MOST journalists think they have at least one book in them. I suppose it's inevitable that when you spend half your life writing bits about people's pets winning the dog with the waggiest tail prize and who entered the biggest marrow in the village vegetable show that you think that maybe you could aspire to bigger and better things - and not one of them a marrow.

Don't get me wrong, I think local reporting is a valuable asset and well worth doing. It's just that a lot of us aspire to greater things, and anyway everyone who knows you write for a living inevitably ends up saying 'I don't know why you don't write a best seller'.

Resisting the urge to grab them by the collar and shout 'if it was that easy everyone would do it' you say you would like to but don't have the time, thus intimating that if you really put your mind to it Jeffery Archer would have to watch his step, but you're too busy growing runner beans and decorating the bathroom.

I was mulling over this the other day while sitting in the garden enjoying a cup of tea, and thinking how nice it was that I didn't have to wear a souwester and wellies to do so. The gazebo, by the way, has fallen victim to British summer weather and is lying accusingly on its back like a giant insect, it's little white metal legs sticking up and its green top all awry. It just wasn't up to those little Cornish breezes.

But back to a book. Fiction, I fear, is not my forte. Perhaps I could write a best seller on something I enjoy doing. Cooking is a possibility but sadly most of today's cook books are written by television personalities who tend to either prance around clowning and joking and cook the same thing over and over again or fall around slightly inebriated and cook the same thing over and over again. No, I don't mean Delia, heaven forbid. I did once actually start a cookery book about garlic.Actually it started off as a book about garlic and onions but I soon realised that onions were not likely to shoot up the charts and changed to the history of garlic plus recipes. I seem to remember I juggled with titles such as 'Garlic, not to be sniffed at' until I finally accepted that while I could come up with a fair few garlic recipes, none of them new, the pudding section was going to be fairly sparse. This, incidentally, was well before I visited a place in America called Gilroy, the garlic capital of the USA where they sell garlic ice cream and garlic wine and no, I didn't try either.

Then there's gardening. Again television has taken over the gardening market, and I couldn't possibly compete with Alan Titchmarch's wit and wisdom nor Charlie's chest (not these days anyway, there was a time . . . . )

Just as I was musing through these thoughts one of the cats jumped on the garden table, delicately trod into the middle of a newly sown seed tray, jumped out and knocked my tea over. It was the grey one.

You may be interested to know that whereas we spent hours thinking up names for the two new kittens, before finally settling on Oscar and Jefferson, they are still universally known as the Grey One and the Ginger One. As in 'That b..... Ginger One has just eaten half a pound of bacon', or ' Do you realise the Grey One chewed through the iron flex this morning (true)'.

Now I could write a book about cats. I could write a book longer than War and Peace about cats. But there are hundreds of books about cats. Some nice, some not so nice. Included in the latter category are books called' '101 things to do with a dead cat' a book I know about because a dear friend, hearing my cat was ill, bought me it to cheer me up. Unfortunately she didn't realise the cat had died and was mortified beyond belief when I told her.

What I am toying with is writing a book aimed at people who should never ever own a cat. Not people who are cruel to animals, that goes without saying. No, people whose personality doesn't suit the special needs of a cat.

For instance. Are you a person who is a control freak? If the answer is yes, get a dog. Cats don't take kindly to anyone telling them what to do. In fact you can tell them what to do until you are blue in the face but they will merely sneer slightly. Buy them a very expensive basket lined with swansdown, put them in it and they will hop out of it as if it were on fire. Henceforth they will sleep on a dirty old sack in the garage and for ever after will skirt round the basket and never so much as place one paw in it.

Do you suffer from an inferiority complex? Yes? Then forget a cat. A cat can snub the most sensitive person in the most insensitive way. You can own a cat who never so much as sets paw pad on your knee, yet will sit on any old tramp in the park. You can tell people your cat is so nervous it never comes anywhere near human beings, even you, and two seconds after a double glazing salesman gets his foot in the door the cat is draped round his neck purring. If you're prone to feeling nobody loves you, don't get a cat who can dole out cruel and unusual punishment just because you bought him the wrong food.

Do you own precious objects you couldn't bear to get broken? Don't invite a moggie into your home if the answer is yes. Cats rarely break things, but they pretend they are going to, which is worse. Cats will step delicately amongst the Dresden pieces on your mantleshelf, hesitating just a little as they brush past, flicking a tail here and a whisker there. You won't be able to cope. They know just how much to shake a little table so that your precious bits of porcelain tremble on the brink, so you'll spend your whole time diving hither and thither.

Have you a delicate stomach? Obviously if you have you won't bring a pussy indoors. Even the most well bred cat will indulge in the blood and guts game and you will open the kitchen door one morning and wonder what that little object on the floor which looks like a tiny pair of kidneys is - and find out it is. And that isn't even counting the small rodents which will be proudly born to your bedside at 4am in the morning still breathing, but only just.

Are you slightly allergic to cat hair? You may think you can get away with a slight allergy by not getting too close to a cat. Cats can spot an allergy sufferer a mile away and before you can say 'bless me' will be marching up your chest and rubbing themselves affectionately all over your face. And you'll be fairly lucky if it's with their front end.

Do you have social pretensions? Then forget a cat, and a dog for that matter. All cats can spot an embarrassing situation in the making, and even the cleanest cat in the world can suddenly decide to pee in the fireplace during a nice little afternoon tea party (I speak from experience here). Or be noisily sick on the Axminster just as your are spooning out the souffle. A bit of a show stopper this.

I could go on. Most of us cat people suffer any or all of the above. It's our job.

All kinds of people are cat people, sometimes people you would never expect.

My favourite memory is when I ran a pub and was running the bar alone one early evening. In came a large man who was a forerunner of a skinhead. Tattoos, shaven head, an attitude on legs who had already sampled one or two of the locals prior to stumbling through my door. There were four of us in the bar and not a muscle between us, so I was understandably nervous.

The man ordered a pint of mild and a packet of pork scratchings and sat down and tore the pork scratchings open, a feat in itself and proof that here was no wimp. To my horror I noticed our white and grey cat slither off a bar chair, the cat who loved pork scratchings more than anything else.

Before I could stop her she flitted across the room under the tables, jumped on an adjoining chair and neatly hooked her claws into the bag and pulled out a large piece of pork scratchings.

All four of us held our breaths, checking the exits and I decided it was going to be landlady first out the door, customers second. To our surprise the man roared with laughter, called her a little b...... and bought three more packets of pork scratchings which he fed her with for the next hour while telling us all about his own cat which was partial to Indian food especially poppadoms.

You never can tell.