My mouse loves me

I have a new mouse for my computer. It has a little lozenge of a light on the top, inset into a silver-framed casing. At the softest of touches, the light, which is the shape of a just-formed 'oh' of surprise, blushes with surprise. Clasp it tighter and it positively glows bright red with excitement.

What possible need can there be for an emoting mouse that acts pleased to see me? Are we so deficient in everyday emotion that we need machines to give us a top up?

There's really no rhyme or reason to it. But it's strangely addictive, and I find myself stroking the mouse from time to time, just to see it react with apparent pleasure. "You're sad," says Beth, when she catches me at it.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps it would do us good for all our fixtures and fittings to show how much they care? A chair, say, that groans with pleasure when I sit down. A bed that gives me a hug. And a table that snorts with delight when I rub it down with a wet cloth after a particularly vicious meal.

After all, if we really are all going to hell in a handcart, we might just as well make the trip there a little bit more fun.

But here's the rub. I know full well that even if L'Escoffier comes back from the dead and designs a fully emoting cooker for me, all it will ever do is shriek with laughter if I so much as wave an onion in its direction.

Back to the drawing board. Even that, I reckon, has just started to snigger.