Cats--even toms, I suspect--are cute when girly, meaning always preening, posing, delicate and dainty and entitled. They pretend to be disinterested in your attention but complain if they don't get it and get annoyed with you if it's not precisely the variety of attention they were in the mood for at the moment.

I like cats, adore their grace and athleticism, and play along good-naturedly with their insistence that pedestals were created just for them. Even my daughter's cat Sir Francis Bacon (don't ask me why that's her name), the aging fluffball and former holder of the world's most beautiful kitten title, who once bit my hand when I came to feed her when Diana was away.

But I prefer the company of dogs and womanly humans.