The cats continue to be mainly impossibly cute, whilst very occasionally lapsing into being sinister and evil. Smithers was sat on the snooker table staring at me this evening in a very cold and considered way. It was like he was not only enjoying the fact that he was disrupting my self-playing snooker tournaments (the cats are currently living in the Shepherd's Bush Dodecahedron and thus I can't really play the game - though it might be interesting to try), but also like he was waiting until I nodded off to sleep at which point he would rip open my throat and make a nest in my oesophagus. Are cats really collaborators in the war between humans and animals or actually sleeper agents, waiting for the coded message to destroy their foolish, trusting overlords.

But mainly cute. Smithers is obsessed with my feet, especially when I have my shoes off and tries to chase them every time I walk anywhere. He also follows me to the toilet and then mews pathetically outside if I lock him out though tries to get involved if I let him in. I have seen how these cats respond to a toy fish on the end of a wire and so I don't really want to see how what they might do if they catch sight of my impressive dangling worm. I foolishly let Smithers in tonight when I was doing sitting down business and he jumped up on to my lap, digging his claws into my bare skin. A cute accident or a warning of what is to come?

My wife was out this evening, leaving me to cope on my own. Both cats had been pretty sleepy most of the day but at about 9pm they woke up and became very animated. Lion-o is about half the size of Smithers but evenso she seemed to be putting the fear of God into her brother who was running and hiding from her. She idly chased him and they wrestled a bit and the little one came off best. It is easy to forget that we have invited tiny lions into our house (even though they look like lions and one of them is called Lion-o). Later when my wife came home the cats were well behaved and hugged each other on the sofa. I tried to explain that they'd been less friendly earlier but it was hard to make her believe that. The first step in their plan to overthrow us is to make us question each other's sanity. Lion-o looks tiny and cute, but she is the evil mastermind behind all this. She is the cat Hitler. And of course the cat Hitler wouldn't look like Hitler - it'd send out lots of other cats that did to try and distract attention.

Still she had been cutely licking my fingers earlier as she snuggled on the sofa. So even the cat Hitler isn't all bad.

Oh sorry, looks like all the blogs from now on are about the cats. In fact in a month or so they will start telling me what to write. I for one welcome our cat overlords.

Don't forget the Talking Cock tour starts in about a month and runs on through to June. The dates are all here. Ticket sales are ticking along OK and the gigs in Fareham, Shrewsbury, Salford, Leeds and Reading are very close to selling out, so book now. As long as the tours sell well I can carry on doing all the free stuff and I don't have a massive budget for publicity, so I would appreciate it if you could spread the word about these gigs to like-minded idiots. As always I try to get to as many towns as possible on a tour and if I am not coming to your town it's either because your theatre didn't book me or because we couldn't find a suitable date.

[ Email this edition of Warming Up to a friend ]