Is it me, or is it a bit warm today? I feel like I'm going through the menopause. I'm also slightly distracted because another World Cup match has just kicked off, and Angola seem to have 'The Happy Wanderer' as their national anthem. Seriously. I've just been joining in on the val-der-ees. I suppose it's quite an appropriate football song if you live in Bolton or Wolverhampton, but with the number of landmines they've got over there, surely the last thing an Angolan ought to be doing is wandering.

Anyhoo, I've shaved my cat again today. Unlike myself and Homer Simpson, she can't take off her clothes and sit on the sofa in her pants (she prefers to lounge about naked), so with the current weather giving us both hot flushes, I felt it was only fair to give her a haircut and take her into the shower for a shampoo and set. And besides, if I'm going to get fur everywhere, I'd rather do it here than in a freshly carpeted Brighton flat.

The interesting thing though, is that attacking her with the clippers for the second time in six weeks appears to have brought out her natural blueness. When I salvaged her from Colchester Cat Rescue almost five years ago, they told me she was a Persian Blue - an intriguing statement given her all-over grubby cream complexion. I would have investigated further, but frankly I was more interested in Fatty Oscar, and only agreed to take Chloe as a free gift, on the grounds that she loved Oscar more than I did.

Now however, I'm beginning to believe what they said. Much like Lisa, my cat's hair colour seems to be getting mysteriously darker with every trip to the hairdresser. She used to look like a snowball, now she looks more like a Smurf.