After a TV programme on the horrors of nuclear war, a woman rang the BBC to ask whether fallout shelters could be fitted with cat-flaps. It is the kind of item that gets into This England (it did) as an example of our native dottiness. It could equally well have gone into The Bookseller as an indicator of the potential audience for cat books, which hog the shelves in even more profusion than royal wedding books.

When in doubt, the founder of my publishers, the late Michael Joseph, would always publish a cat book. Dog books he was more wary of, and rightly so. Cat lovers love all cats. Dog lovers are divisible by breed. I shall be surprised if Catwatching does not easily outsell its