There's a cat festival in Belgium called Kattenstoet

There's a cat festival in Belgium called Kattenstoet

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The fact of the day, day day, day day. Yeah,
do do do do do do do do do do
do do do do doo doo.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
This week's back to the day famous cat celebrations, And
I thought i'd leave this in your capable hands because
you guys like cats. We love cats, cat people, cat people.
Cats smell so.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Good at the moment, smell just like, yeah, clean cat.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I've got a great smelling cat. Your cat never goes outside.
It never goes outside. It just always smells delicious.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
And cleans them something.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Cleans himself. What if you share ice cream with your dog?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
I do you do with the dog?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
The dog having human food? It's a skun. Ever, I
wouldn't do that. We're can cat festivals this week, and
I hope you struggle to find more examples of cat festivals.
Oh my god, there's a link in my email with
a few different cat festivals. Okay, but then from Coachella
but for cats. Well, it's also so you could find
cat cellar if you wanted to. I don't think cats

(01:14):
would enjoy music festivals. It would be too loud, unless
all of a sudden they're like wow and then scattered,
unless like the headline it was jelly neat turn jelly me.
So today's cat festival is Cotton Stood, the festival of
the Cats in Belgium. Cotton Stood, Okay, it's devoted to
the cat. Been running regularly. It happened this year May twelfth,

(01:37):
but won't be happy again until May and twenty twenty seven.
A lot of festivals are doing that. A lot of
festivals are pulling back from being annual to less regular.
There's a parade and a giant cat gets marched through.
Each time there's a new giant cat. I'll just load
up this picture of this giant cat. His children is
dressed as cats and giant two stories tall. Yeah, a

(01:57):
giant cat float gets dragged through and they celebrate the
cats of the town. The background of this cat festival
is that it marches through town. One story is that
it's connected to witchcraft and the killing of the evil spirits,
and so basically the cats were throwing were thrown out

(02:20):
of a bell tower and to the town square below
to kill them.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
That's terrible, but they always land on their feet.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
On their feet, but yeah, you can land on your
feet from a huge height and just do yourself a
reversible damage. So they thought that they were associated because cats.
Of course, black cats are associated with witchcraft. And another
story suggests the celebration of the cats and the throwing
of them from the belltower, because that's an undisputed fact
cats were thrown from the bell tower, is that before
they could make these buildings rodent proof over winter, they'd

(02:48):
let cats live in there. So the cats would parade
around these storage areas of the hall where they stored
grains and such and town reserves to eat the rats. Yeah,
and then there was wool in there as well, and
so the cats would go and keep the rats out
of the wall because the rats would go in there
to be warm and also be fed. And then then
when springtime came, they're like, what are we do with

(03:10):
all these cats? We can't afford to feed these cats.
No the bell towers. So obviously they feel bad about
it now, oh dear, So they started that, they started
in the celebration of the cats.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
They will be like little cat outfits and stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, they proyed through town.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, that'll be fun.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Kind of drawing attention to it, to the fact that
they were throwing cats out of the bell tower. Yeah,
but why didn't they just take the cats somewhere and
bring them back in winter. Where would you take them
on some vacation? It's rich with rats. Catalonia. Yeah, hello,
great name for.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
It, cats stellar Rizo too flesh, too flesh, Catalonia I've
heard of. What about Catgonia Caategonias if you if that's
a Patagonia, play that South America.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's are into hiking, Hayley.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
What about Catland instead of Thailand? That's really good, but
it's not even close. You could go there on a canna.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
You could take them to Puris.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
From Belgium say yeah, you take them to Puris, beautiful
gay Pariss.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes, so today's facts. There is a cat celebration that
happens in Belgium where they celebrate cats because they used
to throw them out of a clock tower