Come on make up your mind! This lack of identity is making me insecure.

Meet Spike.  The pressure got too much. Every time I got home from work the family would crowd round and ask if I had picked a name for the cat yet, only to slump back in disappointment when I had to admit that, no I had not made up my mind yet.

Let’s be honest, Barry was never in the running, and Foxy had been ruled out already, along with Dylan.

One thing I wanted to avoid was an obviously cute and kitten-ish name because he may well be a cute kitten now but that won’t last forever and he could grow up to be a great big muscle bound bastard of a cat.  That really ruled out names that are too clever or fey or generally polysyllabic.  I didn’t want him to grow up and have him take me to court for having a naff name.

I really did like the name Horse, but it has been done before, and the real Horse is such a legend it would be too much for any other cat to live up to.  Ozzy had a lot going for it, but Spike was sort of what I thought of first and it seems applicable to an inquisitive kitten but also appropriate to the vicious wildlife killer he is likely to become.

Jayne thinks I am a big softie as far as Spike is concerned, and of course she is right – but I am like that with kittens generally.  I have a couple of weeks off work and I will probably spend half the time playing with the cat if the past week is anything to go by.  So don’t expect to come here for insightful political commentary, philosophical explorations or anything like that – because a) I don’t do that anyway and b) even if I did, I will be too busy frolicking for the forseeable future.

“But what about the poll?” I can hear the cry go out. “A typical piece of New Labour arrogance to have a poll and then ignore the result – I suppose you are going to trot out the old line about it only being a consultation and not a binding referendum!”    As if I would…   no, it was a proper poll but this not a one-man-one-vote election: its an electoral college.  The entire Internet readership voted for either Ozzy or Horse so that’s one vote for them.  The other half of the electoral college (i.e. me) voted for Spike.  As there was no clear-cut winner I had the casting vote. See – it all makes perfect sense now.  Maybe if I get another pet one day I will implement a full poll with single transferable votes, but I can’t see the family being patient enough to wait for all that!

Anyway, now that Spike is Spike I keep thinking of other names I might have considered. “Spitfire” would have been cool.  Wish I had thought of that earlier. Or “Squonk”, or “Rojo” (pronounced “Rock-Oh” obviously).  Hmmm…  I wonder if it is too late to change: Rojo has a nice ring to it. Short for Diablo Rojo.