Bow your head Kid, close your eyes, clasp your hands as I say, "Oh Lord, we thank you for the great shows we are about to receive this week-Amen." With the sort of help you get Kid from Mr Coyle and the girlies, you need all the divine assistance you can get.

Outside the hovel I laughingly call my home, the wind was blowing, with its two cheeks puffed out like a bullfrog or Dizzy Gillespie. As the wind blew through the letter box, Tommy my cat and I rolled around the floor pretending to be tumble weeds. As I rolled towards the foot of our stairs, I smiled at Tommy as he rolled into the scullery. Suddenly, I rolled to a halt and yelled, "STOP!" "What is it?" said Tommy. "Have you run out of puff?" "Look at us!" I yelled, "Rolling about like two tumble weeds. We have no goal in life, we lack direction, we have no moral compass, we have no ambition. All we do is......"

"Rolling along, like the tumbling tumble weed," sang Tommy. "Exactly," I said. "What have we ever done to help our fellow man?" I yelled. "We gave blood," said Tommy, "But they said the bucket we brought it along in was dirty, even though I washed it out with Jeyes Fluid the night before." I got up, using my feet, which were dangling at the bottom of my ankles. I banged my head against the wall, hoping the wall would say "OUCH!" before I did. I paced the floor, back and forward, back and forward. I cracked a walnut between my knees, furrowed my brow and planted some early potatoes, stuck out my hips and walked like Max Wall. I wriggled like a snake, waddled like a duck, but even I refused to do the Hucklebuck.

"TOMMY!" I yelled, "I've got it!" Tommy clasped a mask over his feline face and cried, "Unclean, Unclean, keep away! I don't want your old pig flu." I put Tommy right, by jabbing my left fist into his gub and bringing my knee up into his groin. Tommy went down like a sack of brussel sprouts. I helped Tommy to his feet with a riser and said. "We must help the under privileged, let's go to UTV LIVE and help the poor unfortunates who have to work there." When we got there...well, it would take tears from a stone. Poor Lynda Byrons was on her way out to sell matches. Logie was curled up in the foetal position in a corner, with his thumb in his mouth and a look of inexpressible fear and horror in his big Tyrone eyes. A ragged figure gibbering and jabbering like the ancient mariner, turned out to be poor Frank Mitchell. Paul Clarke was locked in a press yelling, "And then Nelson Mandela said to me." Tommy and I looked at each other in horror, "We got here too late," whispered Tommy. "They are beyond help." "Poor wretches," I murmered, "Poor pathetic-wretches." "Let's run over to BBC Newsline1" yelled Tommy. "We may be in time to help them." I put one foot forward to run, then I ordered it back and said, "NO, I refuse to help Noel Thompson over stiles in the Mournes. I will NOT wash Mark Carruther's red socks and as for Donna Trainor, she can fix the slow puncture on the back wheel of her bicycle herself. Let's run home, jump into the washing machine, put in on fast spin and pretend to be Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on their way to the moon." Which we did. It was one small step for man, but a giant leap for a cat.

All this and more have I seen in the sally gardens, where even Lily, Rose, Iris and Daisy are called--Sally! Sign of the times I suppose, but I don't like it, like the late Brian Clough used to sing, "There may be trouble ahead!".