Mr Magic e-mailed me this morning with something up his sleeve: proof that Chloe, my little Persian ball of fluff has had a rough time on her annual summer holiday in Cornwall.



According to the front page of The Daily Telegraph, this photo depicts "Chloe, a 17 year old Persian" being "rescued by a fireman yesterday after being found amid the devastation in Boscastle". Speaking as someone who's no stranger to sticking his cat in the shower with a bottle of kitten shampoo, I'd recognise that bedraggled face anywhere (and the look which says "Come near me with that hairdryer and you die"). I hadn't realised she'd popped down to Cornwall, but she never tells me what she's doing, and there's hardly likely to be two people in Britain insipid enough to call their Persian cat 'Chloe'.

I expect she was trying to escape the Suffolk weather, which, when it's not bombarding us with thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening), is chucking meteorites at us.

Apparently a 76 year old great-grandmother named Pauline Aguss (who presumably shops at a well known catalogue store) has been "struck by a meteorite while hanging out washing" in Lowestoft. Which is why they invented tumble-dryers - so elderly people can stay indoors and avoid the large rocks falling from the sky.

Interestingly, Mrs Aguss "blamed a peg bag" (as you do), before realising a full day later that "a linen peg bag couldn't have caused a cut like that". It's this kind of quality deduction which is keeping Miss Marple off our TV screens.

Apparently the BBC consulted a Fagg from Norfolk, who took a break from his day job as a male secretary to confirm that Pauline is one in a billion. Though he didn't say what he thinks of her husband.

According to the Telegraph, "the last known victim of a meteorite was a dog in Egypt, killed when it was struck on the head". You have to laugh don't you. Although reports that the dog's name was 'Lucky', are unconfirmed.