19 MARCH 1994, Page 36

Levels

Perhaps because they're dead, I can declare I loved my cats — and feel it to be proved.

I say I love my parents, and I care, but filial love — which seems a stage removed from absolute because, as Shaw remarked, we never know a thing about them, so, a duty, booted in a car I've parked long-term in love's vast multistorey. Go to other levels : there is car on car whose windscreen says 'Heart notified', but are they all abandoned? Who could ever know?

Tight turning circles — easier by far to keep to three prime spaces marked with `Cat'.

I loved them all. They're dead. I think it's that.

Andrew Gibbons