Dom Joly: Kate Bush may like hamsters, but I believe the world is the poorer for it

I loved the whole Babushka, Heathcliff, Peter Gabriel hugging thing she had. She's wasting her life down here

If that is what you'd imagined, then you'd, of course, be completely correct. I've got a pukka set-up, as Jamie Oliver might say in his finest Mockney. Actually that's mean. I used to hate him but, like the rest of the country, I have to admire what he's been getting up to lately. Until I saw his School Dinners programme I had never asked my little Parker what she had for lunch at school. Imagine my horror when I finally did and she started to go on about things that I didn't know existed, let alone were eaten. What the hell is broccoli? What on earth is a kumquat? No wonder she won't eat the chip butties when it's my turn to cook. Anyway, I went straight in and made a fuss. They didn't even have Turkey Twizzlers, for Christ's sake. I'm digressing again, sorry.

So my study window has this great view and I often leave it open so that the monkeys can get some air. It helps them to write better. One of them was grunting on about minimum wage and trade unions and all that bollocks the other day so I had to string him up like a badger for the day (pour encourager les autres). Haven't heard a grunt (is it a grunt? How do you describe the ooooh-oooh sound?) out of any of them since then. Sorry, digression again.

When the window is open and I'm feet up, puffing away and setting the world to rights in my head, I can sometimes hear shouting from beyond the barn. It's always the same voice and I can never quite make out what she's saying. Unless Joe Pasquale's bought the farm next door (which wouldn't surprise me, the way this area's going. Since Anne Robinson announced she was leaving the floodgates have opened, they're all coming. Remember Bros? The two brothers have moved into the next village and are making a go of running an industrial abattoir. Best of luck to them, I say, but I feel a digression's ugly head rearing), it's definitely a woman. I can catch snatches: "...unt, ...cking ...anker ...osey bastar... kill..." There's definite anger there.

I thought that it might be Kate Bush, as she's just bought an enormous organic hamstery down the road. She's apparently obsessed with the little blighters and is trying to breed them for the hamster races in Dubai this Christmas. With Bros I don't really care that the music went belly up, but with Bush... well, it's a tragedy. I loved the whole Babushka, Heathcliff, Peter Gabriel hugging thing she had. I think she's wasting her life down here but who am I to tell her? Not my business, is it?

OK, I got the monkeys to write her one little letter about how the world didn't need more hamsters, it needed more high-pitched squeaky songs about literary figures and she should get off her hairy arse and get on with it before it's too late. I think one of the monkeys might have made the letter look more threatening than it should have done. When I said too late I meant before she gets too old, not that I was going to kill her or anything. The monkeys are restless. One of them seems to be becoming a leader. I catch them in huddles in the exercise yard. I really should turf the yard, but I digress...