I’ve got tickets for Cats tonight.

Obviously I’m not going. Not because I loathe Lloyd Webber musicals. Nor because I have anything against Nicole Scherzinger or a bad memory of the ghastly Elaine Page singing a song with that title. It’s not Cats that I despise, it’s cats. Horrible, sly, vicious creatures – the very sight of one gives me the creeps. So a show featuring people dressed up as cats would give me nightmares for weeks. My wife and daughter are going instead and they’re delighted. Tickets are like gold dust, apparently, and they’re welcome to them. If Les Gray were still around, I’d rather go and see Mud. At least none of them, as far as I know, has ever deliberately tortured a poor defenceless mouse.