Call me precious if you like, but I have never been a big fan of animals sharing the bed with their owners.

Don’t get me wrong, I think dogs and cats are wonderful things, but as far as I’m concerned they have their place in the world and it certainly isn’t curled up on my pillow.

I love it as much as the next bloke when a cute little cat rubs against my legs or snuggles up next to me on the lounge.

But that’s as far as it goes. As soon as they start trying the same thing on my bed I start thinking how nice they would look on the kitchen bench – stuffed and mounted.

And now, after years of being unjustly seen as a cranky, pet-hating old man, I have finally been vindicated by the latest quirky bit of news coming out of the US.

It seems there’s a nursing home in Rhode Island that boasts a resident cat which can predict when a patient is going to pass away.

I kid you not!

This over-fed ball of fur has an even more superior attitude than most of its fellow felines because every time it curls up next to someone they usually pass away within four hours.

Talk about a kiss of death!

Can you imagine the mayhem that animal could cause.

Cats are stuck-up enough at the best of times but how unbearable would it be when one of them realises it has the power of life and death.

I can see the snooty bloody thing strolling down the corridors deciding who should live and who should die, based on nothing more than who slipped it some extra cream.

And how about the potential for arguments between patients and their nearest and dearest?

“For God’s sake Mabel, the bloody cat’s jumped on my bed - get it off!

“I said, get the bloody cat off my ...

“Mabel, what are you doing?

“Stop forcing the cat onto my bed!

“No, it doesn’t want to curl up next to me!

“Why are you tying it to my leg?

“Are you trying to tell me something, Mabel?

“Is that anchovies I can smell on your breath?

“Can I hear harp music?

“Are you still there Mabel?

“Mabel?”

Oh come on, lighten up.

We’re all going to die some time so what’s the world coming to if you can’t have a bit of a laugh about the old Grim Reaper.

I don’t mind poking fun at him. I just never thought he’d be a little bloke with fur and whiskers.

Apparently the cat’s name is Oscar, which is a bit disappointing because under the circumstances I would have thought it would be something a bit more imposing like Thor or Beelzebub or something similar would have been more appropriate.

It seems he is so accurate that as soon as he settles on a patient’s bed, nursing home staff call in the family.

“I’m sorry Mrs Smith but the cat’s just sat on your mum’s bed.

“You had better come in and say goodbye.

“I know she was doing aerobics after her 5km run this morning but the cat’s never wrong.”

And can’t you see the goings-on as people try to cheat death by slipping sardine heads into their neighbour’s bed?

A nursïng home official declared Oscar to be “aloof” and in a frontrunner for the quote of the year said: “This is not a cat that’s friendly to people”.

Not friendly?

He points the bloody bone at them! How unfriendly can you get?

Of course, things could be worse.

When my lovely wife first heard about Oscar on the radio she didn’t quite hear it properly when the newsreader decribed him as a “feline”.

“That’s bizarre,” she said.

“You’d think they’d all die of fright anyway, wouldn’t you?”

I couldn’t stand the suspense of wondering what she was talking about, so I asked her.

“A sea lion!” she said, as if I was a complete idiot.

“What the hell are they doing allowing a sea lion onto their beds in the first place?

“That can’t be a good thing.”

And she’s right.

They shouldn’t allow sea lions into nursing homes.

Or felines, if they’re going to go around killing people.