Is it not enough that I must pass every morning by Pericles, hunched like a hen, hatching further malevolence? Must I also be made to avoid the other frightful cat hanging from the upstairs bannister, stretching down in an effort to scratch my salty pate? This is my morning ritual as I make a dash for my club to medicate my shattered nerves with an early martini after a breakfast fraught with indigestion.