We walked along the shady beech-lined alley near our home on the way to the shops. As we turned onto the High Street we were hit by the full force of the noonday heat; or the shortly-before-eleven o’clock heat, if you want to be strictly accurate.

‘Hot out in the sun, isn’t it?’ said Shana.

‘Millions of degrees,’ I replied, offering Shana a degree of accuracy that was probably not required. ‘In fact,’ I continued, ‘it’s so hot that, to be perfectly honest, it makes the distinction between Fahrenheit and Celsius somewhat academic.’

The Co-op, however, was not nearly so hot when it came to the availablility of bargain basement short-dated fruit. Nary a brown banana in sight; not even a moderately mottled one. (This despite specific requests to bemused members of staff, one of whom looked at me, then at Shana, and said–and my spelling here is intended to reflect their pronunciation, rather than my inability to use a spechlecker–’His odd requests don’t worry me. I’m immoon to him.’)

In the end, I settled on a pack of half-price mandarins with interesting light green patches on them. Well, you gotta push the boat out once in a while, don’t you?

When you become a pet owner (as we recently have) you start thinking of things that previously might never have occurred to you in a thousand years. The price of pet food, for instance. Or the serious health risks of clumping cat litter.

And then there’s dander.

Dander is basically just loose fur and ‘undercoat’, but if you don’t deal with it promptly it’ll end up all over your best cushions and your house will eventually look like an explosion in a cotton wool warehouse. Oh, and before you get started about how humans are superior to animals (as if!) may I just remind you that the words ‘dander’ and ‘dandruff’ are, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same. So next time you scratch your head and find little white flakes snowing on the shoulders of your black jacket (cardigan, dresss, t-shirt, whatever) remember, you’re not so much better than our cat.

(There, that told ‘em, Smoky!)

If only all that soft and silky dander could be spun into thread (and I’m sure it’s possible if you have the skills) you could use dander yarn to make not just scarves and bedspreads but entire garments. It could start a whole new fashion trend.

A cat will usually try to remove dander itself, using its naturally rough tongue; cats are, after all, very hygienic creatures. Trouble is, if they ingest too much fur, it can form a hairball, which must then be regurgitated: a messy business for all concerned!

Tigers, being simply big versions of your domestic moggy, presumably suffer from all the same problems. I did wonder whether tigers’ stripy coats might mean they produced stripy hairballs. A niche collector’s market there, perhaps, if one could only overcome the dangers of harvesting those tiger hairballs in the wild.

Back to dander though. By the way, I also wondered if any other animals have dander issues. Animals such as a certain black-and-white conservationists’ icon from China. ‘Panda dander’ does have a bit of a ring to it, I thought. Although it’s still not something I’d want all over the living room sofa.

Dander will soon be a thing of the past in our house. We bought a serious-looking piece of kit called a FurBeater deshedding tool from PetPlanet. It has a sturdy grip and four top-quality blades of assorted sizes. Well worth the money, we reckon (and no, they’re not paying us to say that: we mean it).

Look out for pics of us modelling our new range of dander partywear in the run-up to Christmas. (I’ll wish I hadn’t said that last bit won’t I Shana?)