I FIRST REALIZED that my governance over affairs at Chez Webb was not all it might be when I found myself lifting our 6 1/2-pound kitten over my head to help him grab and gobble down flies, moths and other such wildlife lurking around the cottage ceiling.

We are dealing here with Angel Gabriel, possibly the most misnamed creature on the planet. Because of him, Chard Cottage is nearly pest-free, our old tortoiseshell cat Ali Magraw is suffering from Sucked Paw Syndrome, and Julie London will never sound the same.

Now it is an established fact that I loathe and detest children, whose predilection for tearing wings off flies, dismembering spiders and in general raining torment on lesser critters renders them among the most dangerous of all the Almighty's inventions.

But compared to a kitten, the average rugrat is St. Francis of Assisi. A tiny feline is also among the most powerful of creatures, capable as it is of bringing an entire household under one wee paw in about 8.6 minutes.

In fact, it took far less time than that for Angel Gabriel, an unwanted little ball of fur who arrived on our doorstep (actually in a cardboard box driven 71 miles and 700 meows from London by my wife Elizabeth) at the age of six weeks.

He wasn't always Angel Gabriel. He actually started out as Albert Rodney Webb, until he caught cat flu and our vet, a lady named Fiona, allowed after an examination that he was a she. So Albert Rodney became Molly Melinda.

Which lasted for about four days, until we took her for a post-flu checkup, Fiona decided that she, in fact, was a he after all. Allowing for the possibility of yet another sex-change edict by the vet, we renamed her Angel Gabriel - Angel covering both sexes, Gabriel to become Gabrielle, should events warrant.

They won't. Angel Gabriel is now the proud possessor of equipment that looks like a miniaturized version of the drilling mechanism on a North Sea oilrig. Plus, a pair of what Elizabeth delicately terms "cherry tomatoes."

He gets snipped next week.

Angel Gabriel is still just over five months old, but he already weighs 6 1/2 pounds and shows no signs of letting up. "He'll become a right porker," warns Elizabeth as she shoves another bowlful of cat food/hamburger/prawns/buttered toast/green beans/sausage/fried fish/guacamole under his sizeable nose.

Despite his size, he's still very much a kitten in attitude and desires, the latter including the mother who died when he and his two siblings were only a few days old. Angel has latched onto Ali Magraw.

Now Ali is about 17 years old, a loveable but crotchety old gal whose life is devoted to sleeping indoors on anything that stays still for more than four minutes and outdoors in the grass, preferably when it hasn't been mowed for two weeks and she can bury her nose in the greenery.

As mothers and sons go, Ali and Angel are an unlikely combination - she because she's never had kittens, he because memories of his own mother have developed flaws and he's not quite sure which part of Ali is for nursing.

So he has settled for her left front paw.

A few weeks ago, I awoke to the radio playing what sounded like a weird rendition of a song by Julie London: "So you (schlurp! schlurp!) can cry (schlurp! schlurp) me a (schlurp! schlurp!) river (schlurp! schlurp!), I cried (schlurp! schlurp!) a river (schlurp! schlurp!) over you (schlurp! schlurp!) ... "

I was a bit confused and dazed, never having heard this particular version of "Cry Me a River" before - and I rather hoped, never again.

Then I realized - the schlurping sound effects were Angel Gabriel, sucking away on Ali Magraw's left front paw, in almost perfect time with the music.

As I say, Julie London will never again be quite the same.

As for Angel, he doesn't stop with food bowls or even front paws. About a month ago, he suddenly woke up to the fact that cottages in the country come well supplied with food on the hoof, or wing, in the form of spiders and bugs and airborne insects.

When he spots one, common sense is replaced by berserk. One evening, Elizabeth and I were enjoying a sandwich snack dinner in front of the TV when Angel - positioned yards away, in the adjacent garden room - espied a fly crawling up the living room window.

Angel launched himself like some black and tan, furry torpedo, and tore across the room and through our repast, sending sausage rolls and coleslaw and salmon blinis flying like edible shrapnel, his paws slipping on egg mayonnaise sandwiches and overturned guacamole as he leaped onto the window ledge and nabbed his fly.

At least he had the good grace to remove himself and his victim to the hallway for purposes of devourment. My wife and I cleaned up the bomb scene, and as we listened to the sounds of little fly bones or gristle or whatever it is they have crunching, we realized we weren't all that hungry anyway.

In the days since, Angel Gabriel seems to have rid the cottage of all wildlife to an altitude of about four feet off the floor. Three or four days ago, I spotted him surveying the ceiling, making little throaty noises as he laid eyes on a particularly juicy-looking specimen, a flying thing with long legs and known hereabouts as a daddy longlegs.

I will never know precisely what whim of the devil possessed me, but I bent down and lifted Angel Gabriel, one hand supporting his butt, the other his chest, and I raised him to within three inches of the ceiling - and he grabbed the daddy longlegs with both front paws and stuffed it in his mouth.

Angel scrambled to get down, and with various insect legs hanging akimbo from both sides of his face, he dashed into the hallway for his protein fix.

And life of an evening has gone on much the same ever since. So if you're ever passing by Chard Cottage and you see some idiot lifting his cat ceilingward as in some offering to the gods, you'll know the truth. It's time to feed the kitten.

Thought for the Day: Sex on television can't hurt you, unless you fall off.

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