WHY I LIKE CATS

does not leap at your midriff, sniffing, snorting, slobbering, snarling and pawing at your legs. It remains asleep in a chair.

Third, cats are discreet about crapping ­ normally burying it, where circumstances allow. They don’t crap all over the streets, parks and beaches and are not allowed in bars and restaurants. They also take great pains to keep they don’t stink.

Fourth, cats are independent. They find their own form of exercise and don’t require daily walks in the rain, the snow or blazing heat. They don’t require a licence of ownership or a tag, and a driver who hits a cat on the road and kills it is not required to report the fact.

Fifth, and most important, cats never kill babies or children. Obviously, big cats are another matter, but we are concerned with the domesticated species. There is therefore no danger in the free movement of cats among us. Unless you are a mouse, a small rat or the occasional bird.

In fact, most of these attributes apply to cows, pigs, and pelicans. In very different ways, horses and pigeons fail on the street­crapping issue but are generally as harmless as cats. And they don’t bark.

In a similar way, I like people who don’t cackle loudly when they are drunk, interviewers who don’t interrupt their guests and footballers who don’t wrestle and pull shirts. I like the simple things that we should take for granted, like plenty of legroom in aircraft, fastmoving arrival checks at airports and guaranteed seating on trains. And the civilised things in life like welcoming service in restaurants and bars, a gesture of thanks when opening a door for somebody, and letting a driver through from a side road.

There are a lot of good things around us, but in the end it is all relative and certainly subjective.

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