you know exactly who this is without having to click the link

I was hoping that I wasn't getting my news from HN for a moment there.

I wonder which bridge it will be

> 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.

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.

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".

Norway has a penguin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Olav

I suppose Larry's something of a mascot⁰, but I think the roles differ a little.

⁰ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_mascot

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.

Wikipedia used to have a "List of pet cats of gorillas" article. Sadly it doesn't seem to have survived.

> Larry has lived at 10 Downing Street during the premierships of six prime ministers

Six! The troublesome times this cat has witnessed from close by...

And a predecessor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_(chief_mouser)

Served under: Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, and Clement Attlee

> 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.

The cats officially guarding St Petersburg Hermitage Palace

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

Some other UK cat history, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-66665613

This just seems so quintessentially British, it made me smile. I bet Larry has seen some things in his time.

The Wikipedia article is obviously in error. It’s clear to me that the government serves Larry and at his convenience.

You are correct. As anyone who has lived with a cat knows, you do not own the cat, the cat owns you.

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.

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.

Pratchett, characterising cats, said: "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods. They have not forgotten this."

That would certainly be an improvement over the monarchy.

Oh, I thought they meant Larry: https://i.imgur.com/9Wqcy70.png

18 years old is getting up there for a cat! He should start training an apprentice.

His twitter account is well known for its cat-like snark.

honestly one of the worst accounts on twitter.

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.

From the article:

> Ahead of the 2024 general election, an 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%).

and this is for a lazy old cat who hasn't actually done his job in years, if ever.

Not to forget, Embassy Cat, Julian Assange's cat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michi_(cat)

I was once invited to an event at Downing Street, pitched beside the Ada Lovelace portrait, contributed to a roundtable with Grant Schapps, but it’s stroking Larry that I remember most fondly.

Another cat (formerly) in UK politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catmando

From stray cat to Chief Mouser - nice career.

Is there really such a mice problem at Downing street that people catch mice during dinner?

British politicians are notorious sloppy eaters, lots of crumbs to be had.

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).

Probably not too far off though.

There's a mouse problem in the whole city. But then there's a mouse/rat problem in more or less any city of similar population density.

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.

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

A good reminder that culture can be beautiful.

A bunch of sociopaths routinely engaged in regime change and what not around the world looked at the polls one day and said sh*t.

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.

Why is this on HN?

Oh right because it's "interesting".

The UK is extremely good at selling it's image around the world.

When the truth is anything but.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dirty-money-laundering...

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.

That's ~120 second of life spent reading minutiae (plus 15 sec writing this). And wasting random reader's time at scale. This is uniquely British.

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