Outnumbering dogs by roughly three to one worldwide, cats have been the world's most popular pet for a long time, but right now, in particular, they seem to be enjoying a golden era — possibly their most golden since the days of ancient Egypt, 3,000 years ago, when they were worshipped as gods. Even the most cat-indifferent social networker, with the most finely tuned Facebook or Twitter feed, will be hard-pushed to get through a day without seeing at least one cat meme, and one of the biggest-selling books of the last couple of years concerns a street cat who was rescued by a down-on-his-luck busker. We've never treated our cats more like children — the skin-crawling term "fur babies" being one of the slightly troubling by-products of this — and some of the food we now give them is so carefully nutritionally balanced and packaged that you half expect it to come with its own packet of pre-grated Parmesan and croutons.
But with cats' greater presence in our lives has come the inevitable backlash. The Crazy Cat Lady barely existed in our collective psyche 20 years ago, but now is a figure mocked daily on the Internet (often by herself): supposedly a lonely spinster who has given up on men and lives instead with several cats, often in a personally neglectful manner. The worst portrayals of her hark back worryingly to the misogynistic persecution of supposed witches and their "familiars" in our distant past. Cats themselves are in the midst of a difficult transition from resident hunters to cuddly pals, and many of the wildlife lobby are up in arms about the damage they do to birdlife. Gareth Morgan, a New Zealand economist, recently mounted a campaign to confine or eradicate outdoor cats in his country.