Theo is a Kleptomaniac - Official

It's there in black and white.

BBC News - Ipswich cat burglar Theo's 2014 haul revealed

My brother had one like that, who stole all manner of things including packets of crisps from the corner shop. My brother was frequently requested to make recompence to the owner. He also took items of clothing and had quite a collection of brushes. I gather it is not unusual for some cats to do this, although I have never heard a satisfactory reason as to why.

I see that Theo is part-Siamese.

I wonder....

One of the brief but enduring family mysteries of my childhood was the Case of The Peeled Bananas and Scattered Sprouts.

Scene of crime: Early "Frigidaire" fridge located in the kitchen of a small end-of-terrace house in the Colne Valley.

Crime: Fridge door open, skins of peeled bananas and the paper bag in which the in-tact ones had been stored lying on the lino floor. No sign of their edible parts, however. Similarly, at around the same time, a bag of sprouts found its way out of the fridge and onto the lino, sprouts that clearly had been part of a kitchen-wide Footie game and, in a few cases, had been chewed.

Major domestic investigation followed, with everyone being blamed.

Except Marnie, our female Siamese cat.

We staked the kitchen out one night - me remaining in the walk-in larder after Ma had put the light out and retreated to the living-room.

I didn't have to wait long. In came Marnie, leapt at the large chromium lever on the fridge door, her weight pulling it down, her momentum causing the door to swing open with her still attached and the fridge light to come on.

Clever cat.

lambert1 said:

. He also took items of clothing and had quite a collection of brushes.

Click to expand...

What sort of brushes does a cat use?

He had a hair brush and several paint brushes Peter. Not sure what the attraction was though.

Did he bat for the wrong side?

That is an interesting concept. I don't remember him coming out or anything, but then................

Nah, just an ever-sartorially elegant Prince of Darkness in the style of a past black cat of mine, Lucifer (with a pure-white sister, Beezle [Beelzebub]).

Lucifer (Lucy to his strictly hetero friends) sired kittens on farms as far as at the very least a mile away, only breaking off from his RentaStud duties to slaughter wild rabbits wholesale and dump them (seven adults and kits one afternoon) on my farmhouse kitchen doorstep (great eating), chew the tail off a 9-pound bass I had caught and brought home, and still find time to routinely rip the faces of my two Dobermans and Welsh Collie and chase off any foxes entering the farmyard. In short, a live hard and fast-die young Errol Flynn of the Cat World.

Doubtless sharing the same attributes as those allegedly held by Mr Flynn

But unlike "our Errol", laid-back good company at all times and in any situation. Imagine a Christmas when my girl and I had all the domestic livestock "in" and in front of the log fire in our living room: two goats, a grown-up orphaned lamb ("Lamb Chop"), three dogs and seven cats. Lucy went to sleep on top of a very woolly Lamb Chop and didn't once to try to Jump(h)er.

Years ago my dog was chasing a cat and a squirrel down our long pub car park , the cat's tail flicking in and out of his snapping jaws.

The cat and squirrel ran up a fence , paused momentarilly panting , then , saw each other and , with a visible jolt , recognised each other as enemies , the squirrel went up a tree and the cat legged it along the fence , just as my Dog had taken a run up and nearly reached both.

I stood there thinking that was just like a cartoon.