Phenomenal Cat

Staying with my friends Matt and Helen up in Primrose gives me chance to re-acquaint myself with a former cat of ours, named Ridley. When he's not biting and clawing people for no reason whatsoever, Ridley shares a passion with his brother Logan for catching and eviscerating, as messily as possible, animals smaller than himself. Tell the truth, I think Ridley's working up to the day when he'll start disembowelling all of us.

For the time being though, Matt has a wallchart comparing the different kills of Ridley and Logan. There's an elaborate point-scoring system at work, whereby one point is awarded for eliminating insects, two points for baby rodents or bird-chicks, three points for fully-grown rodents or birds, four points for large birds, five points for dogs and boars, and seventeen points for rhinos. At the moment Logan's leading 10-7, but I'm acutely aware, looking at Ridley's blank psychopathic expression, that human deaths have not yet been designated with a points reward.

It's only a matter of time, though.