Another thing that annoys me, apart from cats, is when Mr or Mrs Lambert introduces me to someone with the words: “Don’t be frightened of him; he’s just a big softie.” How patronising! We dogs don’t go round attacking any strangers we come across –well, most of us don’t. But you humans seem to presume otherwise, since you introduced the “Dangerous Dogs Act” whenever it was. Why not a “Dangerous Cats Act”? I bet the cumulative effect of the pain caused by millions of scratching cats is far greater than that caused by the unfortunate actions of one or two dogs. Mind you, I may be harmless to humans, but to cats I’m lethal. Put one in the same room as me and watch me turn it into mincemeat!

Anyhow, enough of cats; I’ve given them far too much space already, even if I have been slagging them off.* What about the other creatures of this region?

The most obvious thing about the wildlife here, and elsewhere, is the efforts you humans have made to kill it off. Sorry to start on such a despondent note, but it’s true. Don’t assume this problem concerns only Amazonian rainforest, or African savannah, or any other far-off location. The decline in the numbers of some species in Britain has been phenomenal. The population of greater horseshoe bats in Gatshire has dropped by no less than ninety per cent in the last hundred years. That of lesser spotted woodpeckers has plummeted by seventy per cent in the last twenty-five. Red squirrels have disappeared altogether. This is nothing short of a holocaust. The younger ones of you may never have seen many animals once common to these isles. Ask your grandparents, or other senior citizens, about it; request them to whistle all the bird songs they know, and see how many you recognise. Half of you probably can’t even pronounce the word “plover” correctly. All this isn’t your fault, by and large. But it is your generation that must rectify the situation. It’s no good saying to your parents’ generation: “You messed things up, so it’s your job to put things right”. It’s even doubtful whether this would be for the best; it’s not necessarily a good thing if the bumbler who knocked the crystal vase over is the one to glue it back together.