Wasta is what you need to get ahead in the Middle East. It can best be translated as connections or influence.

Yesterday as Rupert and I were walking to lunch a tiny black and white kitten literally threw itself in my path and started miaowing at me.  I picked it up and it started purring loudly. It was tiny enough to hold in one hand. I looked at Rupert but he already knew what was coming.

“Fine,” he said, handing me the car keys. “You take it home, I am going to lunch.”

I took the little thing back home and installed it on the top floor of the house. Now instead of living under a truck it has four rooms, a lovely red carpet it uses as a loo and a terrace as well as three children who love it to bits. Picking on me was the cat equivalent of getting some wasta. Hence the name we have given it until the vet tells me what sex it is.

I am thinking of adopting a similar approach when I next see a passing Sheikh; hurling myself in his path and miaowing. I may end up in a palace somewhere, who knows? Anyway, we need something as our tenant in France has decided to leave after just one month.

So any ideas on potential tenants and/or names for lucky kittens would be appreciated. I am thinking Wilfred (after the explorer and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger) if it is a boy.

Or maybe we will just stick to wasta, at least then we will have some…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008