My daughter is an avid player of Minecraft on our XBox – avidly searching for easter eggs, new and interesting generation seeds and finding new ways to express designs along the way. She’s been eagerly waiting for the arrival of cats within Minecraft, and was delighted when we got home this afternoon to find that the new update (well, new to us, she hasn’t been round in a while) has allowed her to generate them in creative mode – or at least to generate ocelots, that she then tames.

As each cat is tamed, it turns into a different breed of cat – with identical ones being able to breed. My living room is now resounding to the sound of miaowing, and the screen is rapidly filling with what looks like a mix of persian, ginger and black and white cats and kittens.

Great effort now seems to be being expended to create a rambling mansion in the middle of a forest to contain and entertain these silicon kitties. Bookcases, furniture, light and decorations are all being deployed in a tower of stone and glass to rival the wildest architectural dream home – but then that is one of the strengths of Minecraft: to allow the expression of design and experimentation. I did think though that the normal route was to have a home first, before developing a mania for kittens…