DEDICATION All right, all right. Time to come clean. Despite the fact that this book clearly states that cats should have short names you don't mind yelling to the neighbourhood at midnight, The Unadulterated Cat is dedicated to: Oedipuss They don't come much realer.

Far too many people these days have grown used to boring, mass-produced cats, which may bounce with health and nourishing vitamins but aren't a patch on the good old cats you used to get. The Campaign for Real Cats wants to change all that by helping people recognise Real Cats when they see them. Hence this book.

The Campaign for Real Cats is against fizzy keg cats.

All right, How can I recognise a Real cat?

Simple. Nature has done a lot of the work for you. Many Real cats are instantly recognisable. For example, all cats with faces that look as though they had been put in a vice and hit repeatedly by a hammer with a sock round it are Real cats. Cats with ears that look as though they have been trimmed with pinking shears are Real cats. Almost every non-pedigree unneutered tom is not only Real, but as it hangs around the house it gets Realer and Realer until one of you is left in absolutely no doubt as to its Realness.

Fluffy cats are not necessarily unReal, but if they persist in putting on expressions of affronted dignity for the camera while advertising anything with the word “purr-fect” in the associated copy they are definitely bringing their Realness into question.

Ah. So cats in adverts aren't Real?

Actually being in adverts doesn't make a cat unReal—it can't help it if someone plonks it down in some weird pyramid made of carpet and takes pictures of it peeping anxiously out of the hole—but its demeanour once there counts for a lot.

For example, if you put an unReal cat down in front of a row of bowls of catfood it will obediently choose the one made by the sponsors of the ad even if all the others haven't got sump oil on them.