Monster Mog

So after many years of scrimping and saving, and an ace-high straight over three-of-a-kind (thank you Lady Fate), I finally have sufficient spare cash to acquire a monster mog of my very own ...

We had a Maine Coon in our student house in the early '80s (back when dinosaurs had recently left the planet) ... he just wandered in off the street one day ... red tabby with feet like pontoons and a tail that swept the picture rail ... ate everything in sight and required us to padlock the fridge ... and if you have never seen a cat work through a left-over vindaloo with a look of grim determination on his face ("I have started and I will FINISH ...") then you do not know what entertainment is ...

Big Red, as he was titled by all (well, except a housemate from Burnley who took great delight in discovering he could use the term 'Coon' legitimately ... he's now a leading light of UKIP ...), was typical of the breed in being completely atypical as a feline ...

... so much so that when the landlord popped round on one of his surprise visits (aka inspection ... "Stand by your beds you 'orrible little man! Is that an approved use of a vacuum cleaner ?") to find a large ginger moggy occupying the majority of the sofa, eating half a doner kebab from the take-out tinfoil and watching Top-of-the-Pops (a social reference which appears more and more bizarre by the day, and by the latest media revelation), and hollered "Is that a CAT?" ( there being a "No Pets" clause in the lease) ... we felt justified in replying "No..." ... and that seem to prompt such an existentialistic crisis that the matter was pursued no further ...

Big Red joined you in the bath, drank from the sink, could open any container (it was only the fact that the electric can opener had lost a final battle with a can of FB corned beef that prevented him from tackling the range of Heinz tinned staples...)