The first cat to approach the cave survived, in fact, on sheer surprise value. It was the first animal the man had ever seen that wasn't either running away or bounding towards him and dribbling. It liked him.

And the reason it felt this way was that the cat already knew that humans liked cats.

Here was a household in the country.

Households in the country attract cats. It's one of the fundamental wossnames of Nature. See the point? We know that Real cats can wander at will through time and space, and this cat was probably en route between feeding bowls before it took a wrong turning.

After all, what's the alternative? That Early Man had nothing better to do with his spare time than look at a wild cat and spot that this horizontal-headed, yellow-eyed, spitting menace was just the thing the cave needed? No, our theories demand that it went the other way, that wild cats are domestic cats that went feral thousands of years ago, probably because they were upset about something, possibly the continued non-invention of the fridge.

Cats make ideal time travellers because they can't handle guns. This makes the major drawback of time travel—that you might accidentally shoot your own grandfather—very unlikely. Of course, you might try to become your own grandfather, but having watched a family of farm cats, we can tell you that this is perfectly normal behaviour for a cat.

Sex

Well…

…of course, it all depends how Real the cat is, ifyouseewhatimean…

Er…

You see, if you have a gentleman cat and a lady cat who…

The point is…

In short, pedigree cats breed, Real cats mate. Breeding is best left to professionals. Mating, on the other hand, is done by cats.