The thing is, you see, that your average Real cat becomes attached not to human beings but to routines and territory. It's fashionable to agonise about wives or husbands giving up happy careers to follow the spouse across country, but no one thinks twice about the fact that the family cat may have spent years breaking in dozens of sleeping nests, working out best prowling routes, pouncing places, etc.

The human beings around the scene are merely things provided by Nature for, eg, opening fridges and tins. The cat becomes quite attached to them, of course. You can become quite attached to a pair of slippers, for that matter. But it is much easier to become attached to new blobs than new sleeping areas. In short, the Campaign for Real Cats believes that when you move house the kindest thing you can do to the cat is leave it behind, where it will grieve for .003 seconds before sucking up shamefully to the new owners.

As for you, as a catless catlover you will find that a stray turns up outside your new door within days. We think some sort of agency sends them.

The Real cat and other animals

Remember. From the cat's instinctive point of view, the animal world consists of:

1) things that eat it

2) things it can eat

3) things it can eat but regret immediately;

and

4) other cats.

But we then expect it to be perfectly at ease when faced with:

a) Meals On Treadwheels

b) meals in cages (the Flying McNuggets)

c) mad quivering meals in hutches, which in the worst cases may be forced to join our Real cat, plus two dolls and a teddy bear, for a back-lawn tea, party consisting of water and crumbled biscuits

d) feathery meals which are actually encouraged to come onto the back lawn for breadcrumbs