Some while back now I heard about a T-shirt at large on the streets that showed ... you know, that cartoon cat "owned" by a boy called Jon.

The trouble is I can't think of its name.

We've a little book somewhere called Life And Lasagne - if my memory serves me right.

My wife, Lynne, described some of the cartoons to me once, like she does ones in the papers sometimes, if she thinks they'll appeal to my cat-daft streak.

Anyway it rather seems I'm going to have to institute a bit of a pause here, until either Lynne's available to furnish me with the creature's name or it just creeps up on me.

But why should I be surprised at this turn of events?

For a start, as family circumstances mean I can no longer "own" a cat, my attempts so far to enter into conversation with neighbourhood moggies, when I'm called out by Lynne because one has come to a halt on the cats' freeway which is our northern boundary wall, have, I'm sad to say, hardly yet been felicitous.

So why shouldn't the name of even some pictorial puss remain equally aloof...? Typical Cat.

But you should never show a cat it's got the better of you. So here goes again...

Some while back now, I heard about a T-shirt that showed a famous cartoon cat looking heavenward - or maybe only skyward and enquiring: "Why Me?"

It occurred to me though that if I, being totally blind, were to wear such a T-shirt as like as not people would only misinterpret it as a statement of bitterness.

They expect I find great solace and compensation in religion - some people do.

And then, when I explain I'm not a believer: "Well, there's no need to get bitter about it!" they react. Could there be no other reason why I'm not religious...! You see my difficulty...?

But why is it always my stuff that goes wrong? Why is such a quantity of post - both to and from me - just never heard of again after posting?

Why does money due to me so often go missing for what seems like aeons?

Why, after I've applied for a place on a course are the conditions of the course suddenly changed, no longer fitting my requirements?

Why, after great stretches of "resting" do short-notice acting jobs crop up just two days before Lynne and I have booked to go on holiday - two years' running?

And more. And yet more ... it feels like exasperation on exasperation at times.

Who else would this happen to, I ask, at some new instance of just seeming perversity. How I empathise with that cat - just like everyone who actually wore the T-shirt, I presume. Why me?

Why Them!

But Not, "Why (blind) me?"

I wonder what anyone would think if I were to sport a similar shirt reading: "Why Not Me?"

(Note to final draft: "Garfield".)