I was leaving a restaurant this lunchtime, when a grey cat slipped in the door.

The owner scooted over from doing his genial rounds of the table and scooped up the hapless moggy, depositing him safely but unceremoniously on the street outside.

“‘E’s always doing that,” he chuckled in our direction, “‘e tries to slip in for a bottle of wine.”

We grinned vaguely but noncommittally, and moved away.

“You know,” mumbled the owner, thoughtfully, “I believe ‘e used to belong to John Major…”

If that was a joke, I didn’t get it. If it was true, I don’t know what to think.

On a totally unrelated note, I was watching TV this evening when I saw an advert that claimed to deal with “rebellious hair”.

Excuse me? Did I miss something? How does that work? Rebellious hair?

I have a mental image of follicles capable of wearing too much makeup, staying out past bedtime, hanging out with the wrong sort of hairbobbles, taking up smoking, listening to shouty music with the bedroom door closed and being surly to their mother.

Teenage hair. As if this planet didn’t have enough to deal with already.