Sorry Mickey and Jerry, when it comes to mice, I'm on Tom's side – Susan Morrison

Mice have brilliant PR. They’ve conned us into thinking they’re cute, like that little mouse with clogs on who used to dance on the stairs.

The Tom and Jerry cartoon may have been good PR for mice, but Susan Morrison is not impressed (Picture: Angela Papuga/Getty Images)

It was in old Amsterdam, so there might have been drugs involved.

Our sentimental English friends adore Beatrix Potter’s Tailor Mice of Gloucester. They could bang out a gentleman’s silk waistcoat overnight. The tailor himself was thrilled, apparently, but it was obvious to me that the mice were going to undercut him and steal his business.

Our own Bard penned saccharine verse about a wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie, so even we’ve got form here.

On telly there was Tom, a decent cat, endlessly taunted by Jerry, a mouse so athletic he could race for hours through a house with the floorspace of Ocean Terminal, pausing only to terrorise a housemaid who had an endless supply of stools to leap onto. We never saw that poor woman’s face. Perhaps she was working cash-in-hand and didn’t want to be identified.

Disney’s Mickey conquered the world, and perhaps inspired by the might of the global rodent, mice are taking over our city.

They’re losing their fear, with fewer great stomping humans on city centre pavements to scare them. On the downside, there’s a lack of easy pickings from the bins of bars and restaurants. They need to find a new supply. This town’s rodents are getting bolder.

They’re making themselves at home in our homes, and a mouse in the house is no laughing matter. They never got the hang of toilet training and they don’t understand family planning. You start off with two naughty little mice and before you know it, you’re on a stool screaming “TAWWWMAAS” as a river of squeaky little Jerry look-a-likes swirls about the kitchen.

Friends and neighbours are calling in pest controllers. I thought of outsourcing my cat, but I have to be brutally honest, good living has taken its toll on her waistline. I would not describe her as “match fit”.

Mice are not cute. Be ruthless. If you see a little mouse there on the stair, get it pest-controlled.

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