Recently I learned about cats starting fires. Cat arsonists leap up onto kitchen counter tops and walk across the glass hob with touch buttons to turn the hob on. A chip pan fire then ensues.

Because of the rise in fires cause by cat arsonists, the British fire services now carry oxygen masks for cats. Since there is a reasonable chance that a house fire is caused by a cat arsonist, it only makes sense to take the cat-sized oxygen mask. They don't want the culprits deceased if they are to interrogate them.

There are two grains of truth in the above tall tale, the fire service do carry oxygen masks for cats and cats do start fires from walking on hob buttons. Put together it sounds ludicrously credible, verging on urban myth.

I now need to work on 'penguin arsonists' to combine with the fact that there is an Antarctic fire service.