...or so claim my sister Pat, a border-line Crazy Cat Lady, and my BFF Shirley. I wanted authoritative ammunition to refute this, so I found some research done by Rosalind Arden at the London School of Economics. She says that cat cognition is understudied, mainly because if a cat doesn't want to be studied, it ain't gonna happen.

"It's easier to study fish," claims Rosalind. "We tried food snacks which work well on dogs. Cats are likely to say, 'No thank you, I might consider it if there were a side of organic double cream with it. Maybe. But only if I'm in the mood.' "

She goes on remind us that cats and dogs evolved to fill very different ecological niches, making their intelligences unique. "There is no question that cats are startlingly intelligent, but they must be compared to other cats, not other species."

I'm not sure if this helps or hurts Pat and Shirley's contention. Further research is needed.

Unlike cats, it's pretty easy to judge the intelligence of our fellow bridge players. If they agree with us, they are brilliant. Disagree? Not so much. Let's see how these questions go.