The alternative, of course, is hunting. The theory is that a well-fed cat is better at hunting than a hungry one. The reasoning is that a plump and full cat will be more content to lie in wait for the things that need guile and patience to catch—dragonflies, frogs, robins, that sort of thing—while a hungry one will merely dash about the place filling up on ordinary rats and mice. It's not certain who first advanced this view, but it's an evens bet that they probably had fur and whiskers. Real cats don't hunt for food, but because they love you. And, because they love you, they realise that for some reason you have neglected to include in your house all those little personal touches that make it a home, and do their best to provide them. Headless shrews are always popular. For that extra splash of colour, you can't beat miniature sets of innards. For best effect such items should be left somewhere where they won't be found for some days, and can have a chance to develop a personality of their own.

We had friends in an isolated cottage who had one cat, a big fat boot-faced thing, which'd never turn a paw to hunting despite the hordes of rats that besieged the property on every side. So they got another one, a sleek white young female who strode off into the long grass every day with a purposeful air. But, strangely, never came back with anything. Even odder, the resident huge cat began to hunt and turned up every day with something resembling a draught excluder in its mouth, or was found sitting proudly beside a miniature rodent Somme on the doorstep. Aha, they thought, spurred on by competition he's finally got cracking. What they eventually found out, as any Real cat owner would suspect, was that he was waylaying the female as she approached the house and glaring at her until she dropped the booty, then picking it up and carrying it the rest of the way. When it came to delegation, that was a cat who got someone else to write the book.