JUST because you start your day by re-enacting a scene from Fawlty Towers, it doesn’t mean it will end badly.

We had already been woken up in the middle of the night by a kerfuffle in the hall, involving Alfie the cat, and from the top of the stairs I could see him chase something into the lounge.

My rather distressed wife was anxious to know what it was, but I told her to relax, because it was probably only a Siberian hamster.

In these situations it’s best to close all the upstairs doors, go to sleep and let a cat’s hunting instinct reach its sad but usually inevitable conclusion.

In the morning, however, my wife flatly refused to go downstairs, ordering me to investigate what monsters might still be lurking in the lounge.

She practically pushes me out of the door, before I can grab my dressing gown.

In the lounge, my first glance tells me the prey is still afoot, because Alfie is standing guard on a low table that provides the perfect hiding place for what I quickly confirm is a rat.

Of course, there is always some risk in kneeling on the floor in the company of things that can jump and bite, but because I have never seen the point of pyjamas, I am in even greater danger, wearing nothing but a look of peril as I find myself face-to-face with the poor rat.

However, Basil Fawlty may have reached for the rat poison, but not me. I like rats. In fact, I like rats a lot.

So I decide on a rescue mission that begins with removing Alfie from the lounge by shutting him in the hall.

He is scratching at the door, desperate to be in on the fun, and I daren’t open it again, so the rat is not the only one who is cornered.

It’s not so much Fawlty Towers, now, as The Krypton Factor, because I have none of the essential tools of a ratcatcher, only what I can improvise from whatever is in the only two rooms I have access to, which is the lounge and the kitchen.

I use saucepans to raise two sofas and the low table further off the ground, limiting the rat’s hiding places, and find a briefcase in a corner, which I open and use as a barrier.

Half an hour later I am still closing in on the rat, but he seems to have disappeared. Then I notice that - of all places - he has hopped inside the briefcase.

He sees me, too, but doesn’t move. Either he has simply thrown in the towel or - and this is not the first time I have seen this in a rat - he seems to sense that I am on his side, and has decided to co-operate.

Amazingly, he doesn’t move while I close the lid, and the hunt is over.

Now I can go upstairs, grab some clothes and liberate my new friend at the bottom of the garden.

But if I was feeling pleased with myself, it was nothing compared with how pleased my wife was to hear I had rid the house of what she considered a snouty faced menace.

She says I am her hero, and how will she ever thank me?

I tell her I will think of something.

We may live in an age when men have to admit that women are our equals, but never forget they are no match for us when it comes to things the cat drags in.

And if God had really meant us to be equal, He would never have given us rodents.