Saturday 8 May 2010

Cat Pap - Great Wall of China

This post represents some form of redemption for me and my painstaking incompetence in the 'taking care of your belongings' field, for this cat pap cost me about $700, and until yesterday I had nothing to show for it.

We got out the car at the Great Wall entrance and immediately went to investigate the souvenir tat up for grabs, as in China this regularly brings much hilarity - (it did, as my friend found some trainers called 'Fuque's' which had a badly rendered, fake Nike swoosh on).


Sitting outside the nearest stall was this unchristianly dirty animal who was enjoying the early Spring sunshine on a very worn blanket.

He almost immediately jumped down as soon as I showed interest and started running around my feet bleating furiously. You can just about make out the Great Wall in the background if you look closely.


The old lady below is the stall owner and presumed benefactor of the filthy feline.

Below you will see a fat tourist getting in on the action, however our protagonist was deceptively fervent in his leg rubbing, and only a seasoned professional Cat Papper like you and I ever really had any chance of capturing him successfully. (Note the grubby beast is already through the legs and going for a second lap, as the inept sightseer is still fumbling with the aperture priority - Schoolboy)


This little drama however illustrates the reason for the great loss of money during said pappage. In my frenzied removal of camera from bag I must have ripped my wallet out at the same time, which in turn must have landed behind me as I snapped away. I had only the day before withdrawn a large amount of money in which to pay for kit, not to mention the 3 or so other surplus currencies I had in the back compartment plus all my business receipts I was intending to claim back on expenses. Also 2 bank cards, driving licence and the best drug dealers business card ever to appear on earth (that story on a different blog).
To make matters much much worse, and as we were descending the mountain later on via a small bob-sledge like roller-coaster (believe it)... I realised that my £10 Ebay SD card was playing up again, and then I became aware of the fact that all that loss was for nothing, as none of the FUCKING PHOTOS were on the card anymore.

My despair was absolute.

The good news:

Well two days ago I was advising Pegs who's on a shoot in Sao Paulo, after one of her shooters pulled a 10/10 retard move and formatted the card from the days filming... with a card retrieval software, (which I can't recommend enough BTW. Click HERE and email me for serial number)... When it hit me like a diamond bullet straight through my forehead.. why hadn't I given it a try myself?

Well I did and here are the happy results.

As for the wallet.. well who cares, right, it's only money and I sincerely hope it was found by a Chinese Migrant worker who fed his family for a month.

Now that I have my Cat Pics back I can leave the event behind me and move on to brighter days..

Which, incase you are wondering is to be a scene report exclusive to Cat Party on Japanese Cat Culture. I feel extremely humbled by what these guys are doing here, that's all I'll say for now.

Keep it furry!


4 comments:

  1. this rules

    the bit about the "inept sightseer" especially made me laugh

    pro cat pappin' ain't easy

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  2. excellent story! glad there was a bit of a happy ending

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  3. Great cat and story.

    Good use of 'benefactor' too.

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  4. Oh no :( Maybe you were hustled by the cat. He looks like he could be a hardened criminal, especially in that second photo <3
    Also, did you mean to make it look like a tiny lady was riding the cat in the last picture? Cause it really does. x

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