Mogwai!

OK, I'm busted. My secret is out. Froog is a complete slushbucket when it comes to animals. 

Especially cats. Especially kittens. Especially teeny-tiny, plaintive, helpless abandoned kittens.

One such turned up outside 'the bar' - 12 Square Metres - on Monday night. I rather fear we're becoming known as a haunt of 'soft touches' for this kind of thing, encouraging people to come and abandon their unwanted pets on our doorstep. At least two stray dogs have found new homes through our little community of soft-hearted drinkers in this past year or so.

Alas, this particular little bundle of fur doesn't quite have the cuteness going for him (or her - kitten sexing is not one of my strong points) that most of the feline race do. He was sat on the stoop outside for a while, drawing crowds of onlookers, mostly young Chinese couples out promenading on the trendy drag of Nanluoguxiang. But, after one or two initial cooings, the onlookers were tending to back off, and point disparagingly. You might even call it pointing and jeering. At one stage, there were four twenty-something girls and one boy stood around the poor animal in a semi-circle - all pointing at it. I began to fear that the poor little critter was becoming agitated by this unfriendly attitude. It was clearly in need of a bit of loving. And indeed, I feared that a hovering gaggle of small children might soon escalate the pointing-and-jeering to taunting-and-torturing. So, I nipped outside to rescue the little fella.

And he is indeed somewhat cosmetically challenged. He is hairless on the outside of his outsize ears (though quite furry within!) and on his upper eyelids (I imagine some kind of congenital defect, since it seems unlikely that infection or malnutrition could produce such a highly localised effect in such a short time - the poor little tyke can't be more than 2 or 3 weeks old; and he is, apart from being painfully thin, in surprisingly good condition overall: well-adjusted, untraumatised, and extremely clean). He also has an uncommonly angular head, with a tiny, very pointy nose - somewhat ferret-like. No, he's not going to win any beauty competitions. But I still think he's very cute.

Naturally, we named him Gizmo.

And when he fell asleep on the bar with his head resting on my hand, my stony old heart was melting sure enough.

Unfortunately, I am ill fitted to adopting such an animal myself, since I am: a) broke; b) almost never at home; and c) severely allergic to cat hairs.

So, I rang around all my feline-fancier friends, and professional cat fosterer Ruby kindly stepped in to take him off my hands. She passed him on to another fosterer last night, and I tagged along to say goodbye. Quite heartbreaking. I hope the little guy finds a permanent home soon.